New York Times Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims

[marmar]

from Editor&Publisher:


'NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims

By Greg Mitchell

Published: February 10, 2007 10:30 PM ET Friday updated Saturday

NEW YORK Saturday’s New York Times features an article, posted at the top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the “deadliest weapon aimed at American troops” in Iraq. The author notes, “Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile.”

What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies.”

Sound pretty convincing? Well, almost all the sources in the story are unnamed. It also may be worth noting that the author is Michael R. Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

Gordon wrote with Miller the paper's most widely criticized -- even by the Times itself -- WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, “aluminum tubes” story that proved so influential, especially since the administration trumpeted it on TV talk shows.

When the Times eventually carried an editors’ note that admitted some of its Iraq coverage was wrong and/or overblown, it criticized two Miller-Gordon stories, and
noted that the Sept. 8, 2002, article on page one of the newspaper "gave the first detailed account of the aluminum tubes. The article cited unidentified senior administration officials who insisted that the dimensions, specifications and numbers of tubes sought showed that they were intended for a nuclear weapons program."

This, of course, proved bogus. .....(more)

The complete article is at: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003544369

[originalpckelly]

1. They go after the NYT because we read it.

As now, even MSNBC is getting in on the war spin. I think the Republicans timed this so that the Democrats would be part owners of this, and it wouldn't just be Republicans who vote for it.

[marmar]

2. That makes sense, since they know NYTimes readers tend to lean left...

So why not get the Times to sell their load of bollocks? :think:

[annabanana]

3. This fact CANNOT receive too much visibility!... . .k&r.... . . n/t

[Benhurst]

4. The reporter didn't get the Iraqi WMDs story wrong -- he got

the propaganda right and spread it, just as he is spreading propaganda against Iran, for the Bush Crime Family. Truth means nothing to The New York Times.

[brazos121200]

5. Like I'm going to believe ANYTHING these Neo-conned reporters

tell me. Like someone has said before; fool me once blame it on me, fool me twice can't get fooled again...... or something like that.

[Armstead]

6. He ought to be covering Traffic Court

Anyone who screwed the pooch in the Times during the Iraq coverage ought to have been eitehr demoted or fired.

Too bad that after their mea culpas, the Times continues to rely on the same gang of idiots.

[Kerry fan]

7. Isn't this the same Michael Gordon

who co authored "Cobra II" with General Bernard Trainor?

[Jacobin]

8. Matt Taibi had a great article on how dumbfuck columnists

who were wrong about IraqNam are prospering and making money, whereas the few who called it right are languishing and no one wants to hire them since its just a bit too embarrassing for the propaganda machine