1 Boring Old Man

It’s only been fourteen months since New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, ended her three month stint in jail for refusing to talk to Patrick Fitzgerald about her sources in the C.I.A. leak case involving Valerie Plame. It seems a lot longer than that to me. It was a different time, even though it wasn’t so long ago. Most of us still thought that if you read it in the New York Times, it must be true. The video on the right is her speaking at a prison vigil last month for a jailed reporter, Josh Wolf. Her web site catalogues her frequent speaking engagements, usually about first amendment rights.

But, beside Judith Miller’s close associations with the people who were pushing, and perhaps framing, the Iraqi war, her trajectory as an anti-Islamic Hawk had its own momentum. In 1996, she wrote God Has Ninety Nine Names about militant Islam, and established herself as something of a germ warfare expert with Germs in October of 2001, published at a time when the country’s paranoia was at it’s peak. But it was after September, 2002 that she really hit her stride. In the lead-in period to the Iraqi war, she published article after article about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, Chemical/Biological weapons, and Al Qaeda connections. Her sources were un-named, officials and Iraqi expatriots. As Bush increased his stampede to war, her articles fueled the fire – so much so that many now wonder if the Administration was feeding her directly. A few examples: December 20, 2001 – An Iraqi Defector Tells of Work on at Least 20 Hidden Weapons Sites , September 8, 2002 – U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts , September 2, 2002 – White House Lists Iraq Steps To Build Banned Weapons, January 24, 2003 – Defectors Bolster U.S. Case Against Iraq. A complete listing of Judith Miller’s articles from September 11, 2001 to May 26, 2003 produces 165 articles, many in this vein.

In March, the U.S. invaded Iraq. Judith was embedded with the group looking for the WMD’s, as it turns out by direct intervention by Donald Rumsfield. The soldiers didn’t like her. She barked orders and apparently functioned as more than just a reporter. There were more articles: April 21, 2003 – Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert , April 23, 2003 – Focus Shifts From Weapons To the People Behind Them , April 24,2003 – U.S.-Led Forces Occupy Baghdad Complex Filled with Chemical Agents. As it became clear after a few months that there was nothing to be found and that her stories had been wrong, she kept up her rhetoric, even though other papers were saying "uh-oh:" May 21, 2003 – U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms. The political pundits inside the beltway were all over her reporting. In May, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post published an article with leaked internal NY Times emails revealing that Judith’s main source was the infamous Amhad Chalabi, who was in the process of being exposed as a monumental liar [May 26, 2003 – Intra-Times Battle Over Iraqi Weapons, By Howard Kurtz]. Miller’s tone changed. The May 21st article was the last of Miller’s really firebrand articles. A couple of weeks later, she publishes her first softened article on June 7, 2003 – Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use. But Kurtz kept coming, reporting on her behavior while in Iraq [June 25, 2003 – Embedded Reporter’s Role In Army Unit’s Actions Questioned by Military, By Howard Kurtz].

July 2003 was a busy month for the press. On July 6th, Joseph Wilson’s oped piece came out in the NY Times criticizing Bush’s rationale for war. On the 8th, Robert Novak talked to source #1 [unknown] and Karl Rove, finding out about Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. identity. On the 11th, Matt Cooper got his info from Karl Rove about "Wilson’s wife." On the 14th, Novak’s article "outing Plame" appeared in print. Meanwhile, back to Judith Miller. She was a confidante of Dr. David Kelly. He was a British Microbiologist in the secret service, having been an inspector in Iraq after the Gulf War. He had been a big source for her book "Germs," the doomsday book about biological warfare. He was also something of a firebrand about Iraq, at least early on. On May 22, 2003, he met with a British reporter who later published an article on May 29th saying Tony Blair’s Administration had overstated Iraq’s capabilities in a dossier. The un-named source was Dr. David Kelly. This was rather quickly figured out and also Dr. Kelly turned himself in, though he claimed not to have said all that was reported. He was interviewed on July 15, 2003 by a board appointed to run down the leak, and look in to the allegations. He denied much of what was charged but was obviously tense and defensive. That night he wrote an email to his pal, Judith Miller, saying that there were "many dark actors" at work. Two days later, he walked into the woods and was found dead – wrist cut and bloodstream full of a tranquillizer. Not long thereafter, it was announced that he was the only source for the report. Many suspected murder, but an inquest by Lord Hutton declared it a suicide. Miller’s own article [July 21, 2003 – Scientist Was the ‘Bane of Proliferators] about Dr. Kelly was sympathetic but failed to mention their personal relationship, or that his final email was to her.

July wasn’t over for Judith. She was still under attack by the media for her Iraq reporting. By the 20th she was backpedaling, though she threw blame everywhere but in the mirror [ July 20, 2003 – A Chronicle of Confusion in the U.S. Hunt for Hussein’s Chemical and Germ Weapons]. Somewhere in this sea of activity, she talked to somebody about Valerie Plame and the prosecutor knows it. In his brief to the judge, there are six pages about it, blanked out in the public version. The judge, in his decision to jail her, said that these were very unusual facts [whatever they are] that certainly justified her jailing.

Back in August 2005, the Iraq War already smelled like dead fish, but we had only vague suspicions of the level of deceit involved in getting us into the war. It’s interesting to watch her now. In August 2005, she was portrayed as a 1st Amendment hero, a martyr. By a year ago, she was an out of work reporter, discredited as a pawn in the Administration’s march to war. But she’s still playing reporter hero. I wonder who buys it?

As much as we’ve learned in this last year, there’s still a lot we don’t know. If Judith Miller really were the patriot she claims to be, she’d be letting us in on her role in the treachery that fanned the illusionary flames of our absurd War in Iraq. Maybe she doesn’t because she doesn’t yet realize that she’s not a player, she’s a chess piece…