McClatchy's credibility took another hit on Friday when the author of a Pentagon institute report accused McClatchy reporters of misrepresenting the report in a major article.The article, written by Jonathan Landay and John Walcott, said a Pentagon referred to the war in Iraq a debacle and said the outcome of the war is in doubt. The article got front-page coverage in the Sacramento Bee. Above is a picture of the article in the Bee.
The first two sentences of Landay and Walcott's article:
The war in Iraq has become ''a major debacle'' and the outcome ''is in doubt'' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.The folks at Small Wars Journal read the story and thought something didn't seem right. They contacted the author of the study, which the McClatchy reporters didn't bother to do. They found that not only did McClatchy misrepresent the findings of the study, but the study was about the period from 2002 to 2004 and not about the current situation. Here is Dr. Collins' response:
The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.
The Miami Herald story ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle' ") distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism.
Landay and Walcott's claim that the report "raised fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq" is a lie.
Another McClatchy embarrassment.
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