Page 77 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Weapons of Mass Diversion 67

Supposedly, she was "shit to the people she work[ed] with'''-her zealous
pursuit of stories affording her a reputation as a bit obsessive and difficult to
work with.
In the paper's pre-war reporting, Miller provided the New York Times with a
consistent string of information regarding WMD from Alunad Chalabi, an Iraqi
defector associated with the Iraqi National Congress who was determined to rid
Iraq of Saddam and help implement a government representing Western, as well
as his own personal interests. Judith Miller herself admitted that Chalabi
"provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper" in the pre-
war period.41 In late 2001 and 2002, Miller ran a number of stories in the New
York Times that shed light upon Iraq's supposed efforts to produce WMD. These
reports originated largely from information provided by Chalabi and his
associates, although the stories seem to have been driven largely by his personal
interest in toppling Saddam Hussein so as to make room in the new government
for Iraqi exiles. The Washington Post reported that, "Miller['s] prewar stories
about whether Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction were later disavowed
by the New York Times as ina~curate.''~ In addition to relying on Chalabi, Miller
drew many of her stories from the Pentagon, more specifically, with Richard
Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.
Miller indicated in regards to her reporting on Iraqi that the job of a
journalist is to uncritically repeat the charges of political officials in power.
Miller explained: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be
an independent intelligence analyst myself. . . . My job is to tell readers of the
New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's ar~enal.''~ But
Miller omitted an important point, namely that she also considered it part of her
job not to cite independent intelligence analysts who disagreed with the Bush
administration on the WMD issue. Apparently, these figures were not
considered a legitimate part of the relevant government opinion in which Miller
spoke of.
As a result of her comfortable ties with high-ranking Pentagon and Bush
administration officials, Miller was rewarded substantially during the early
stages of the Iraq war; taking a position as an "embedded" journalist with the
Mobile Exploitation Team (MET), she was allowed to follow American forces
that were ordered to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.
Miller no longer works for the New York Times, primarily as a result of a
falling out with the paper's editors after her refusal to reveal her sources for the
government leak that led to an uncovering of an undercover CIA agent. Some
critics have singled out Miller for unprofessional reporting. Jack Shafer of Slate
argues that:
The most important question to unravel about Judith Miller's reporting is this:
Has she grown too close to her sources to be trusted to get it right or to recant
her findings when it's proved that she got it wrong? Because the Times sets the
news agenda for the press and the nation, Miller's reporting had a great impact
on the national debate over the wisdom of the Iraq invasion. If she was reliably
wrong about Iraq's WMD, she might have played a major role in encouraging
the United States to attack a nation that posed it little threat.44