Editor & Publisher:
Saturday's New York Times features an article, posted at the top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the "deadliest weapon aimed at American troops" in Iraq. The author notes, "Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile."
What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than "civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies."
Sound pretty convincing? Well, almost all the sources in the story are unnamed. It also may be worth noting that the author is Michael R. Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
"Every one of Gordon's sources [for the NYT piece] are officials in the Bush administration, and all of them are completely anonymous, so one has no way to assess their interest, perspective, bias, or independence," writes Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, "And Gordon himself does not offer the slightest information to enable the reader to make such determinations, and he himself appears blissfully uninterested in any of that."
Sounds familiar. It was Gordon and Miller who reported that WMD were in Iraq and that a source had told them where the evidence was buried. Obviously, that reporting had a little flaw in it -- it was completely untrue...
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Tags: news | politics | war | Iraq | Iran | propaganda | Bush | New York Times
