The Times and Iraq Bush

I see a great deal of confusion or amusement, and sometimes both, over yesterday's house editorial at the New York Times:

Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.

In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information. And where those articles included incomplete information or pointed in a wrong direction, they were later overtaken by more and stronger information. That is how news coverage normally unfolds.

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge....

A sample of the coverage, including the articles mentioned here, is online at nytimes.com/critique. Readers will also find there a detailed discussion written for The New York Review of Books last month by Michael Gordon, military affairs correspondent of The Times, about the aluminum tubes report. Responding to the review's critique of Iraq coverage, his statement could serve as a primer on the complexities of such intelligence reporting.

We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.

Why this? Why now? Well, we know this isn't soul searching. And we know it's not intellectual honesty. I mean, it's still the New York Times.

This is, if you'll pardon the expression, a pre-emptive strike. It's designed to provide a fig-leaf of cover when the Times willfully ignores and/or downplays upcoming evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in or out of Iraq.

Which leads me to wonder, Faithful Reader, if NYT's editors don't have some inside information........

[Follow-up: Big News — I Mean BIG News — on Saddam's WMD is Coming Down the Road.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/27/04 06:27:31 AM
Categorized as Media.