Lets start with this commentary by Ari Berman on The Nation: posted September 17, 2003 (web only)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030929&s=bermanThe Postwar Post
Ari Berman
On February 7, two days after Colin Powell's much-lauded presentation before the United Nations Security Council, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus described how foreign government officials, terrorism experts and members of Congress disputed a key claim: the supposed link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Despite the article's relevance, the Post buried it in journalistic no man's land--page A21--where it had little effect. An article a week later by Pincus and military correspondent Dana Priest, "Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy," got a similar A20 placement.
On March 16 another Pincus article, "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms," explained that US intelligence agencies believed the Bush Administration had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam's purported stocks of WMD. Its placement: A17. Two days later, Pincus and White House correspondent Dana Milbank wrote a strenuous indictment of the Administration's rationales for war: "As the Bush Administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that have been challenged--and in some cases disproved--by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports." That one managed to vault only up to A13.
It wasn't until May 29, almost a month after Bush declared an end to major combat operations, that Pincus, along with co-writer Karen DeYoung, broke onto the front page with a story headlined "U.S. Hedges on Finding Iraqi Weapons; Officials Cite the Possibilities of Long or Fruitless Search for Banned Arms." At that point, with guerrilla attacks rising, postwar planning in disarray and the weapons highlighted by the Bush Administration nowhere to be found, experts and politicians on Pincus's intelligence beat--and, more important, his own editors--began to stir. In June and July, stories about Iraq-related intelligence controversies written or co-written by Pincus, Priest and Milbank appeared on the front page twenty-one times. Between July 15 and July 21, their breaking news stories were on page one seven days in a row.
The Post's sluggish start, followed by its abrupt shift into high gear, was not lost on readers--including its own ombudsman. "There was a disconcerting pattern of underplayed or missed stories that were not up to the coverage that followed during and after the war," says Michael Getler, who's written critically of his paper's prewar failure to acknowledge dissenting voices.
-snip-
Some of those reports:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A30601-2003Mar15¬Found=trueU.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned ArmsBy Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A17
Despite the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden, according to administration officials and members of Congress.
Senior intelligence analysts say they feel caught between the demands from White House, Pentagon and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the administration's case "and what they say is a lack of hard facts," one official said.
"They have only circumstantial evidence . . . nothing that proves this amount or that," said an individual who has regularly been briefed by the CIA.
The assertions, coming on the eve of a possible decision by President Bush to go to war against Iraq, have raised concerns among some members of the intelligence community about whether administration officials have exaggerated intelligence in a desire to convince the American public and foreign governments that Iraq is violating United Nations prohibitions against chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and long-range missile systems.
"They see a particular truck associated with chemical weapons activities keep reappearing, and they estimate chemical activities are there, but that and most intelligence would not pass the courtroom evidence test. For policymakers, who are out on a limb, that is not enough," one official said, adding that he questioned whether the administration is shaping intelligence for political purposes.
Said another senior intelligence analyst, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, we professionals say it's a duck. . . . They
want a smoking duck."
-snip-
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42517-2003Mar17?language=printer
Bush Clings To Dubious Allegations About Iraq
By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A13
As the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that have been challenged -- and in some cases disproved -- by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports.
For months, President Bush and his top lieutenants have produced a long list of Iraqi offenses, culminating Sunday with Vice President Cheney's assertion that Iraq has "reconstituted nuclear weapons." Previously, administration officials have tied Hussein to al Qaeda, to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and to an aggressive production of biological and chemical weapons. Bush reiterated many of these charges in his address to the nation last night.
But these assertions are hotly disputed. Some of the administration's evidence -- such as Bush's assertion that Iraq sought to purchase uranium -- has been refuted by subsequent discoveries. Other claims have been questioned, though their validity can be known only after U.S. forces occupy Iraq.
In outlining his case for war on Sunday, Cheney focused on how much more damage al Qaeda could have done on Sept. 11 "if they'd had a nuclear weapon and detonated it in the middle of one of our cities, or if they had unleashed . . . biological weapons of some kind, smallpox or anthrax." He then tied that to evidence found in Afghanistan of how al Qaeda leaders "have done everything they could to acquire those capabilities over the years."
