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Excerpts; link to entire article below; my emphasis.
"The New York Times occupies an elevated strata of journalism. But do the rest of us below that level of influence and reach - this newspaper's Editorial Board being my concern - also have a responsibility to explain ourselves?"
"At a point in March 2003, before the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq, we noted the inevitability of the war, saying, "The war, should it occur, would be additionally tragic, because a new weapons inspections strategy proposed by Canada constitutes the template of a wise alternative that could result in Iraq's disarmament, a change in regime or both." We added, "Given the stakes involved, isn't it worth one last try before opting for war?"
Notice, however, that we still believed in Iraqi WMD, though on March 18, on war's eve, we noted Bush's changing rationale for going to war: "At first it was disarmament, then regime change, finally, the liberation of Iraq that would result in falling dominoes of democracy throughout the Middle East."
Then the United States invaded and this board, like editorial boards everywhere, began asking the fateful question: "Where are the WMD?" And, of course, they were not to be found because they didn't exist.Since then, we've been critical of the administration's rationale for going to war and its conduct, culminating most recently with calling for a flexible timetable for U.S. withdrawal.
All of which is by way of mitigation for one central and inescapable fact. We did believe Hussein had WMD and we wrote that he did.
Yes, as a 10-member Editorial Board back then, we didn't have the resources - unlike the administration and the U.N. - to independently verify what was or wasn't in Iraq. We didn't have access to secret intelligence. Like you, we read voraciously on the topic and made the best editorial decisions we thought we could. There was countervailing evidence even back then, of course, but the overwhelming weight of the evidence available to us was that Hussein did indeed have WMD.
Now, of course, we discover much evidence that the intelligence fed the public, including us, was "cooked" or "fixed" - choose your favorite description - around what the administration viewed as its most salable argument. Americans were not likely to favor invasion because of the dominoes-of-democracy theory nor because Hussein was a monster. Vietnam is a word that still resonates, and what made this particular monster any more worth toppling than the world's many other monsters?
But, yes, regrettably on the matter of WMD, count us as among the many who were duped. We should have been more skeptical. For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn't believe that the president's central WMD argument warranted war. Not then and especially not now.
So there it is - with an addendum. We take responsibility for being duped on the matter of WMD - and still arguing against war - but at what point will those doing the duping be held accountable for taking us to war? Two thousand U.S. dead - and up to 30,000 Iraqi dead - and still counting."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/oct05/366568.asp
"The New York Times occupies an elevated strata of journalism. But do the rest of us below that level of influence and reach - this newspaper's Editorial Board being my concern - also have a responsibility to explain ourselves?"
"At a point in March 2003, before the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq, we noted the inevitability of the war, saying, "The war, should it occur, would be additionally tragic, because a new weapons inspections strategy proposed by Canada constitutes the template of a wise alternative that could result in Iraq's disarmament, a change in regime or both." We added, "Given the stakes involved, isn't it worth one last try before opting for war?"
Notice, however, that we still believed in Iraqi WMD, though on March 18, on war's eve, we noted Bush's changing rationale for going to war: "At first it was disarmament, then regime change, finally, the liberation of Iraq that would result in falling dominoes of democracy throughout the Middle East."
Then the United States invaded and this board, like editorial boards everywhere, began asking the fateful question: "Where are the WMD?" And, of course, they were not to be found because they didn't exist.Since then, we've been critical of the administration's rationale for going to war and its conduct, culminating most recently with calling for a flexible timetable for U.S. withdrawal.
All of which is by way of mitigation for one central and inescapable fact. We did believe Hussein had WMD and we wrote that he did.
Yes, as a 10-member Editorial Board back then, we didn't have the resources - unlike the administration and the U.N. - to independently verify what was or wasn't in Iraq. We didn't have access to secret intelligence. Like you, we read voraciously on the topic and made the best editorial decisions we thought we could. There was countervailing evidence even back then, of course, but the overwhelming weight of the evidence available to us was that Hussein did indeed have WMD.
Now, of course, we discover much evidence that the intelligence fed the public, including us, was "cooked" or "fixed" - choose your favorite description - around what the administration viewed as its most salable argument. Americans were not likely to favor invasion because of the dominoes-of-democracy theory nor because Hussein was a monster. Vietnam is a word that still resonates, and what made this particular monster any more worth toppling than the world's many other monsters?
But, yes, regrettably on the matter of WMD, count us as among the many who were duped. We should have been more skeptical. For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn't believe that the president's central WMD argument warranted war. Not then and especially not now.
So there it is - with an addendum. We take responsibility for being duped on the matter of WMD - and still arguing against war - but at what point will those doing the duping be held accountable for taking us to war? Two thousand U.S. dead - and up to 30,000 Iraqi dead - and still counting."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/oct05/366568.asp
