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NEW YORK TIMES MAKES GLARING ERROR ABOUT IRAQ WAR -- THEN CORRECTS IT INCORRECTLY
Two decades after its catastrophic failure on Iraq, the Times still can’t get basic facts straight.
Jon Schwarz
March 30 2023, 4:37 p.m.
(snip)
The UNSCOM inspections protocol was created by U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, which ended the 1991 Gulf War following Iraq’s retreat from Kuwait. UNSC 687 demanded that Iraq disclose all its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. Harsh sanctions would remain on Iraq until it had verifiably done so. At that point, however, the sanctions would be lifted. Also, Iraq’s disarmament would “represent steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction.”
But President George H.W. Bush immediately announced that the U.S. would ignore all of this, and maintain the sanctions — whether Iraq was or wasn’t disarmed — until Saddam Hussein was forced from power. (You can read about this in the New York Times.) In fact, the sanctions were seen as a way to make life in Iraq so miserable that Iraqis would be motivated to overthrow Saddam.
This stance was later reiterated by President Bill Clinton, as well as his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. What UNSC 687 said didn’t matter; sanctions would remain until Saddam was gone.
(snip)
The Times coverage of Iraq and its purported weapons of mass destruction was so atrocious in the lead-up to war in 2003 that the paper eventually had to issue an extensive mea culpa. So you’d like to believe that it now would concentrate on getting it right, at long last. However, that’s clearly a vain dream. It’s inevitable that for the rest of our lives, the Times will intermittently claim Saddam threw out the inspectors. Our only hope to prevent this would be to get reporters at the Times a subscription to the paper.
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/30/new-york-times-iraq-war-error/
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