How Unknowables Become Mantras in an Election Year
Even if you only have time to read a few choice portions, take a few minutes to actually read the Senate Intel Committee’s report on pre-Iraq intel for yourself. Then compare it the way “news” stories filter it. William Safire—a columnist, not a reporter—does the best job of analyzing its meaning. Most importantly, he preserves the integrity of his logic by admitting the unknowables, of which there are many when you’re dealing with secretive regimes, shadowy terrorists, and their deepest secrets.
The thrust of the report is that the CIA’s preconceptions and selective reporting were processed with bad logic to produce wrong conclusions. Ironically, that’s exactly what you’ll see if you compare the actual report to this kind of lousy reporting. It covers the report’s conclusions on the Niger uranium story like a fly at a picnic, superficially landing on “useful” excerpts and quotes just long enough to dirty up the whole meal. Of course, the NYT has little to say about how the Niger story first became such a big deal, when it dumped its dwindling flask of credibility into the leaky vessel known as Joe Wilson (do you suppose his next book will be ghosted by Jayson Blair or Rick Bragg?). The report recites a list of strong evidence to suggest that Iraq did indeed try to buy Nigerien (and didn’t you always wonder how you spell that?) uranium, but you wouldn’t know that by reading the papers.
In an election year, there is no resisting the electromagnetic attraction of a loaded conclusion. No one will ever admit that there might still be facts and secrets we just don’t know yet. People like the “reporters” at the NYT clearly have no problem with sloppy “tradecraft,” tinker-toy logic, or preconceptions, as long as those preconceptions match their own. And in a war that depends on America’s will to eliminate real risks and win against real threats, bad tradecraft in the media is every bit as devastating to our security as bad tradecraft at the CIA, or in a Congress which cut the very capabilities that it now pillories the CIA for lacking.