Reporter Who Was Wrong About Iraq: Stop Criticizing Those Who Were Wrong About Iraq

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Fox News contributor Judith Miller, whose reporting on Iraq’s weapons of mass turned out to be stunningly wrong, said Friday that the media has been too hard on other individuals whose pre-war pronouncements also turned out to be stunningly wrong.

During an appearance on Fox, Miller complained that the media “loves to beat up on who was responsible for the Iraq War and who is to blame for the current controversy, the current crisis.”

That, she added, “is not helpful.”

“What the media should be doing is encouraging everyone who has a view of what to do now in Iraq to come forward and discuss it rationally,” Miller said. “But they’re doing the opposite. They’re trying to shut down people like Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, all of the ‘neoconservatives’ who brought us this war. It’s not helpful.”

In its mea culpa after the fact, the New York Times said much of Miller’s reporting for the newspaper on Iraq’s weapons in 2001, 2002 and 2003 was based on erroneous information from Ahmad Chalabi, the discredited Iraqi politician deployed by the Bush administration to bolster its case for war. The Times ultimately acknowledged in 2004 that Miller’s reporting was “was not as rigorous as it should have been.”

“Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge,” the newspaper said.

Watch video of Miller’s appearance on Fox, via Media Matters:

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