O’Hanlon: Iraq Trip Relied On ‘The Itinerary The Defense Department Developed’

I just emailed this request to the New York Times Op/Ed Page. How much is anyone willing to bet that the Times won't retract the op/ed piece or demand an apology???

Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:26:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Craig Faanes"
Subject: Will You Now Demand a Retraction ?
To: oped@nytimes.com
Dear New York Times Op/Ed

On July 30, 2007, you published an opinion article by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack titled "A War We Just Might Win."

Subsequent coverage of the op/ed piece by the New York Times, other media outlets, and the Fox Opinion Network portrayed O'Hanlon and Pollack as, among other things, long-time opponents of the war in Iraq.

Check here and here.

Subsequent analysis plus an interview with Glenn Greenwald has revealed, among other things, that all of the "progress" the authors of your op/ed piece wrote were fabricated at best.

Here are some salient points from that interview with Greenwald

A rushed, cherry-picked trip: O’Hanlon admitted that they spent approximately “between 2-4 hours” in every area they visited outside Baghdad, “and much of that was taken up meeting U.S. military commanders, not inspecting the proverbial ‘conditions on the ground.’” “They spent every night ensconced in the Green Zone in Baghdad,” adds Greenwald.

Pentagon “choreographed” the trip: In the op-ed, the analysts boast, “We just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel.” But O’Hanlon admitted: “The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed. … For the most part, the conversations were ones arranged by D.O.D”

Unrepresentative view of Iraq: “If someone wanted to argue that we were not getting a representative view of Iraqis because the ones we spoke with were provided by the military, I would agree that this would be a genuine concern,” said O’Hanlon. “By no means did all of the Iraqis agree with the view of progress in Iraq.”

Now that it has been shown beyond any doubt that the NY Times was once again (just like Judith Miller) duped into publishing faulty information, can we expect the Times op/ed page to write a retraction, demand an apology from the biased writers of that op/ed piece, and perhaps bring charges of fraud against them?

For the life of me I do not understand the need for the Times or any other of the three or four mainsteam media outlets in the country, to rush to find good things about Bush's war. Each and every time the media do that, and its subsequently shown to be a fabrication, the truthfulness of the media are questioned.

Now that the O'Hanlon and Pollack piece has been written there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. You, the New York Times, should be massively ashamed of yourselves for being blindsided once again in the rush to make the catastrophe in Iraq not appear as devastating as it is. The damage has been done and you are the catalyst for making that happen. Heckuva job, NY Times.

Most disgustedly,

Craig Faanes