"Analysts Were Wrong"...No, Judith Miller IS Wrong...
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In a Times interview, “Little Miss Run Amok,” as Miller dubbed herself due to her ability to avoid editorial supervision on her way to fame and glory, admitted what the Times called “serious flaws in her articles on Iraqi weapons.” “ WMD—I got it totally wrong, ” she said. “The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them—we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could.”
But that’s simply not so.
“Infighting among U. S. intelligence agencies fuels dispute over Iraq” was the headline of an October 2002 article by Knight Ridder’s Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay. The article detailed a “bitter feud over secret intelligence” between the CIA and Bush administration appointees at the Pentagon. “The dispute,” they wrote, “pits hardliners long distrustful of the U. S. intelligence community against professional military and intelligence officers who fear the hawks are shaping intelligence analyses to support their case for invading Iraq.” In an earlier article co-written with John Walcott, the authors quoted an unidentified official who said that “analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books.” Nobody else they interviewed disagreed.
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It's always someone else's fault, isn't it?
"If your sources are wrong, you are wrong". Absolutely true, but incomplete. I would add to it just a little bit:
"If you use the wrong sources, your sources will be wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong".
I'm not that generous
to Miller, although I agree that your statement, in general, is true. I still think that Miller is a willing conduit for this administrations propaganda campaign.
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the apathetic throng, the coward, and the meek, who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak.
Ralph Chaplin
Miller is a bush groupie
and a propagandist. That is not a reporter's job, it is completely antithetic to the job of a reporter. Reporters check their facts and dig for more information, Miller didn't do either. She made no effort to check what her source or sourses told her. There is no way that she did not know that whoever at the WH told her that Wilson's wife was with the CIA was outing a CIA agent in violation of the laws of the country and the laws of human decency. That goes for everyone involved in my opinion.
I think that this case is much more important than the press that it has gotten.
Proud member of the reality based community.
Yep
Miller is certainly self-congratulatory these days. Wonder why.
I think Miller and Gannon are OSP.
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the apathetic throng, the coward, and the meek, who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak.
Ralph Chaplin
Di, you have made an
Di, you have made an excellent point. Reporters are supposed to check facts and dig for information. I'm sure the administration is going to say this digging process is what happened when the press outed Plame. Since Libby and Rove were telling the press Mrs. Wilson works at "the agency," all they would have had to do was pickup the phone and call the CIA. Did an editor call the CIA for confirmation of Plame identity? I would think that if she was an undercover operative, her identity would NOT have been able to be verified - hence don't print the story because of undercover status. Did the editors ever think the story could have been full of shit? But I guess they hadconfirmation from several high levels officials in the White House to print this information. And I would think the editors are a little more careful of being baited by a source and be wondering WHY this information was being leaked.
And I STILL don't get why they say this ISN'T a breach of outing an operative. Libby and Rove gave enough information to point directly to Plame but yet this isn't breaking the 1982 law - I just don't get it! Maybe I could understand accidentally leaking information to your best friend on a drinking night but 4???? No way! It was the plan all along and I can't believe Republicans are OK with this - just shows how stupid they all are!
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security
like it's some kind of federal program."
- George W. Bush in a debate in St. Charles, Mo., Nov. 2, 2000
Libby and Rove
and whoever else was involved in Plames outing knew exactly what they were doing and that they were putting her life in danger. That was the point of doing it. Wilson did not play ball with them and their lies and it was their way of getting revenge on him and making an example of him for the next one who might think of jumping ship.
Remember everyone in the BA will tell you that "loyalty" is the number one thing. One is expected to fall on their sword for the emperor or be marked a trator. It is a simple philosophy, but it keeps the troops under control. As soon as Wilson came back with the "bad news" it was time to kill the messenger.
What I can't figure out is why Miller didn't rush to write the story and print it?
Proud member of the reality based community.
Could it be the editors
Could it be the editors would NOT allow it?
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security
like it's some kind of federal program."
- George W. Bush in a debate in St. Charles, Mo., Nov. 2, 2000
No good explanation
I'm not being generous to Miller. There are only three reasons that I can think of that she would use the wrong sources:
1. You are right, and that she willingly and enthusiastically sold her soul--over and over--for a story. There is some evidence to support that.
2. She is grossly incompetent, acting like a country yokel on their first visit to the state fair.
3. Both.
Who Ignored The Accurate Sources?
I believe truth and history compel us to recognize that Judith Miller was not the only person who sought out and listened to the wrong sources. Throughout the runup to the war, and particularly during the runup to the fatal vote approving war in October 2002, there were many voices raised in concern and expressing skepticism, Mohamed El-Baradei, Hanx Blix, Scott Ritter, etc. etc. But who else was ignoring the truth? Why our very own Democratic senators and representatives. So this wasn't just a question of Dubya and his merry men purveying false information. This was also a question of many Democrats being lazy and cowardly.
