Free Republic

NBC News anchor Brian Williams' 2006 claim that he saw a dead body float past his hotel window during Hurricane Katrina is drawing fresh skepticism in the wake of his own admission on Wednesday that he lied about being aboard a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire during the Iraq war. Despite a swift apology on his Nightly News program, Williams is at the center of a media firestorm after it emerged that his old war story that he has retold numerous times over the past 12 years has become increasingly exaggerated. Williams was forced to apologize this week...

I was the pilot in command of the flight that carried Brian Williams into Iraq in March 2003. The mission was to deliver bridges to the Objective Rams region in order to support our ground-force advancement. We were briefed that we would be operating forward of the line of troops and that the objective was unsecure. We were a flight of two, and I was the rear aircraft. Our flight to Objective Rams was uneventful, with the exception of a desert dust storm that caused deteriorating conditions not suitable for flight. We determined that we would not make it back...

You know you’re in trouble when Tom Brokaw is out for your blood. NBC’s most revered journalist is furious that Brian Williams is still in the anchor chair after he sheepishly admitted he hadn’t traveled on a helicopter hit by enemy fire. “Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter,” an NBC source said. “He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.” On Wednesday, Williams, 55, acknowledged that he had repeatedly said he was aboard a chopper that had been hit by a...

On Wednesday night, NBC News anchor Brian Williams apologized to the American people for lying for well over a decade about a heart-stopping war story starring himself. Williams claimed for years that he had ridden a Chinook hit by an Iraqi RPG. Last night, Williams stated, “I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.” He then added, “We all landed after the ground-fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sandstorm in the Iraqi desert.” Sadly, Williams’ apology is chock full of...

The Brian Williams scandal has burst onto the public square through a feat of Internet accountability. After NBC Nightly News last week posted to Facebook a clip of the anchor reminiscing about having embedded with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, some Facebookers took issue with the particulars. Whereas Williams claimed that he was riding in a helicopter that was forced down after being hit by an RPG, others had a different recollection. “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me...

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday that he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, recanting a claim that he and the network had repeated for years -- most recently on Friday night. Contrary to Williams' past claims that he was traveling in a Chinook helicopter that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire on March 24, he arrived at the scene in a separate helicopter about an hour later. He apparently was never in any danger, and the Chinook that took fire, one of three in...

Williams, the anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," apologized on Wednesday for claiming -- as recently as last Friday -- that he'd been aboard a helicopter that was "forced down after being hit by an RPG." The incident happened on March 24, 2003. A Chinook helicopter was forced down by enemy fire. But Williams was not aboard. Stars and Stripes reported on Wednesday that "Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter," one that "took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert." Williams is blaming...