SwiftVets.com

[noc]

Dear <<edited>>,

I appreciate your concerns about The Times's reporting on the explosives missing from the Al Qaqaa site in Iraq. However, I think it is much too early to come to a conclusion that there is error here. I note three factors in particular: NBC News's clarification of their early report; The Times's on-the-record citation of the unit commander who arrived at Al Qaqaa on April 10 asserting that his troops did not conduct a search; and, finally, some mixed signals from the White House.
This story will, I am sure, continue to play out over the next several days. If The Times is indeed in error, that is certain to become clear, and I will say so in print. Until then, I can only suggest that you -- and I -- examine each charge and countercharge very carefully, and examine the evidence fully, before reaching conclusions.

Yours Sincerely,
Daniel Okrent
Public Editor
N.B.: Any opinions expressed here, unless otherwise indicated, are solely my own

this reply was sent from:

public@nytimes.com

Please help me respond

[DaveL]

oh brother!!!

didn't it occur to the Times to, as he says..."examine the evidence fully before reaching conclusions" and delay this story until this was done?! Of course not, they had an election to influence!!!

[susanlprince]

Why has it become policy for MSM to print stories and then try to find "facts" to prove them instead of digging up real facts and then reporting NEWS?

THIS IS SOOOO FRUSTRATING TO ME, and what is just as frustrating, if not more, is that people read this stuff and automatically believe it is true. Whatever happened to critical thinking skills?

[Kimmymac]

...And on Novemeber 3rd we will conclude our investigation, decide we were in error, and print a full retraction on page 12...of the theater guide section.

I am not sure what the point is here, in the first place. How is Bush responsible for what may or may not have happened on a particular place during a particular day by a particular unit in a theater of war? Are we now going to take the word of the inffective and incompetent UN inspectors as gospel? Why? Is that Part 1 of The Global Test? Directions: Citing John Kerry and Kofi Annan, state in 300 words or less why the UN inspectors are always correct and why their words are Gospel Truth. Describe in detail how no explosives would have gone missing or been used against us if the UN Inspectors had continued to not be allowed to make the inspections. Use circular logic, because it is the only kind the NYT understands. You have 6 days to complete your answer.

Maybe that is our line of attack. Do we want this war micro managed from the WH like Viet Nam was? Oh yeah, that'll work.

So if we elect John Kerry will he step down immediately upon the first screw up inside Iraq or Afghanistan?

My recommendation is you find the points to refute this (I am sure they are out there, I am just not interested in this story's details because it is BS and I have little tolerance with BS, being a "big picture" kinda person) but refute his points and then end the letter with the arguments I made above.

This explosives thing is as retarded as the flu shot thing.
_________________
The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz

[Hondo]

The new Times motto: "All the news that's full of $#!t."
_________________
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill

[Dimsdale]

I picked this up off of FreeRepublic.com. It involves the SVPT and Okrent:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198259/posts

[neverforget]

NY Times Flashback: Paper Reported Saddam Transferred High Explosives

As per www.newsmax.com

New York Times needs to read its own paper.
_________________
US Army Security Agency
1965-1971

[susanlprince]

I propose to start calling the "news" simply "views".

CBS Views with Dan Rather
ABC Views

Viewspapers...

you get the idea!

[Kimmymac]

The OIM and the Daily Views.

I like it!

Why would the NYT want to read their own paper, neverforget? They are too busy reading the new Joe Lockhart talking points, and cashing George Soros' checks. Besides, they have to spend a fair amount of time reading other *journalist's* BS so they can rip it off and claim they wrote it.

It's hard work putting out a viewspaper, ya know!
_________________
The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz

[Guest]

The NYT should have followed their own advice before they ever printed that lie. They make me sick.

