After the WMD fiasco, the ailing paper continues to spread White House propaganda, says alexander cockburn |
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T here is no task more important for any newspaper than to impart the news convincingly that a war is lost or futile or wrong.
The failure of America's major newspapers in 2005 and 2006 to disclose the US's defeat in Iraq has been as disastrous as their earlier failure to challenge the government on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Because of former New York Times reporter Judy Miller's high profile in the WMD fabrications, the Times' chief military correspondent, Michael Gordon, has garnered little of the criticism he richly deserves.
Having co-written with Miller the infamous aluminum tubes-for-nukes story of September 8, 2002, that mightily assisted the administration in its push to war, Gordon has, as a careful reading of his reports suggests, |
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| Michael Gordon has, as a careful reading of his reports suggests, strongly pushed his own agenda in his recent reports on Iraq |
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strongly pushed his own agenda in his recent reports on Iraq, so much so as to provide a significantly misleading picture of the situation on the ground there.
In the latter part of 2006 he became an influential journalistic agitator for a "surge" in troop strength.
On September 11, in a story under the headline, "Grim Outlook Seen in West Iraq Without More Troops and Aid", Gordon cited a senior officer in Iraq saying more American troops were necessary to stabilise Anbar.
Another Gordon story on October 22 emphasised that "the sectarian violence [in Baghdad] would be far worse if not for American efforts..." There were of course plenty of Iraqis and some Americans Gordon could also have found, eager to say the exact opposite.
Immediately after the November 7 mid-term elections, when Democrat John Murtha - an advocate of immediate withdrawal - was running for the post of House majority leader in the new Democrat-controlled Congress, Gordon rushed out two stories, which were
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