From today's MS SLATE:
The NYT runs a startling editorial regretting its near silence in the face of shaky Bush administration claims about Iraqi WMDs. The edit board spanks itself for failing to thoroughly consider the weapons issue and those who maintained that the stockpile was not what the president claimed. Politicians who authorized the war and remain unapologetic are also targeted, with the Times concluding that their own anti-invasion arguments should have come "earlier and faster" and that they should have done more to stand up to the president. As Slate's Jack Shafer has noted, it's rare that news organizations issue such sweeping apologies, though the Times does so more often than others.
From yesterday's MS SLATE:
Cherry Picking
Season
By Eric
Umansky
Posted
Thursday, July 15, 2004, at 1:25 AM PT
...
The papers all at least tease a British inquiry's
conclusions that the U.K.'s intel on Iraq was bunk—"seriously flawed"—but that
the Blair government didn't purposely distort it. Those are the conclusions.
Meanwhile, the meat of the report details how Prime Minister Blair's office,
particularly in its public dossier, ignored analysts' caveats and qualifications
and, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "left out intelligence that wasn't
consistent with its case for tough action against Iraq."
A front-page
LAT piece says State Department analysts objected to many of the allegations
contained in drafts of Secretary Powell's U.N. speech on Iraq but some of the
assertions made it in anyway. As the Times puts it, analysts warned that Powell,
who was handed the draft speech by Vice President Cheney's office, "was being
put in the position of drawing the most sinister conclusions from satellite
images, communications intercepts and human intelligence reports that had
alternative, less-incriminating explanations." The outlines of this have been
known for a while. (Powell reportedly threw drafts in the air and screamed,
"This is bullshit!") But the Times adds details, particularly on concerns about
statements that made it into in the speech. Remember the satellite photo
purportedly showing chemical decontamination trucks? The analysts said Iraq's
explanation—that they were just water trucks—was "plausible." The Times notes
that details of the original assertions are still sketchy since Republicans on
the Senate committee blocked attempts to get the first
drafts.
The LAT's
apparent exclusive on Powell's speech is based on an appendix included in the
(long) Senate Intel Committee's report released last week. Did no other journos
bother to leaf to the back of the report?
....
A front-page
piece in the Post notices that the already small coalition contingent in Iraq is
shrinking, and it's not just the Philippines. While South Korea is adding
troops, at least four countries are on their way out, including the Netherlands
and New Zealand, with more likely to follow. "Sovereignty was always a point at
which countries look at how long they'll stay," said one pro-U.S. diplomat. "It
becomes a segue for pulling out."
Citing Iraqi
and U.S. officials, the Christian Science Monitor says cleric Moqtada Sadr's
militia is regrouping, apparently with Iranian help. "They are preparing for
something, gathering weapons; people are coming in buses from other parts of
Iraq," said the Iraqi security adviser for Najaf, Sadr's
stronghold.
A Post
editorial notices that while the Pentagon has launched numerous (albeit limited)
investigations into abuses of prisoners, there has been an "almost complete
absence of scrutiny of the CIA's activity." The lack of investigations comes
despite what the Post describes as the CIA's "illegal behavior": keeping some
prisoners off the books and incommunicado, occasionally torturing them, and
having at least two die while being interrogated. (A contractor has been charged
in one of those cases.) This could easily be a worthy news piece,
no?
Eric Umansky
writes "Today's Papers" for Slate.
