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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: There They Go Again: The Washington Post's Iraq Tall Tale Since January 1999, the Washington Post has spun a tall tale about the 1998collapse of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq and the U.S.-British airstrikesthat followed. Not only has the Post rewritten Iraqi history, but thepaper's new version of events contradicts its own coverage from the time ofthe airstrikes. Despite running several letters to the editor pointing outthe mistake, the paper has repeated the error again and again. How manytimes can one newspaper get the same fact wrong? The story centers on the Iraq crisis that broke out on December 16, 1998.Richard Butler, head of the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq,had just released a report accusing the Iraqi regime of obstructing U.N.weapons checks. On the basis of that report, President Clinton announced hewould launch airstrikes against Iraqi targets. Out of concern for theirsafety, Butler withdrew his inspectors from Iraq, and the U.S.-Britishbombing proceeded. The Washington Post reported all these facts correctly at the time: ADecember 18 article by national security correspondent Barton Gellmanreported that "Butler ordered his inspectors to evacuate Baghdad, inanticipation of a military attack, on Tuesday night." But in the 14 months since then, the Washington Post has again and againtried to rewrite history--claiming that Saddam Hussein expelled the U.N.inspectors from Iraq. Despite repeated attempts by its readers to set therecord straight in letters to the editor, the Post has persisted inreporting this fiction. Not only did Saddam Hussein not order the inspectors' retreat, but Butler'sdecision to withdraw them was--to say the least--highly controversial. TheWashington Post (12/17/98) reported that as Butler was drafting his reporton Iraqi cooperation, U.S. officials were secretly consulting with him abouthow to frame his conclusions. To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1750 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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