AIM Report: More Heads Should Roll at CBS
- February B
February 16, 2005
Writing in the Washington Post, Tina Brown said that Dan Rather came across in the CBS panel report on the "Rathergate" scandal as "an empty trench coat" because he had very little to do with the actual report that went on the air. It seems clear she didn't read it. In a bombshell ignored by most media, the report reveals that Dan Rather personally assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that the discredited Bush National Guard story was not only true but "very big."
The report, prepared by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Louis D. Boccardi, former president of The Associated Press, says that Rather assured Heyward that he, Rather, had not "been involved in this much checking on a story since Watergate." The report says that Rather assured Heyward that the bogus story was "thoroughly vetted," or documented and verified.
In another bombshell, the report reveals on page 130 that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, one of four fired because of the scandal, had documented information in her possession before the controversial September 8 broadcast that George W. Bush, while in the Texas Air National Guard, "did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots." This information is critical because Rather, in the broadcast, insinuated that Bush was among the "many well-connected young men [who tried to] pull strings and avoid service in Vietnam."
This means that Mapes, who was very close to Rather and enjoyed his confidence, had the evidence exonerating Bush of the malicious charge of going into the National Guard to avoid Vietnam. The report shows that there were multiple credible sources to prove that he was in fact willing to go to Vietnam as a pilot. However, CBS News deliberately kept this information from its viewers and conveyed an opposite impression. Rather, Mapes & Company were trying to depict Bush as a coward who, as Commander-in-Chief, was sending American soldiers to their deaths in Iraq.
The report also says that while Rather told Heyward the Bush story was big, he told Heyward it wasn't "as big as Abu Ghraib," the Iraqi prisoner abuse story used by CBS and other media to blacken the reputation and image of the United States around the world.
Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists.
What's more, it turns out that David Hackworth, a controversial retired colonel who has emerged as a strident opponent of how the Iraq war is being conducted, was a key source for canned CBS producer Mapes in both stories.
In what can only be seen as a major blow to his credibility as a spokesman on military affairs, the CBS report (page 96) says that Hackworth was interviewed by Rather for the Guard story "as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett." Bill Burkett is the discredited "source" who now says he got the documents from yet another "source" who cannot be located. Burkett admits lying about his "source."
Hackworth's Role
Hackworth, the report says, concluded the phony documents were "genuine," and Rather thought Hackworth was a "strong and valuable expert witness." Mapes also thought Hackworth "was important for the segment" that aired on September 8, the report says, but the Hackworth excerpts were "ultimately cut from the final script" for reasons that aren't explained.
In the Abu Ghraib story, Hackworth also played a controversial role, arranging for a soldier subsequently found guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib scandal to funnel information through a relative to Rather, Mapes and CBS. The 60 Minutes Abu Ghraib story aired in April 2004. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, wanted to blame his own criminal conduct on higher-ups. Taking a similar approach, Hackworth accused "the very top of the Pentagon" of "covering up obscene behavior" at Abu Ghraib "while placing the sole blame on Joe and Jill Grunt."
In fact, a commission run by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger investigated the controversy and found that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military leaders did not set policies that approved or condoned torture and other abuse.
USA Todaygate
While Hackworth is now scrambling to explain his role in the story, another terrible performance was turned in by USA Today. In covering the release of the CBS report, USA Today ran three items—a front-page story by Peter Johnson, "CBS Fires 4 over Bush Guard Story," a story by Peter Johnson and Mark Memmott, "CBS firings should go higher up, critics say," and an editorial, "CBS's rush to air a story produces fiction, firestorm." None of the stories or editorials mentioned that USA Today had run a story based on the same documents on September 9, one day after the CBS Report aired. USA Today used the CBS broadcast as proof that the documents were genuine.
After AIM issued a press release on this matter, media reporter Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post picked up the story and asked USA Today editorial page editor Brian Gallagher whether he needed to address his own paper's role. "We think the editorial covered everything it needed to cover," he told Kurtz.
Responding to another press release issued by AIM on the scandal, White House correspondent John Roberts claimed that he didn't know that the documents he provided to the White House about the President's National Guard service were questionable and came from Burkett.
AIM had noted that Roberts was the personal representative of CBS News in a meeting with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, at a critical time when CBS News was developing its fake "story." In the meeting with Roberts, Bartlett was told that he was supposed to confirm or deny authenticity of the National Guard documents that turned out to be bogus. When Bartlett did not immediately denounce them as forgeries, Roberts provided that information to 60 Minutes producer Mapes. This was seen as the critical green light for Mapes and Rather to go ahead with the smear.
Ignorance Is Bliss
Roberts now insists that "I should point out that at the time I interviewed Dan Bartlett, I was NOT AWARE that the documents had come from Bill Burkett. In fact, I did not find out that particular gem of information until I read about it in Newsweek magazine some time later. I was never informed by Mary Mapes at any time of the source of the documents a point I made clear to the Thornburgh/Boccardi investigating panel."
AIM countered that Roberts should have known or should have asked about the source of the documents. The main problem, however, was that the White House received the documents only three and one-half hours before Bartlett was interviewed by Roberts about them. That was unfair and Roberts knew it. He should have refused to play a role in this ambush. He then told Mapes & Company that the Bartlett interview, such as it was, went well!
Roberts, Heyward and Rather should all be held accountable in the scandal. But they have escaped punishment. |
