Today the New York Times publishes a somewhat shocking (well, maybe not so shocking) article that says Wolfowitz pal Ahmad Chalabi is concerned about how the U.S. is turning to senior Baath Party officials to run Iraq's "transitional" government. Yesterday Chalabi made the wild claim that Iraqi intelligence has "completely infiltrated" Al-Jazeera, but he may have a point on this one: Garner has met with director generals from Hussein's ministries, and the INC claims the CIA has retained Saad Janabi -- former assistant to Saddam's dead son-in-law-weapons-programs-head Hussein Kamel -- as a "key advisor."
What's most interesting about the article isn't the content, but the author: Judy Miller.
Rather than report on the ho-hum power struggle for leadership of Iraq's "transitional" government, shouldn't she be embedded with Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, Beta, or Omega, ready to break the next big WMD story?
Or has that story gone cold?
It's been 11 days since the Times published Miller's bombshell page 1 article, and the only article resembling a follow-up was the story on former biological warfare scientist Nissar Hindawi, who is looking more and more like Miller's "silver bullet."
But Hindawi isn't even a smoking pop gun.
Let's review. Miller's original article made three bombshell claims. The Iraqi "scientist":
If Nissar Hindawi is Miller's "silver bullet," then there's some explaining to do. Hindawi:
Of course, there could be more to the story (perhaps another bombshell to be published in Monday's Times?) but Miller's original article -- which has been called the biggest story of the war -- is looking like what the early critics of her reporting suspected it as: complete and utter bullshit.
posted by dackKinda ironic, no? Judy's misreporting on WMDs is turning up the juciest tidbits and the best trail leading to U.S. falsifications and coverup. Someone should award her the pseudo-Pulitzer, or something.
Posted by: on May 1, 2003 12:48 PM
The interview with Hussein Kamel
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html
It just occurred to me that Judy Miller was the name of a Gilda Radner character, a hyperactive young girl who was always playing make believe.
Nah, I'm not drawing parallels.
Posted by: Jake on May 1, 2003 10:03 PMJudith Miller and the WMD Fairy!
i meant to post this link in the last reply! oops
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/04/23_fairies.html
why cant i write html into this list?
It's too bad about The Grey Lady. She's under a lot of fire these days. What's ironic is that one of the most venerated institutions of journalism is under scrutiny when the most obvious sources of "news" ( the Cable Channels) have apologized to one about their brand of WWF propoganda.
Perhaps it's because the New York Times has standards to begin with.
Posted by: Druss on May 18, 2003 04:52 PM