NY TIMES IS DNC MOUTHPIECE!!!
Posted on 10/26/2004 5:07:22 PM PDT by focusandclarity
(CNSNews.com) - The New York Times on Tuesday defended its report on a missing cache of explosives in Iraq after Republicans accused the newspaper of ignoring the facts in a rush to attack President Bush.
The Times reported Monday that 380 tons of explosives had gone missing from the Al Qaqaa military facility in Iraq, which triggered a swift and harsh attack on Bush from Sen. John Kerry, who quickly produced an ad citing the article.
The Republican National Committee released a compilation of recent news reports on the missing explosives Tuesday, which it said proved that the Times and Kerry campaign were ignoring the facts to attack Bush.
The NBC Nightly News revealed Monday evening that it had an embedded reporter at Al Qaqaa on April 10, 2003, one day after the fall of Baghdad, and that none of the 380 tons of explosives were present.
"NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad," Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported Monday. "But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing."
The Times' spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, issued a statement to CNSNews.com on Tuesday afternoon defending the newspaper's report:
"Our front page story of October 25 reported accurately that a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science & Technology informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in a letter on October 10 that the materials were lost from the Al-qaqaa site after April 9, 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security.'
"The IAEA took an inventory of the materials in January, 2003. In early March, right before the beginning of the war, the IAEA went to the site and found that the seals on the bunkers were still intact.
"Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion.
"The Times story also reported that U.S. forces visited the vast site on their way to Baghdad and saw no materials bearing the IAEA seal.
"We are continuing our reporting on the disappearance."
The Republican National Committee released a compilation of recent news reports on the missing explosives Tuesday, which it said proved that the Times and Kerry campaign were ignoring the facts to attack Bush."
As though dozens and dozens of trucks were able to back up to this facility and load up weapons and then drive away to Syria or wherever.
To believe the NYT, this is what you'd have to believe.
Or perhaps I should say, to believe the NYT, you'd have to be nuts. Or a Democrat.
Ahhh...the letter they reference was full of false claims...perhaps they did not get that memo. Someone get to a Kinkos right away.
Dirtbags
yeah, right. what are they going to do, come and say it was a plant to try and propagandize a bunch of moron viewers who can't remember last year?
The UN should have destroyed this weapons cache when they found it. Yet they once again allowed saddam to con them into letting him keep it.
Well, this is another problem for MSNBC/NBC; they obviously were lying because I jsut this minute heard Keith Olberman say that when the troops arrived there on APRIL 4th, 2003, there was widespread looting going on!
Now which is it?
Also, on The Panel tonight, Mort said that the IAEA didn't even informed the United States that the explosives were THERE until May of 2003!
The media are starting to eat there own. We may get fair reporting yet. I won't hold my breath of course.
let me remove the elite media stick from my a** that has been placed there by the NYT, LAT and cBS......
Notice the parsing of the NYT's statement, esp. near the end. I'd love to cross-examine someone about it.
Exactly. If it was so important, it would have been nice to let us know before May.
And, I've yet to watch the VCR tape but it's my understanding that FNC showed actual film footage provided by Dana Lewis. The footage showed soldiers inspecting the facility.
The Beltway Boys also said it was entirely possible after listening to Dana Lewis describe how bombed out the entire facility was and the surrounding area that the weapons were blown to smithereens. (I doubt that happened but it's possible).
And Bret Baer said it would ahve taken over 35 semi trucks to haul away 380 tons of explosives and there's no way that many trucks were allowed near that facility, took the time to load, then drove away unimpeded. The entire area was loaded with soldiers.
You all saw this, didn't you? Someone posted it, but it was removed...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20041026/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons
Their 'defense' is very carefully worded:
Our front page story of October 25 reported accurately that a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science & Technology informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in a letter on October 10 that the materials were lost from the Al-qaqaa site after April 9, 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security.
They are careful to say that they only reported the existence of this letter. They are not saying they ever tried to confirm its accuracy in any way, which they didn't. They are basically admitting that they chose to run a story on their front page, critical of an administration they are openly antagonistic towards, a week before the election, from a single source (that is also openly at odds with this administration) without any confirmation or investigation as to its veracity.
The agenda of ousting this "regime" was far more important to them than any sort of journalistic integrity, and they are openly admitting it.
The one tenth of one percent that may or may not have got away!
Demos seem very confused. For months now they've been telling us that Iraq was no threat. Now they want to ignore the 400,000 tons of explosives we've captured and/or destroyed and talk about the 380 tons, we may or may not have missed.
Ah, you can do better Mr. Kerry!
Of the 216 years of this country's history, only 5 have been led by a president elected from a sitting legislature. I don't think Mr. Kerry is going to change that trend.
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