Abstract

NYT: 'Maybe We Did Screw Up a Little'

The author argues that a recent apology by the "New York Times" for inaccuracies in its reporting during the run-up to the Iraq war does not go far enough. On May 26 the "New York Times" finally hitched up its pants, took a deep breath and issued an editorial declaration of moderate regret for its role in boosting the case for war on Iraq. Given that the paper printed tens of thousands of words of willful balderdash from 2001 to 2003, the admission leaves something to be desired, but that's scarcely surprising. Nowhere in the editorial note of May 26 does the difficult name Judith Miller crop up. The modified May 26 climb-down is 1,100 words long. Here is no methodical review, such as the 7,200-word, unsparing scrutiny of Jayson Blair's insignificant fabrications. Given the fact that the "Times" helped launch a war, now shaping up to be a world-historical disaster, proportionality surely demands something the length of the "Times" stories on the selling of another war, the Pentagon Papers. This brings us to the now popular scapegoat for the fictions about WMDs, touted by "Times" editors, by other reporters and by US intelligence agencies. It was all the fault of the smooth-tongued Ahmad Chalabi, now fallen from grace and stigmatized as a cat's-paw of Iranian intelligence. But was there ever a moment when Chalabi's motives and the defectors he efficiently mass-produced should not have been questioned by experienced reporters, editors and intelligence analysts?