Iraq Update-And How Useless is Wolf Blitzer?

There have been several developments on the Iraq front this morning. As referenced by several of you in the open thread section, the New York Times runs a piece this morning reporting the results of visits by reporters to the alleged sites that Powell brought up in his UN speech. Perhaps not surprisingly, the reporters saw no first hand evidence of any recent weapons development activities.

Secondly, during the press conference this morning from Iraq summing up the two-day meetings between the weapons inspectors and Iraqi officials, it came out that the Iraqis offered to have this technical discussion months ago with the UN to answer unresolved questions since the 1998 inspections ceased. According to General Al Saadi, it was the UN that rejected such face to face meetings with the Iraqis until the inspectors were readmitted; hence the meetings this week. Yet earlier on the Wolf Blitzer “Late Edition” program on CNN, two of his guests, former inspector David Albright and Ken Pollock, author of “The Gathering Storm”, said that this late-in-coming effort by Iraq to address these questions and provide documents was a reason to go to war, regardless of whether or not the Iraqis ultimately answer the questions adequately.

In essence, even if the Iraqis ultimately can prove that they have accounted for the post-1998 inventory, the fact that they took so long is enough reason to go in, notwithstanding the fact that the Iraqis just stated, with no contradiction from the inspectors, that they offered to have this technical discussions months ago but were stopped by the UN. Of course, Wolf didn’t grasp this point, nor did he follow up on a point by Pollock that Powell stated the Iraqis were able to get to the alleged sites and “sanitize” them before the inspectors got there. In others words, Pollock and Powell are now alleging that there is a leak either within the IAEA or even within the US government that is tipping off the Iraqis. I guess that is one way to sabotage the inspections process.

Doesn’t that last point deserve more attention? And of course, at no point did Wolf bring up the fact that the Blair dossier is a virtual fraud. Instead, Wolf and the rest of CNN are pointing more attention to ongoing irrelevant coverage of the Columbia tragedy, instead of following up on issues that need more analysis and coverage.

It’s not that CNN is more like Fox (which they are). It’s that they are inept and destructive to our country because they are the one televised news source that has the resources to deal with issues in a somewhat evenhanded way, but fails us daily.

Lastly, the Saudis have decided that after we get Hussein removed, they want us out of their country, which is what Bin Laden has wanted all along. How does our eviction from Saudi Arabia affect our occupation plans for Iraq?

Soto

Posted February 09, 2003 11:51 AM | Comments (33)