‘O’Reilly Factor’ host Bill O’Reilly became visibly upset as he questioned Scott McClellan about Iraq war propaganda and the CIA leak case…
"If the director of the CIA believes it, British intelligence believes it, John Kerry believes it, Hillary Clinton believes it, and President Clinton believes it…" said O’Reilly, "If they all believe Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, sir: don’t you have a nerve accusing me of not being vigilant enough?" O’Reilly later thundered, "If two presidents of the United States (sitting), the former CIA guy who works for both presidents, Tony Blair, and The New York Times all tell me and you [Saddam has] got [WMDs], we can’t say ‘no, he doesn’t!’"…
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.
In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information. And where those articles included incomplete information or pointed in a wrong direction, they were later overtaken by more and stronger information. That is how news coverage normally unfolds.
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…
I’m reading a recently published book”The Torture Team” by Philippe Sands and on the cover of the book is a copy of a memo Rumsfield wrote a comment on saying”However,I stand for 8-10 hours a day.Why is standing, limited to 4 hours? He was approving and signing off on new interrogation technigues when he wrote that infamous line. In the book the Bush team choose a woman “Compliance with the interrogation rules was one of her main reponsibilities as Staff Judge Advocate for JTF-170.” The higher ups including the White House wanted to go further in interrrogations than the field manual so they picked a woman named Col Diane Beaver to sign off on the harsher techniques with little or no advice. What cowards they are. They send other people to fight the wars they start and take other people to sign off their dirty work. The author interviews a lot of people that were involved in the process and he says these people watched Fox’s show 24 about a ficticious CIA agent named Jack Bauer who does anything or everything in the show to protect the US. They all thought he was a hero in the show. Some even likened what the character in the show to how they felt about their jobs for the US. At times people like now Homeland Security Head Chertoff who was in the justice dept at the time said “That is what we do every day”. It’s almost as if they think their acting in shows and not thinking with reality. McClellan is my hero right now. he might not have the stature of a Colin Powell type but at least he came forward with the truth. He may have a lot less friends but I’m sure he can sleep a little easier.
“McClellan is my hero right now. he might not have the stature of a Colin Powell type but at least he came forward with the truth. He may have a lot less friends but I’m sure he can sleep a little easier.”
I think of him that way too, in spite of my initial reaction. He’s come as close to saying, “I was wrong,” as anyone to date. I’m proud of him for that. After the dust settles, I hope others have a similar “aha” experience and speak out…