No Cigar

The NY Times tries to own up to its role in the run up to the war, but can't quite seem to do it.

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.

First thing, and most obvious: they never mention by name the individual mainly responsible for all of the disinformation making its way into the NYT, namely Ms. Judith Miller. (Though the responsibility for pushing the INC and neo-con propaganda onto the front page rests squarely on the shoulders of the editors.)

According to today's mea culpa, "The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature." Well, I hate to be the one to point this out, but of all the articles they mention in their Shining of the Bright Light of Hindsight (and this itself as a way of disregarding all the cries of BS and such that came with the articles' initial runs), all but one was penned at least in part, by Ms. Miller. She was a consistent and highly visible and influential funnel for the (Iranian) intelligence provided by Chalabi and the INC to reach the American public. And she never found it necessary to ask the follow-up questions, never thought there could be anything but the gospel truth coming from the INC, or for that matter, the White House and Pentagon. In short, this Pulitzer Prize winner forgot to be a reporter.

As I'd inferred in an earlier post, this issue is being worked into the echo chamber as well, and it was already before the Chalabi revelations of the last week, with administration surrogates effusing praise on Ms. Miller in public, every chance they'd get (the example in the post linked above was Sen. John Warner, during CNN's post-game wrap-up of Condi Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Comission). They knew this was coming. They've been preparing for the refutation of her "reporting," as it would also refute their own claims. But, even if Ms. Miller has still to be revealed publically as the entry point for the Iranian intelligence, our own intelligence community (as evidenced by the leaker(s) quoted in yesterday's Guardian piece on the Chalabi fiasco.

More things are inter-related than not...