People make mistakes; shit happens. Now it's time for those Democrats who were lazy or politically cowardly to acknowledge and confess that fault, make theselves right with their constituents, with the truth, and with history. Senator Jay Rockefeller has done so. Now it's time for the Hillarys, the Kerrys, and the Edwards to do the same. Only then can Democrats regain legitimacy and viability as a truthful and loyal opposition rather than a false and disloyal opposition.
Yours in reform,
Charles
Miller's involvement
Our senators on the other hand had little reason to question the carefully selected "intelligence" presented to them by the BA, were they to assume that they were being lied to by the persident? How were they to have dug out the facts on their own? I remember when the " intelligence reports" were presented to only a few democrat senators in the "secure room". The others had to pretty much take it on faith.
The evidence leading up to war was carefully orchestrated by Chaney and Rumsfeld and what the congress was allowed to see was hand picked bits of information, offered as real solid facts. I think that you are being just a bit too harsh on some of our senators under the circumstances.
Proud member of the reality based community.
Who Ignored The Accurate Sources?
Dinamic wrote:
"Our senators on the other hand had little reason to question the carefully selected "intelligence" presented to them by the BA, were they to assume that they were being lied to by the persident? How were they to have dug out the facts on their own?"
Sorry, but that dog won't hunt. Around 20 senators, most Democratic, one Republican (Lincoln Chafee), WERE able to question the intelligence, and obviously DID exercise the proper responsibility of a legislator by reaching out and examining other sources and other points of view, quite likely including most in the arms inspections community, such as El-Baradei, Blix, and Ritter. They obviously DID take the time to dig out the facts on their own. Instead of trying to whitewash the collaborators, enablers, and apologists within our own party, I strongly suggest you go for a major change of pace by sitting down with the Congressional Record for a week and reviewing that debate in 2002. You will find there that plenty of senators whose awesome responsibility it was to approve or not to approve war, Byrd, Kennedy, Feingold, Durbin, Bob Graham (one of the more conservative Democrats), etc., realized full well that this war was an insanity and Dubya's propaganda was a crock.
There were also at the time a number of disturbing reports of senators who told people anonymously, including some reporters, that they would have voted against the war if the vote had been by secret ballot but who felt compelled to be accomplice to this crime for political reasons. So when the history of this disgraceful chapter is finally written, one can but hope that the truth will emerge, and that those cowardly hypocrites and political opportunists who chose to aid and abet this crime, even when they knew full well that the blood of this outrage would be on their hands, are ultimately exposed.
The bottom line is that those Democrats who voted for this war were either sublimely stupid, in light of the wisdom their colleagues like Feingold and Byrd desperately tried to convey to them, or profoundly cowardly and knew what they did was terribly wrong.
Either way the scales will not be balanced until those Democrats who so dramatically failed, in fact supremely flunked, this test of history are prepared to stand up, admit their error, and commit to making amends for it in their future careers. Absent that act, history's expectation and justice's demand will be left unfulfilled.
Yours in reform,
Charles
Are you referring to the
Are you referring to the intelligence meetings were no one was allowed to make notes? The one were no pens or pencils were allowed? The one that only a handful of Senators went to and were to dispatch information to the others about the "findings" but couldn't give any specifics? Did these meeting just take place with the Senators on the Intelligence and the Select Intelligence committees? Do you realize that all of those committees are armed by Republicans and hold the most seats?
Yes, the Democrats Senators have made mistakes but why in the hell should they come forward and acknowledge mistakes when Bush hasn't apologized for anything? Bush has never apologized for allowing 9/11 to happen, illegal war, response to Katrina, insert whatever scandal. Yeah, let the Democrats come out and apologize, like Durbin did recently, and the attack dogs call us weak. Republicans mop the floor with us by saying are weak - wasn't that one of the major attacks on Kerry, he was "weak" on defense? Look at what the White House has done to Joe Wilson and his wife - don't dare critize Bush or you will pay a dear price for it.
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security
like it's some kind of federal program."
- George W. Bush in a debate in St. Charles, Mo., Nov. 2, 2000
I agree that they failed
I agree with you that many senators failed to question the intelligence enough. I seem to recall that the weapons inspectors who were there weren't finding anything. I think that the Rove anti-terror campaign with the illusion that he created that if you weren't on the war wagon,you were anti-American caused many of them to vote for the war. Rove is very good at what he does. He believes that like God, he can giveth and taketh away. He has successfully taken what should be positives in the lives of some politicians and turned them into ugly negatives by starting lies and constantly repeating them. Rove turned the anger and horror that many people experienced after 9/11 into a cry for revenge and blood. The real thing that bothers me now about the senators is that many of them are still not talking about or demanding an exit strategy. How can anyone talk about us being there for years? When did we become the private army of the "new Iraq"? How can staying there make anything better?
These are my problems with the Senate. Judy Miller is a BA groupie. She looks and acts like a woman who likes to be in on a big secret. Remember how degrading she found prison. What do you think that the other prisoners thought of her? They may have committed crimes, but she helped send 2000 young Americans to their deaths. Is she anybody's mother? I think not.