But in October CIA Director George J. Tenet told Congress that Hussein would not give such weapons to terrorists unless he decided helping "terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."
In his appearance Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," the vice president argued that "we believe has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." But Cheney contradicted that assertion moments later, saying it was "only a matter of time before he acquires nuclear weapons." Both assertions were contradicted earlier by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who reported that "there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities."
-snip-
Here are some post war comments by the WP ombudsman: Michael Getler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54944-2004Jun19.html
-snip-
Yet the number of challenging stories that editors put inside the paper was, to some readers and frequently to me, dismaying. Warrick's important initial report on the nuclear program, for example, on Sept. 19, 2002, headlined: "Evidence on Iraq Challenged; Experts Question If Tubes Were Meant for Weapons Program," went on Page A18.
Here's a sampling of other stories that didn't make the front page. "Observers: Evidence for War Lacking; Report Against Iraq Holds Little That's New," by Dana Priest and Joby Warrick, Sept 13, 2002; "Unwanted Debate on Iraq-Al Qaeda Links Revived" by Karen DeYoung, Sept. 27, 2002; "U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program; IAEA Unable to Verify U.S. Claims," by Colum Lynch, Jan 29, 2003; "Bin Laden-Hussein Link Hazy," by Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, Feb. 13, 2003; "U.S. Increases Estimated Cost Of War in Iraq; Military Expenses Alone Projected at Up To $95 Billion," by Mike Allen, Feb. 26, 2003; "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms," by Walter Pincus, March 16, 2003; "Legality of War Is A Matter Of Debate; Many Scholars Doubt Assertion by Bush," by Peter Slevin, March 18, 2003; "Bush Clings to Dubious Allegations About Iraq," by Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank, March 18, 2003.
Among the public events that were missed or underreported during the second half of 2002 were early doubts by some Republicans such as former House majority leader Richard K. Armey and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft; hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during which alternative strategies were discussed; hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee at which retired four-star generals urged caution; comprehensive challenges in early speeches by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, both Democrats; coverage of big demonstrations here and abroad that didn't make the front page, and coverage surrounding the views of outgoing Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki.
-snip-
Last but not least: Mike Ruppert refers to some of Pincus's PRE war stories, and Pincus's shady past ....
From The Wilderness: A Perfect Storm II
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/032503_perfect_storm_2.html
March 16 – On the same day as the Carlyle story, one of The Washington Post's biggest pundits for several decades, Walter Pincus, fired a serious shot into the administration's belly. To veterans of the 1996-98 popular nationwide campaign to expose CIA connections to cocaine trafficking, Pincus' name will be remembered as one of the chief defenders of the CIA. In fact, Pincus has been one of the Post's primary CIA conduits for more than thirty years. In 1967, he wrote a short feature for the Post titled, "How I Traveled the World on a CIA Stipend."
In a story titled "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms", Pincus described how U.S. "Senior intelligence analysts say they feel caught between the demands from the White House, Pentagon and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the administration's case 'and what they say is a lack of hard facts,' one official said.
"The assertions, coming on the eve of a possible decision by President Bush to go to war against Iraq, have raised concerns among some members of the intelligence community about whether administration officials have exaggerated intelligence in a desire to convince the American public..."
Pincus went on to detail how key U.S. Senators like Carl Levin and John Warner were questioning data that had apparently been misrepresented and/or hidden from the U.N.
An ominous note at the end of the story, reminding anyone who read it of Watergate and the demise of the Nixon presidency, added "Staff Writer Bob Woodward contributed to this report."
March 18 – Pincus returned again, in the company of Post Staff Writer Dana Milbank, to place more bricks in the wall that might seal the administration's fate. The story titled, "Bush Clings to Dubious Allegations About Iraq" opened with the lead, "As the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that have been challenged – and in some cases disproved – by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports."
The story went on to document misrepresentations by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell that made it clear that if George W. Bush was going down his whole administration was going with him. It was now a part of the official Washington record that all three had been guilty of misrepresentations to the press and the American people.
-snip-
So, as you can see ... Pincus DID in fact print a number of PRE war columns which were expressions of the CIA/DIA brotherhood, AGAINST the adminstration amd its war desires ....
You can hate Pincus, but he did ultimately deliver the real deal .... amongst the best in the early 2003 timeframe ....
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