Gov’t-NY Times collude in new “WMD” war pretext?

Re-reporting, excerpting, minor editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

FAIR breaks through tissue of lies

Censoring the full text of one of the U.S. embassy cables, this one concerning a Russian and U.S. discussion of an alleged Iranian missile, a mainstream U.S. newspaper, the New York Times, is again pushing a U.S./Iraq-style-weapons-of-mass-destruction pretext for war.

In a November 29 2010, article, the New York Times cherry picks a U.S. embassy cable published by the WikiLeaks website, a cable the Times fails to publish on its website ‘at the request of the Obama administration’ — alleging that Iran possesses powerful missiles with ‘the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe.’ The Times selectively uses information from that cable to bolster U.S. claims against Iran, says media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. This selective information, FAIR says, “appears to rest on incredibly shaky evidence…”

The cable in question describes a December 2009 meeting between U.S. and Russian officials.

Quoting Gareth Porter (Inter Press Service November 30, 2010), FAIR explains that “the decision to conceal the cable meant that readers ‘could not compare the highly distorted account of the document in the Times story against the original document without searching the WikiLeaks website.’” The WikiLeaks website itself as well as its founder has been under threat in recent days by corporate government.

At issue are 19 BM-25 missiles Iran allegedly bought from North Korea about which “a senior U.S. intelligence official” is quoted in the Washington Post disputing the claim that such a transaction ever occurred. “‘There has been a flow of knowledge and missile parts’ from North Korea to Iran … ‘but sale of such an actual missile does not fully check out.’”

Yet the Times’ selective [U.S. government] account claimed, ‘Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.’

Omitted in the Times article (but in the full text of the cable) was that “Russia said during its presentations in Moscow and comments thus far during current talks that the U.S. has discussed the BM-25 as an existing system.” However [also in the cable], “Russia questioned the basis for this assumption and asked the U.S. to provide any facts it had, such as launches, photos, etc., of its existence. For Russia, the BM-25 is a mysterious missile.” The cable continues.

“North Korea has not conducted any tests of this missile, but the U.S. has said that North Korea transferred 19 of these missiles to Iran.

“It is hard for Russia to follow the logic trail on this.

“Since Russia has not seen any evidence of this missile being developed or tested, it is hard for Russia to imagine that Iran would buy an untested system.

“Russia does not understand how a deal would be made for an untested missile.

“References to the missile’s existence are more in the domain of political literature than technical fact.

“In short, for Russia, there is a question about the existence of this system.”

FAIR summarized: “Not only were the Russians not convinced that Iran had purchased these missiles, they were not sure that these missiles even existed. The cable went on to note that the U.S. view is that the Iranians might be buying a system that does not work in order to adapt the technology to its existing missile program. Either way, the full contents of the cable give a much different picture than the Times gave its readers.…

“If the Iraq War has taught us anything, it is that claims made by the U.S. government about enemy weapons systems are not necessarily true. The New York Times, which played a critical role in promoting [the George W.] Bush administration’s disinformation about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal …, appears not to have learned this lesson — treating as fact allegations made in secret documents that it declined to share with readers while omitting doubts and caveats contained in those same documents.”

Sources
“NYT’s [New York Times] Iran Missile Fizzle — Paper cites WikiLeaks cable, but omits doubts” (Peter Hart, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR alert/blog), December 1, 2010, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4206

Cablegate, http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
“Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea” (William J. Broad, James Glanz and David E. Sanger), November 28, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html?ref=middleeast
“Wider Window into Iran’s Missile Capabilities Offers a Murkier View” (Mark Mazzetti and William J. Broad), December 3, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/middleeast/03wikileaks-missile.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Iran&st=cse
“Experts question North Korea-Iran missile link from WikiLeaks document release” (John Pomfret and Walter Pincus), December 1, 2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113006781.html


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