[noc]

Another response from them after I sent them many details that they missed for their report. But rather then post my entire email I mainly stressed that from the time the UN seals had last been checked in March 2003 and the first troops showing up on April 4th, 2003 no evidence was presented that the materials had not already been moved during this time while Saddam was still in power. I gave repeated examples of evidence that show that the materials were not there when we arrived to secure the site. Here is their response:

This email comes from publisher@nytimes.com:

I thought you'd be interested in this response which comes from the Executive Editor.
Our front page story of October 25 reported accurately that a senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science & Technology informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in a letter on October 10 that the materials were lost from the Al-Qaqaa site after April 9, 2003, through "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security." As the story further reported, the IAEA took an inventory of the materials in January, 2003. In early March, right before the beginning of the war, the IAEA went to the site and found that the seals on the bunkers were still intact. Pentagon and White House officials told the Times, as the story says, that the materials vanished sometime after the U.S.-led invasion. The Times story also reported that U.S. forces visited the vast site on their way to Baghdad and saw no materials bearing the IAEA seal.
We
are continuing our reporting on the disappearance.
NBC News subsequently reported that a unit of the 101st Airborne visited the site on April 10 and did not see the explosives. The Republican National Committee and others interpreted this to mean that NBC was saying the explosives were already gone by the time the Americans got there.
However, NBC has disavowed that interpretation. On Tuesday night NBC interviewed its own reporter, who was embedded with the unit that visited Al-Qaqaa. She said the American military did no searching during that visit. The Times reported this morning that, in an interview, the commander of that American unit said his soldiers simply used the site as a camp.
They had no orders to search for weapons, and did not in fact conduct a search. (The Al-Qaqaa site is roughly 40 square miles, and the explosives were widely dispersed among scores of bunkers and other buildings.) As our original story made clear, we do not know what happened to the explosives or when it happened. The story explicitly left open the possibility that the material was removed by Saddam Hussein's government or someone else before the Americans arrived. But that, apparently, is not what the current Iraqi government believes, or what officials at the IAEA and within our own government suspect.


As unlikely as it is, the NY Times continues to stand behind this trash piece of reporting. So help give them one more blast of your opinion.

public@nytimes.com
publisher@nytimes.com

btw, I BCC the entire media list each time I respond to them in order for the all the media outlets to see how blind the NY Times really is.

[davman]

Contact thier advertisers and let them know we don't want to do business with those who advertise in that rag!

1) Macys Macy's East Corporate Headquarters
151 West 34th Street
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 695-4400
Fax: (212)-494-1057 James E. Gray

2) Bloomingdales Bloomingdales 1000 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Phone: (212)-705-2000
Fax: (513)-573-2958 Edward Hallman

3) Dell Dell Computer Corporation
One Dell Way
Round Rock, TX 78682
Phone: (512)-338-4400
Fax: (512)-728-3653 Pres/COO, James Schneider

4) Saks Saks, INC.
750 Lakeshore Parkway
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Phone: (205)-940-4000
Fax: (423)-981-6325 Pres/CAO, J. Coggin

5) Tiffany Tiffany & Co.
727 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Phone: (212)-755-8000
Fax: (212)-605-4465 Pres/CEO, Patrick B. Dorsey

6) Lord & Taylor The May Department Store Company
611 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63101-1799
Phone: (314)-342-6300
Fax: (314)-605-4465 Pres/CEO, Jane T. Elfers

7) Greenpoint Bank Greenpoint Financial Corp.
90 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212)-834-1000
Fax: (212)-834-1403 Pres/COO, Bharat B. Bhatt

AT&T Wireless AT&T Wireless Services
7277 164th Avenue NE
Building 1
Redmond, WA 98052
Phone: (425)-580-6000
Fax: (425)-580-8505 Chmn./CEO John D. Zaglis

9) Syms Syms Corp
Syms Way
Secaucus, NJ 07094
Phone: (201)-902-9600
Fax: (201)-902-9874 Pres/CEO, Marcy Syms

10) Fleet Bank FleetBoston Financial
100 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: (617)-434-2200
Fax: (617)-434-6943 Pres/CEO, Charles K. Gifford