Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Media Disinformation: Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents

New York Times vs McClatchy

by Greg Mitchell
(Greg Mitchell's new book explores Gordon's and McClatchy's past reporting on Iraq and Iran. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.")
Global Research, May 6, 2008

"Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.

Gordon asserts that “Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately......

But McClatchy has a quite different take.

Leila Fadel, the bureau chief, and Shashank Bengali report: “The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.

“As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months......."

No comments: