Readers might remember that the Post's editorial board adopted a similarly dismissive attitude toward the so-called "Downing Street Memos," which were leaked in Great Britain in 2005. They revealed that the British government was aware in mid-2002 that President Bush was set on invading Iraq over its alleged weapons of mass destruction and that the intelligence was being "fixed" around the policy.
When this information was revealed three years later and received virtually no attention in the pro-invasion Washington Post a number of readers complained, prompting the Post's august editorial board to publish a patronizing editorial on June 15, 2005, stating:
"The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002."
As I wrote at the time: "Oh, really? While it may be true that some people were alleging what the secret British memos now confirm, those people were vocal opponents of invading Iraq and were treated by the Post and other pro-war news outlets as fringe characters fit only to be ignored.
"For example, many war critics asserted that Bush's decision to take his case against Iraq to the United Nations was a ploy designed only to justify a predetermined course for invasion. In other words, the critics felt that Bush and his allies were not acting in good faith, but simply wanted some political cover for an illegal war.
"That, of course, was not the judgment of editorialists at the Washington Post, the New York Times or other major newspapers who praised Bush for going to the UN on the advice of supposed moderates such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Indeed, looking back to late 2002 and early 2003, it would be hard to find any "reputable' commentary in the mainstream press calling Bush's actions fraudulent, which is what the British evidence reveals them to be.
"That sense of willful deception which pervades the British memos is why so many American citizens are furious both at Bush for misleading the country to war and at the mainstream news media for failing to adequately challenge the administration's claims about the need to invade Iraq." [For more, see Consortiumnews.com's "LMSM the Lying Mainstream Media."]
"Vague but Intriguing'
In mid-2005, the Post's editorialists deemed the "fixed" intelligence comment to be "vague but intriguing," before dismissing its significance by noting that several official U.S. government investigations didn't accuse the Bush administration of politicizing the intelligence.
Of course, the editorial didn't mention that the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership had barred the investigations from examining that issue.
Similarly today, the Post appears more eager to dismiss and discredit Iraq War critics than to confess to its own incompetence and complicity. The simple truth is that the Post editorial pages have gotten the Iraq story wrong from the start.
As the nation lurched toward war in 2002-2003, editorial page editor Fred Hiatt not only fell for the Bush administration's WMD claims, but he treated dissent toward those assertions as unthinkable.
"The [Post] editorials during December [2002] and January [2003] numbered nine, and all were hawkish," wrote Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin. "This editorial mood continued into February, culminating in a blast at the French and Germans headlined "Standing With Saddam.' Apparently it's not only George W. Bush who doesn't nuance." [American Prospect, April 1, 2003]
After Secretary of State Powell made his now-infamous presentation of the Iraq WMD evidence to the UN on Feb. 5, 2003, Hiatt's editorial page judged Powell's case "irrefutable" and added: "it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the failure to discover WMD, Hiatt acknowledged that the Post should have been more circumspect.
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