Selective reporting at the WaPO

Captain's Quarters:

The Washington Post runs a deceptive and dishonest report about the evaluation of the Iraqi trailers that had been identified as biological weapons labs prior to the invasion in March 2003. Their front-page story announces breathlessly that the Bush administration ignored the findings of a team of experts who concluded that the trailers could not have acted as portable bioweapons platforms prior to a Bush announcement of exactly the opposite -- but below the fold, they tell a different story.

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... What the Post neglects to mention in its sensationalist zeal is that this was one of several teams that investigated the trailers, and the totality of their evaluations came to a different conclusion that that of the leakers who supplied this story. Skip down to the 12th paragraph, which is when Joby Warrick finally gets around to providing the context:

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The Pentagon didn't send one team of experts to review the trailers; they sent three, presumably to get a diverse analysis of the evidence, especially since the pre-war intel on WMD had come up remarkably short. That sounds like a prudent strategy to me, having competing teams research the same equipment and evidence to develop independent analyses to present to the Pentagon. They did so, and two of the three teams provided conclusions that fit the pre-war intel, while one did not.

So where's the issue? It turns out that the minority report was the correct analysis after all, of course, but at the time Bush spoke it was just that -- a minority report. To put it in advertising terms, two out of three inspectors agreed that the trailers were part of Saddam's WMD effort. The Pentagon relied on that majority opinion, as did the administration, and no one can argue that doing so constituted either an intent to deceive or even an unreasonable decision at the time.

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This is just more revisionist history by the Post and some of its anti Bush reporters and editors.

Riehl World View also notes:

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... The Post's story clearly defines intelligence, right or wrong in hindsight, which was accepted by many before the war and used in part as a justification for the war. The faulty headline blurs that point significantly.

The second issue with the story has to do with their claiming a certain report was received prior to the President making certain claims. Clearly the final report wasn't issued until weeks later. Nothing in the article suggests the President knew of any of the information before the cited statement.

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Confederate Yankee says:

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This is willful misrepresentation of the facts by Joby Warrick and the editors of the Washington Post in a page one story. There were indeed varied interpretations of the suitability of these trailers to manufacture bio-weapons, yet the Post article purposefully decived its readers to lend weight and column inches to the minority viewpoint that was not unanimous as they suggested.

This appears to be a specific, calculated deception of a national newspaper’s readership. The Washington Post must be held accountable.

Don't hold your breath.