http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112805.htmlBuried deep in an article by the Washington Post’s media writer Howard Kurtz is new evidence that senior Bush administration officials knew their case for war with Iraq was shaky – and that the Post’s star reporter Bob Woodward ducked his duty to the American people to present this information before the invasion began.
Toward the end of a lengthy Style section piece on Nov. 28, Kurtz makes reference to an interview he did with Woodward in 2004, in which the famed Watergate reporter laments his failure to turn a more critical eye on the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
In the new article, Kurtz wrote, “Woodward has faulted himself for not being more aggressive before the war when three sources told him the weapons intelligence on Iraq was not as strong as the administration was claiming. ‘I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder,’ he said last year.”
That Woodward quote about blaming himself came from an Aug. 12, 2004, article that Kurtz wrote about shortcomings in the Post’s pre-war coverage of the WMD issue. But that article made no reference to Woodward having three of his own presumably well-placed sources challenging the administration’s WMD intelligence.
Instead, Kurtz’s 2004 article focused on Woodward’s pre-invasion efforts to help Post investigative reporter Walter Pincus polish up one of his story that raised doubts about the WMD assertions. But without Woodward’s full participation, the Pincus story ended up stuck on Page A17, a marginal item that did little to deter the march to war.
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