Pacific Views

Unusually strong words.

From the New York Times, in the first few paragraphs of Douglas Jehl's story summing up the activities of the 9/11 commission.

For most of 2002, President Bush argued that a commission created to look into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks would only distract from the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.

Now, in 17 preliminary staff reports, that panel has called into question nearly every aspect of the administration's response to terror, including the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda were somehow the same foe.

Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House.

It looks to us like the Times is working really hard to compensate for their uncritical reporting of Dubya's pre-war claims about Iraq's supposed WMDs and connection to terrorism.

Posted by Magpie at June 18, 2004 05:51 AM | War on Terrorism | Technorati links |