each time they are so contradictory a few more regular folks (on the edges of their diehard supporters) wake up.
re: Chalabi - here are a few items - IMPORTANT ONES that show the role that Chalabi played in shaping the major NYT stories (pre-war) via "expert" Judith Miller. She tries a power play when a story does not go to her - and the WPost reports. But also pay attention, for those questioning how much this was orchestrated from the White House - in shaping a military mission - when a arms-hunting mission that has been an absolute failure is about to be called off. She threatens calling the military superiors (implication Rumsfeld et al) IF the military commanders don't keep hunting for wmd (she just "KNEW" they would be found due to her reliance on the integrity of her information from the WH/Pentagon - and her prime source Chalabi). Also note that this story broke during the Jason Blair embarassment at the NYT - but I think her journalistic breachers are MUCH more serious (she tries to shape the news rather than report). But that aside - this shows how central these "Iraqi Defectors" were to the WH's ability to shape info to get public support for their war.
The stories may never be put together and fully break in the media (as they NEVER seem to do) -but I think more bushsupporters who remain supportive out of some sort of loyalty to a war-time president - will peel away their support as this current story makes ZERO sense. And as we have read and seen elsewhere for many folks once they start questioning one area of the Bushadmin lines... they start seeing a slew of questions.
story 1:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39280-2003May25?language=printerwashingtonpost.com
Intra-Times Battle Over Iraqi Weapons
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 26, 2003; Page C01
A dustup between two New York Times reporters over a story on an Iraqi exile leader raises some intriguing questions about the paper's coverage of the search for dangerous weapons thought to be hidden by Saddam Hussein.
An internal e-mail by Judith Miller, the paper's top reporter on bioterrorism, acknowledges that her main source for such articles has been Ahmad Chalabi, a controversial exile leader who is close to top Pentagon officials. Could Chalabi have been using the Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction?
The Chalabi connection surfaced when John Burns, the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning Baghdad bureau chief, scolded Miller over her May 1 story on the Iraqi without clearing it with him.
"I am deeply chagrined at your reporting and filing on Chalabi after I had told you on Monday night that we were planning a major piece on him -- and without so much as telling me what you were doing," Burns wrote that day, according to e-mail correspondence obtained by The Washington Post.
"We have a bureau here; I am in charge of that bureau until I leave; I make assignments after considerable thought and discussion, and it was plain to all of us to whom the Chalabi story belonged. If you do this, what is to stop you doing it on any other story of your choosing? And what of the distress it causes the correspondent who is usurped? It is not professional, and not collegial."
Miller replied to Burns: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper, including the long takeout we recently did on him. He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper."
(much much more {mods note this is a long article})
related item to story 1:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081905Follow That Story: Deep Miller
Is the New York Times breaking the news—or flacking for the military?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2003, at 3:52 PM PT
On Monday, Press Box fastballed a couple of bricks at New York Times reporter Judith Miller for the rococo—and somewhat creepy—sourcing behind her Page One scoop about the search for unconventional weapons ("Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said To Assert," April 21).
The story chronicles the exploits of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha—a U.S. military team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—and a scientist who alleges that he worked on Iraqi chemical weapons programs. The scientist, say Miller's military sources, led them to chemical precursors used to manufacture biological and chemical weapons. This scientist claims that Iraq destroyed unconventional weapons and equipment before the war and sent other "unconventional weapons and technology to Syria." He also maintains that in the years before the war, Iraq had shifted its R & D to making illegal weapons that can't be detected easily.
===============================
story 2:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28385-2003Jun24?language=printerwashingtonpost.com
Embedded Reporter's Role In Army Unit's Actions Questioned by Military
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 25, 2003; Page C01
New York Times reporter Judith Miller played a highly unusual role in an Army unit assigned to search for dangerous Iraqi weapons, according to U.S. military officials, prompting criticism that the unit was turned into what one official called a "rogue operation."
More than a half-dozen military officers said that Miller acted as a middleman between the Army unit with which she was embedded and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, on one occasion accompanying Army officers to Chalabi's headquarters, where they took custody of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law. She also sat in on the initial debriefing of the son-in-law, these sources say.
Since interrogating Iraqis was not the mission of the unit, these officials said, it became a "Judith Miller team," in the words of one officer close to the situation.
In April, Miller wrote a letter objecting to an Army commander's order to withdraw the unit, Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, from the field. She said this would be a "waste" of time and suggested that she would write about it unfavorably in the Times. After Miller took up the matter with a two-star general, the pullback order was dropped.
------------snip---------
"This was totally out of their lane, getting involved with human intelligence," said one military officer who, like several others interviewed, declined to be named because he is not an authorized spokesman. But, the officer said of Miller, "this woman came in with a plan. She was leading them. . . . She ended up almost hijacking the mission."
Said a senior staff officer of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, of which MET Alpha is a part: "It's impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the mission of this unit, and not for the better." Three weapons specialists were reassigned as the unit changed its approach, according to officers with the task force.
------------snip-------------
One military officer, who says that Miller sometimes "intimidated" Army soldiers by invoking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Undersecretary Douglas Feith, was sharply critical of the note. "Essentially, she threatened them," the officer said, describing the threat as that "she would publish a negative story."
An Army officer, who regarded Miller's presence as "detrimental," said: "Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat," this person said, and MET Alpha "was allowed to bend the rules."
(much, much more ............ read the whole WPost Article.)
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