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I think your evidence is good that Hersh may have made up this story or that he has a source (in a Congressional oversight committee) that's civilian and critical of the war on terrorism. But this is the sort of "fiction" that can and should be quashed immediately and decisively -- not debated in the media and FR. Myers's post-operation wording was, to say the least, semantic obfuscation. If he told the truth, he appeared to be lying -- or, at least, parsing the meaning of "is." This is a very important matter and deserves to be settled decisively. If Hersh is lying, as I believe, the lie can be exposed by the Secretary of Defense and the President demanding the names, ranks, serial numbers, and kind of medial treatment given to any Delta member during or after that operation. It's very unhealthy to allow Hersh and his supporters to argue that these are merely conflicting claims and Hersh's view is valid until proven wrong. Such an approach encourages the critical media to spread more disinformation in the guise of "sources."

I agree and think it was quashed pretty quickly. Yesterday (the day before the article was to be published), the CJCS and the Commander of CENTCOM both said Hersch's piece was inaccurate. To quote Franks (CENTCOM Commander) "We had no one wounded by enemy fire, and I think that is probably worthwhile noting." I'm not sure which post-operation verbage you are referring to from Myers, but if he wasn't specific about the mission, he may have had a reason. The problem with aggressively trying to prove Hersch wrong, is that you can turn a snowball into an avalanche. The objective is to not reveal certain information. Denying something happened, or even clarifying how it happened can be as revealing as just publishing the details outright. The best way to avoid revealing anything is to say "we can neither confirm nor deny." As soon as you start denying, idiots like Hersch will keep throwing "well then what about this point"'s at you until you get tired of answering, at which point they claim it must be true because you stopped denying it.