“Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.”
“Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.” - Obudsman Daniel Okrent of the New York Times offers his own retrospective on the paper’s prewar coverage of Iraq’s WSD capability. Excerpt:
No one can deny that this was a drama in which The Times played a role. On Friday, May 21, a front-page article by David E. Sanger (”A Seat of Honor Lost to Open Political Warfare”) elegantly characterized Chalabi as “a man who, in lunches with politicians, secret sessions with intelligence chiefs and frequent conversations with reporters from Foggy Bottom to London’s Mayfair, worked furiously to plot Mr. Hussein’s fall.” The words “from The Times, among other publications” would have fit nicely after “reporters” in that sentence. The aggressive journalism that I long for, and that the paper owes both its readers and its own self-respect, would reveal not just the tactics of those who promoted the W.M.D. stories, but how The Times itself was used to further their cunning campaign.
