At the Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes has a piece laying out the media's shoddy coverage of the Pentagon's just-released review of Saddam's connections to terrorists.
The Pentagon report had a number of startling revelations about Saddam's terror connections. (Examples: Saddam had stockpiles of weapons - including missile launchers - at several embassies; Saddam's government had ties to the non-secular Ayman al-Zawahiri, who eventually became Bin Laden's chief deputy; Saddam had agreed to send thousands of rifles to "Sudanese fighters;" Saddam agreed to provide haven - and an Iraqi passport - to terrorist Abu Abbas; Saddam's Fedayeen planned terror attacks in Europe; etc.)
But the new revelations in the report were not covered by the media, because the media had already published stories on the report - before it was released - saying the report concluded there was no direct operational links to Saddam and Al Qaeda.
Here are the key developments Hayes notes. On March 10, before the report was released, McClatchy's Warren Strobel wrote an article quoting an anonymous source who said the report showed no evidence of a direct operational link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Strobel used the rest of his article to attempt to show that this undermined the Bush administration's prewar claims with regard to Iraq and terrorism. Strobel's spin shaped subsequent news coverage before release of the report.
By the time the actual report was released, the media had no interest in reporting what was actually in the report, even though the report included some remarkable findings about Saddam's ties to terror.
Hayes brilliantly shows how the media short-changes the public. But what caught my eye was how Hayes traces the beginning of this media debacle. Hayes says it all started with "...a leak to a gullible reporter."
The gullible reporter Hayes is talking about? None other than Warren Strobel.
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