Thursday, November 20, 2003

Fox News: War Support Slightly Up

You're all going to love this. In this article, Fox News claims:

Short-Term Memo-ry?

Over the weekend, the Weekly Standard published a "top secret U.S. government" memo detailing more than a decade of intelligence indicating an operating relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The Pentagon has since confirmed the memo's authenticity, but it has been almost entirely overlooked by major media.

USA Today has completely ignored it. The New York Times has yet to mention it on its news pages, though a column today mentions it. And The Washington Post got around to mentioning it on Sunday, dismissingly in the sixth paragraph of a much broader story.


Now let's look at a few of those statements a little closer:
The Pentagon has since confirmed the memo's authenticity, but it has been almost entirely overlooked by major media.

Here's what the DOD statement on Nov 15 said, in part:
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.
* * *
The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the National Security Agency or, in one case, the Defense Intelligence Agency. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the intelligence community. The selection of the documents was made by DoD to respond to the committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions.

Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.


And what about the Washington Post? I found articles mentioning the memo here, here, here and here--and this op-ed here.

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