Reply #40: Here's my letter to the Times

[gristy]

[email protected]

Editor,

I am dismayed by your editorial, "The Times and Iraq," in which you review how, in the run-up to war, the Times was guilty of repeatedly publishing unsubstantiated information about Iraq's WMDs which ultimately turned out to be false, and corrections, when published at all, were too often buried deep within the newspaper. My question for you is this: Will you take specific actions and will you fire guilty reporters and editors so as to both demonstrate your convictions and to discourage such malfeasance in the future? Or will you take President Bush's "I'm shocked, just shocked, I tell you" approach to crime and injustice (e.g., the White House Plame leak, supposed "flawed" intelligence from Tenet, Rumsfeld's overrule of the Geneva Conventions) by publicly stating your full support for all your reporters and editors?

I submit you do not have a choice. Policies must change. Heads must roll.