This article is suspicious of the David Kay report on WMD in Iraq. It is reported to be hundreds of thousands of pages long, and details the extensive behind the scenes work that Saddam was doing to produce, store, and conceal WMD and chemical weapons of warfare. The report is not due out for a couple of weeks.
What’s interesting is that even though the report has not even been released, nor has any information leaked about what its contents are specifically, its accuracy and veracity are being doubted; indeed, this author obviously has no interest in being proactively objective about this. The author states unequivocally that he believes the report to be nothing but assertions, nothing more.

In the parlance once used by Howell Raines, Kay thereby will “flood the zone” and hope the press portrays what may be largely assertion — not fact — as compelling proof. Would the media possibly fall for this? There are disturbing indications that they would.

I don’t need to remind my readers of the tarnished reputation of Howell Raines. And does the author really believe that hundreds of thousands of pages will contain “largely assertion”? He bases his strange conclusion on the disputed 2,500 word article written by Charles Hanley that supposedly “demolished” Colin Powell’s February 5 United Nations report on Iraqi WMD activities.

Mr. Mitchell goes on to cite example after example of “press praise” for Powell’s “irrefutable” evidence supporting the war in Iraq. He does not care to acquaint us with the fact that Hanley’s article is subjectively anti-war and thus undermines itself, nor does he make us aware of the verifiable facts of Powell’s case – as yet undisputed by all but the most extreme and virulently anti-war Left.

How quaint! Mr. Mitchell is so willing and ready to rely on Mr. Hanley’s one article to oppose the war and the media’s so-called “support of the war”, yet urges more journalistic integrity when relying on government reports such as Powell’s, as if Powell was the epitome of a sleazeball government tool. Perhaps Mr. Mitchell should take his own advice and check his own “journalistic impulses” to trust the source.