NY Times Admits it Lied to Help Bush

[DanS]

So why did the Administration use the Niger uranium report in the SotU address again?

Slipped through the cracks. The administration said that it shouldn't have been in the address.

And my point is that this is inexcusable in a situation wherein we are heading to war over such information and those making this consensus are charged with deciding the fates of men.

Inexusable? I don't know how else you propose they make their decisions.

The Washington Post and NYT et al. aren't intelligence agencies, and unless you're declaring that they should be as good at information-gathering and verification as the CIA.

They used much the same sources and methods. Indeed, EST's critique of the press could easily apply to intelligence agencies as well.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DanS
Slipped through the cracks. The administration said that it shouldn't have been in the address.

Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Inexusable? I don't know how else you propose they make their decisions.

Um, how about NOT relying on the kind of sources they were relying on, such as Chalabi et al? How about doing a lot more strident investigation and, oh, listening to folks like Blix?

They used much the same sources and methods. Indeed, EST's critique of the press could easily apply to intelligence agencies as well.

That's precisely the problem! The press doesn't have near the intelligence-gathering resources as the CIA has. The fact is that this intelligence failure is forgivable for a newspaper because it's a newspaper. It's not so forgivable for an intelligence agency because it's an intelligence agency.

[GePap]

Compared to most papers in the country, the NYTimes is excellent-specially in its coverage of international news and culture, arts, science, so forth. A few papers are in the same league (WSJ, WaPo), most are not on the same level at all. This is if only due to resources, since the Time's is rich enough to afford its own international coverage and so forth.

The NYTimes is till more believable than most press sources in this country (all of whom reported the same stories about WMD's as aggressively as the Times)-in New York most certainly, given the quality of the two mass circulated tabloids.

[Tripledoc]

From the NYT article.

"On Oct. 26 and Nov. 8, 2001, for example, Page 1 articles cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced. These accounts have never been independently verified."

Actually this information was also used by ex-director of the CIA mr. Woolsey when he was acting as expert witness in the case Smith vs The Islamic Sultanate of Afghanistan.

The camp mentioned is the Salman Pak training camp.

According to National Review
"Woolsey said on March 3. President Clinton's CIA chief from 1993 to 1995 added: "Even if one cannot show that...any of the individual 19 hijackers were trained at Salman Pak, the nature of the training and the circumstances suggest, to my mind, at least, some kind of common aiding, abetting, assistance, cooperation — whatever word you might want to take."

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock040303.asp

Palintiff Smith won the initial trial, but in a subsequent trial Smith vs. Secreteray of treasury John Snow, in which frozen Iraqi assets were demanded as recompensation for Smiths and other's loss at 9-11, was lost.

The point is that the trial was used by those willing to see a terror connection between Iraq and 9-11 as proof of said connection.

That is even though presiding Judge Baer said:

"Although these experts provided few actual facts of any material support that Iraq actually provided, their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda,"

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1051121852966

In other words it was easy to point the blame at Iraq, but not quite as easy to get hold of the assets.

So this information was perhaps not primarily used to blame Iraq ex post facto, but rather to get monetary satisfaction.

It is in this light all information regarding the attempts to blame Iraq for 9-11 has to be seen.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DanS


Slippery, slippery.

The administration changed their tune without really acknowledging it changed. Considering Powell "admitted" they were given wrong information ages (of course they didn't actively do anything wrong) after the tune changed, I'm not really impressed by the slippery slope you uncovered.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Good troll Che.

This article blatantly is yet another left attempt to coerce admission of guilt and/or apology from the President. NYT impliciitly states "Listen we're man enough to say we were wrong and didn't check our facts......" The unstated of course is "If we can do it why can't the President?"


Bahhh. Who gives a f*ck.

[Sava]

Bahhh. Who gives a f*ck.

if you don't care about 800 soldiers dead, thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, and billions of dollars wasted... then you need help.

[Tripledoc]

Ogie Oglethorpe :

That is not true. False information was deliberately spread by someone who wanted to pre-empt parts of reconstruction in Iraq by gaining hold of frozen Iraqi assets as recompensation for 9-11.

Remember that Iraq ties to 9-11 was never the primary reason for the invasion.

This runs very deep. It is called corruption.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Sava
if you don't care about 800 soldiers dead, thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, and billions of dollars wasted... then you need help.

I called Dinodoc but he can't get his give a f*ck to work either. Any other doctors of note?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Good troll Che.

Four pages of serious discussion. My trolls are different from others. I lay mine to get serious discussions going, not to make fools of anyone (except maybe myself). I like the contributions DanS and LotM have made. This is an excellent disucssion on media in America (and from EET, Britain).

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
This is an excellent disucssion on media in America

How can you blame the media, if the justice system takes the same set of 'facts' as proof?

Well at least, the law firm Kreindler & Kreindler is an interesting one. I wonder how much they expect to get out of their 1500 litigations against Sudan, Iraq, and Sudan.

[Agathon]

This makes me laugh. Most of the opposition to the war was associated with radicals whose beliefs could never be reported in a "respectable" paper like the New York Times, since they implied that the administration was full of ****.

Well, it turns out that they were largely right. Thanks to the media and to the Bush administration for moving the territory of debate closer to where it should be.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I called Dinodoc but he can't get his give a f*ck to work either. Any other doctors of note?

This post amuses me. I'm glad this thread is evolving. It's more interesting now.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
This makes me laugh. Most of the opposition to the war was associated with radicals whose beliefs could never be reported in a "respectable" paper like the New York Times, since they implied that the administration was full of ****.

Well, it turns out that they were largely right. Thanks to the media and to the Bush administration for moving the territory of debate closer to where it should be.

What's that saying about even a broken clock being right twice a day?

[Drake Tungsten]

There was a broad concensus that was flat wrong. The concensus on what Saddam had was palpable in this town, as evidenced by the Washington Post's strong editorial support for the war. The concensus was multiple sourced. The sources were checked. The former president's administration thought the same thing. It was a slam dunk. But in the end, the concensus was flat wrong.

A consensus that was shared by every other major intelligence agency in the world, it should be mentioned.