Monday, December 15, 2003
Neocon Embedder: Judith Miller
(3-25-04)It's bad enough that The New York Times tried to bury the Richard A. Clarke story (his 60 Minutes interview about his forthcoming book, "Against All Enemies") on page 18 of Monday's edition but did they have to assign Judith Miller to the story? Ever since Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post (and others) wrote about Ms. Miller's chronic use of Ahmad Chalabi as an unnamed source for her numerous "Iraq had deadly WMD" hackjobs for the Bush Administration, her byline has rarely appeared. She only seems to write about events that duly concern her such as the anthrax attacks (she was either a victim of the mailer or of a copycat in December of 2001...and The Times has never been very clear about the entire incident...Ms. Miller claimed in interviews elsewhere that the mailer mentioned J-Lo just like the Florida letter and a plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago...) and Iraq's alleged ties to Al Qaeda.
In 1990 Judith Miller co-wrote a book, "Saddam Hussein and the crisis in the gulf" with Laurie Mylroie, who later wrote "The War Against America" which attempts to draw a connection between Saddam and the first World Trade Center Bombing. Since Mr. Clarke has mainly spoken out about the Bush Administration's obsession with Iraq instead of Al Qaeda, it seems odd that the Times would choose a journalist who subscribes to the same theories.
Judith Miller is also responsible for giving us the aluminum tubes story that was discredited by Joe Wilson (and led to Robert Novak's outing of Wilson's wife as a CIA agent) and the lie that Fort Dietrick was not involved in the manufacturing of any chemical weapons. She also had a correspondence with Dr. Kelly on the day that he died (supposedly by suicide). She's also falsely accused ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter of accepting Iraqi financing for his recent documentary. Along with Ms. Mylroie, Judith Miller also belongs to the repugnant Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum and (at the time their book was released) she was a fellow at the Bradley Foundation, which is tied to Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century.
www.nationalreview.com: "Mylroie's latest book, Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror, was just released. As the two-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached, Mylroie talked to NRO about Bush vs. the Beltway and the war on terror. (Mylroie can be reached at sam11@erols.com.)
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Who is the "Beltway" that Bush is battling against? Who's on the Bush side? Laurie Mylroie: The Beltway is first the bureaucracies, above all the CIA and State Department, which developed a certain perspective on Iraq and on terrorism during the Clinton years — namely that "containment" addressed the danger Iraq posed and that Iraq was not involved in terrorism. The Beltway also includes much of the media, as well as many Democrats. The Pentagon is on Bush's side, along with Congressional Republicans and the conservative media, generally. That would leave the president outnumbered — except he has the support of the majority of the American people, who basically understand why we went to war.Above all, the decision for war with Iraq was right; it was very courageous and it was absolutely necessary. Iraq was involved with al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks — which is what nearly 70 percent of the American public believes. Iraq's involvement in terrorism, along with its weapons, particularly its biological-weapons program, made war necessary.|
