AHORA JUDITH MILLER está siendo crucificada, incluso por su propio periódico, pero no por el affaire Wilson / Plame. Eso no es más que una excusa, porque como bien recuerda John Podhoretz, ¿cómo se puede acusar de mala práctica periodística a alguien que no ha escrito ni una sola línea sobre el tema en cuestión?

En realidad, Judith Miller está siendo arrojada a los leones por sus informaciones previas a la guerra de Iraq, en las que hablaba de la capacidad de Saddam Hussein para desarrollar armas de destrucción masiva. Resultaran erróneas o no, lo cierto es que desde los círculos políticamente correctos parece como si Miller, ella solita, hubiese embaucado al público estadounidense para que éste apoyara la guerra de las cuatro íes.

Lástima que existan las hemerotecas, y gente como Robert Kagan para bucear en ellas:

There is a big problem with this simple narrative. It is that the Times, along with The Post and other news organizations, ran many alarming stories about Iraq's weapons programs before the election of George W. Bush. A quick search through the Times archives before 2001 produces such headlines as "Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say"(November 1998), "U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan"(August 1998), "Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort" (February 2000), "Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration" (February 2000), "Flight Tests Show Iraq Has Resumed a Missile Program" (July 2000). (A somewhat shorter list can be compiled from The Post's archives, including a September 1998 headline: "Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported.") The Times stories were written by Barbara Crossette, Tim Weiner and Steven Lee Myers; Miller shared a byline on one.

Many such stories appeared before and after the Clinton administration bombed Iraq for four days in late 1998 in what it insisted was an effort to degrade Iraqi weapons programs. Philip Shenon reported official concerns that Iraq would be "capable within months -- and possibly just weeks or days -- of threatening its neighbors with an arsenal of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons." He reported that Iraq was thought to be "still hiding tons of nerve gas" and was "seeking to obtain uranium from a rogue nation or terrorist groups to complete as many as four nuclear warheads." Tim Weiner and Steven Erlanger reported that Hussein was closer than ever "to what he wants most: keeping a secret cache of biological and chemical weapons." "To maintain his chemical and biological weapons -- and the ability to build more," they reported, Hussein had sacrificed over $120 billion in oil revenue and "devoted his intelligence service to an endless game of cat and mouse to hide his suspected weapons caches from United Nations inspections."

Y sigue con muchísimos ejemplos más. Via The Anchoress, en cuya anotación ha puesto una antigua portada de Time que... en fin.