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Dept. of MediaApril 14, 2006

Vacating the Premises, Cont'd

The Washington Post editorial board's Iraqi quagmire

By Erik Wemple

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The folks at the Washington Post's editorial board don't generally set out to make news with their opinions, but that's what happened last Sunday. An unsigned editorial praised President Bush for authorizing a highly selective leak of intelligence on Iraq to a “favorite New York Times reporter.”

In the piece, titled “A Good Leak,” the Post argued that “[p]residents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do.”

The leak in question was handled in the summer of 2003 by I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Around that time, the Bush administration was getting hammered for the shaky data that had justified its invasion of Iraq just months earlier. Part of the case-building was a White House claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had gone shopping for uranium in Niger[*], a claim that would spark numerous inquiries and a debate that shows no sign of dying.

Against this backdrop, Libby, acting with Cheney's encouragement, pressed the administration's case with New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other journalists. In the discussions, Libby drew on information from classified documents. For instance, he told Miller that the uranium-shopping claim was among the findings of a classified 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

On the same day that Post opinionmongers were praising the Bushies for this disclosure, the news side of the Post spanked the administration. Why? Because the information that Libby and Cheney “selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before,” according to a front-page Post piece.

The critics had a nice time with the editorial. Huffingtonpost.com, thinkprogress.org, and Editor & Publisher each savaged the celebration of Bush administration press relations. Jane Hamsher of huffingtonpost.com called the piece “an enormous turd that editorial page editor Fred Hiatt is no doubt behind…an unmitigated piece of BushCo. propaganda, such a giant bag of bs it deserves to be taken apart, piece by piece and beaten into the ground."

When not referencing droppings, the critics slammed the Post for applauding an administration bent on covering its ass by planting selective and misleading information with reporters. To which Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt responds, in essence: That's journalism.

"I would say a lot of people will look back at this period and think it's strange that we in the press got ourselves in the position of arguing that government leaks are a bad thing,” says Hiatt, pointing out that a news piece in the same day's Post on Iran's nuclear weapons program was based on leaks. “If we're going to start saying we don't want them, OK, let's go into a different business.”

And Hiatt insists that the administration had powerful motives for disseminating the intelligence it had on Iraq before the invasionublicatinamely, to counter the charges made by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had conducted a fact-finding trip to Niger. “Joe Wilson's allegation was that President Bush before the war in 2002 had lied or manipulated intelligence in order to provide grounds for going to war. That is a very serious charge, and what was in the NIE was relevant.”

The Libby leaks weren't the first time that an administration tried to influence news with carefully chosen disclosures. “I think reporters always have a responsibility to try and give readers as much as they can on the context for leaks and motivations of leakers,” says Hiatt.

Though “A Good Leak” may read like the work of a bunch of Bush apologists, it's not. In its voluminous opining on the administration's Iraq work in recent years, the Post editorial board has taken plenty of shots at Cheney & Co.

All of it would have the ring of authority if the Post would simply say, “We're sorry for backing an ill-conceived war in the first place.” Other publications—notably the New Republic and the New York Times—have acknowledged their gullibility in swallowing administration propaganda about Iraq's weapons programs.

The Post's editorialists bought the White House line in full, yet they haven't gone the mea culpa route. They flirted with accountability in an October 2003 editorial, which reads in part: “Were we wrong? The honest answer is: We don't yet know.”

Well, that was two and a half years ago. Do we know enough now to admit the mistake? When asked that question, Hiatt responded, “I'm not getting into that subject...I guess what we have to say about that I would say in an editorial.”

In 2004, Dept. of Media began chronicling the paper's proclamations on this pivotal topic (“Fire in the Belli,” 10/15) and hereby updates the tale:

(click for larger image)

CP

CORRECTION, 10:50 A.M., 4/14: Erik Wemple mistakenly indicated that Iraq had allegedly sought uranium from Nigeria. The nation actually mentioned in the allegations is Niger. Due to an editing error during the Web layout, this was sentence was changed to read that Iraq “had gone shopping for uranium in Nigeria claim that would spark numerous inquiries....” The sentence in the printed edition correctly refers to Niger.

Media tips and observations? Send them to Dept. of Media at mediatips@washingtoncitypaper.com.