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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
More egg on the face of The New York Times
For those who follow the goings-on in Iraq, you will know that one Iraqi political group, the pro-democracy, Western-friendly Iraqi National Congress (INC), has been enthusiastically rounded on by the press and various branches of the U.S. government for the past few months.
Basically anything that goes wrong in post-war Iraq, someone, somewhere (often the U.S. State Department of the CIA) finds a way to blame the INC. A few weeks ago, the INC was accused of leaking sensitive information about the U.S.'s Iraqi spy program to Iran. (We've heard nothing about it since the oringial accusations.) Most recently, the INC was being assailed for having supplied an Iraqi defector named "Curveball" to the CIA in its pre-war reporting. "Curveball" has become infamous since war's end because he is the alleged source of claims that Saddam Hussein had a network of mobile bioweapons labs. An example of the anti-INC spin, from last Sunday's Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: And you talked about Curveball. Curveball was the son of Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile's friend who came forward and said, "I'm a high-school--number one in my class. I know all about this." He was a fraud. And in the report, this is what the e-mail from the deputy chief of the CIA's Iraqi task force had to say. "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."
Tim Russert had absolutely no basis for this slanderous and erroneous claim. Now, check out the corrections in today's New York Times, which has of late been on a corrections fury:
An article on Monday about the Senate intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence about Iraq misstated the relationship between a defector known as Curveball and the Iraqi National Congress. There is no information that Curveball, who worked with German intelligence, was introduced to that service by the I.N.C., which is led by Ahmad Chalabi. (Articles on June 2 and June 4 also described such a connection, attributing that account to American intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those officials now say there was no such established relationship.) The Iraqi National Congress has denied any connection whatsoever to Curveball, and the Senate intelligence committee report issued on July 9 did not describe such a relationship.
The INC has consistently maintained that it has absolutely no idea who Curveball is or where he came from. It is not the son of INC leader Ahmad Chalabi.
This episode is a great example of:
1. How gullible the Washington press corps can be;
2. How effective the CIA's spin machine is;
3. How badly the CIA and various other parties want to find scapegoats for Iraq.
(Cross-posted at The Shotgun)
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:45 AM
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