From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Thu May 27 2004 - 05:01:50 MDT
[rhinoceros] In a recent editorial posted below, New York Times take a look at their own coverage of Iraq and find it less than perfect.
There is special mention to Ahmed Chalabi, an international con-man who had been caught in Lebanon, Switzerland and London trasferring bank deposits to his relatives, before he became a main provider of "intelligence information" on Iraq and was put in charge of Iraq's economy with the occupation.government.
Some background information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,936196,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,938223,00.html
<quote>
Reports compiled at the time by investigators in London and Jordan, including investigations by the accountants Arthur Andersen, describe how millions of dollars of depositors' money was transferred to other parts of the Chalabi family empire in Switzerland, Lebanon and London, and not repaid.
<end quote>
Until he went too far with his games with
U.S. military raids Chalabi's home
CNN, May 20, 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/20/chalabi.raid/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. military personnel and Iraqi police have raided the compound of the Iraqi National Congress and the nearby home of Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi.
Chalabi's nephew, Salim Chalabi, said the forces entered his uncle's home, put a gun to Chalabi's head and threatened him.
<snip>
Here is the NYTimes editorial on Iraq coverage (free registration required):
The Times and Iraq
Editorial, May 26, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=print&position(
<snip>
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.
<snip>
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.
The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.
<snip>
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.
On Dec. 20, 2001, another front-page article began, "An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago." Knight Ridder Newspapers reported last week that American officials took that defector — his name is Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri — to Iraq earlier this year to point out the sites where he claimed to have worked, and that the officials failed to find evidence of their use for weapons programs. It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.
On Sept. 8, 2002, the lead article of the paper was headlined "U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts." That report concerned the aluminum tubes that the administration advertised insistently as components for the manufacture of nuclear weapons fuel. The claim came not from defectors but from the best American intelligence sources available at the time. Still, it should have been presented more cautiously. There were hints that the usefulness of the tubes in making nuclear fuel was not a sure thing, but the hints were buried deep, 1,700 words into a 3,600-word article. Administration officials were allowed to hold forth at length on why this evidence of Iraq's nuclear intentions demanded that Saddam Hussein be dislodged from power: "The first sign of a `smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud."
Five days later, The Times reporters learned that the tubes were in fact a subject of debate among intelligence agencies. The misgivings appeared deep in an article on Page A13, under a headline that gave no inkling that we were revising our earlier view ("White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons"). The Times gave voice to skeptics of the tubes on Jan. 9, when the key piece of evidence was challenged by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That challenge was reported on Page A10; it might well have belonged on Page A1.
On April 21, 2003, as American weapons-hunters followed American troops into Iraq, another front-page article declared, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." It began this way: "A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said."
The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with Al Qaeda — two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi "scientist" — who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence — had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.
The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims.
<snip>
[rhinoceros] NYTimes avoid blaming individual reporters, but others do.
How Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq war lobby used New York Times reporter Judith Miller to make the case for invasion.
Salon, May 27, 2004
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/index_np.html
(Registration or day-pass by viewing an ad required)
Also in Salon:
Washington's Chalabi Nightmare
One more headache for the besieged Bush administration: The FBI is now interrogating the neocon cronies of Ahmed Chalabi.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/05/27/chalabi/index_np.html
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