About Your Sources, Mr. Risen
posted by Thomas Joscelyn
Thoughts on the Terror Network and Foreign Policy
James Risen's appearance on the Today show with Katie Couric is receiving significant attention throughout the blogging world. See this post at Power Line, Mark Finkelstein's blog, and The Corner (including this post from John Podhoretz), for example (all relevant links belwo). I did not see his appearance (caveat), but from what I gather Mr. Risen attested to the veracity and nobility of his sources.
Finkelstein says,
"time and again, Risen defended his sources as having
the 'purest' and 'best' motives, springing entirely from
their concern for the rule of law."
John Hinderaker at Power Line links to a note from ABC that reads:
On NBC's "Today" show this morning, New York Times scribe
Jim Risen told Katie Couric that he hopes he will not
have to reveal his sources to a grand jury and declared
his story to be the exact opposite of the Plame case.
Risen claims his sources revealed information for the
best possible reasons and he went on to declare those
sources "patriots."
But Mr. Risen's sources have not always had the best of motives and, apparently, Mr. Risen does not check his sources against other sources of information.
Lest we forget, someone leaked a bogus account of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation to Mr. Risen on June 9, 2003. (I wrote about this here.)
weeklystandard.com
Mr. Risen's anonymous sources told him that Zubaydah had denied that Saddam and al Qaeda were working together.
<<< "Several [anonymous] officials," told Risen that a transcript of Zubaydah's interrogation was circulated "within the American intelligence community last year . . . his statements were not included in public discussions by administration officials about the evidence concerning Iraq-Qaeda ties." >>>
Thus, according to Risen's sources, the Bush administration was being duplicitous by not citing Zubaydah's testimony, which supposedly cut against the case for linking Saddam and al Qaeda.
What Risen's sources did not tell him - and we did not learn until more than a year later when the Senate Intelligence Committee issued its report on prewar intelligence -
was that Zubaydah "also said, however, that any
relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to
name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts
with the Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated
that he had heard that an important al-Qaida associate,
Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships
with Iraqi intelligence."
Now, that portion of Zubaydah's interrogation never made it into Risen's June 9, 2003 account. Why? Because his anonymous sources - the same types he now tells us have the "purest" and "best" motives and who are "patriots" - didn't tell him that.
Did Risen read the Senate Intelligence Report? Didn't he ever wonder why it is that Zubaydah offered up testimony that directly contradicted the portions his sources fed him? [Edit: That is, when the Senate Intelligence Report came out a year after Risen's initial reporting on Zubaydah's interrogation, didn't he wonder why he was misled more than a year earlier?]
Apparently not. If he had, he may be a bit more skeptical of his sources and their motives, in general.
thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com
powerlineblog.com
newsbusters.org
corner.nationalreview.com
corner.nationalreview.com
intelligence.senate.gov |
