Last, Desperate Days of a Brutal Reign (NYT - John F. Burns)

New York Times ^ | April 19, 2003 | John F. burns

[fortcollins]

Saladin was a Kurd

[Dog]

Even when the combat moved into the Iraqi capital, and could be seen from the Palestine Hotel, the minister, in battle dress and beret, stuck to his rose-tinted versions, giving a spectacular new dimension to the spin doctor's art. To reporters who suggested that his accounts were at odds with known American successes, his answer, in effect, was that they were hallucinating.

By the early morning of April 7, American tanks could be seen parked on the Tigris embankment two-thirds of a mile away, with American infantrymen firing at fleeing Iraqi fighters dressed only in boxer shorts who plunged into the river and swam away upstream. Mr. Sahhaf hastened to the hotel to renew his assurances that American troops were everywhere in headlong flight, and that those who had seized the airport on Friday, April 4, had been driven out.

The following day, acknowledging that Americans were indeed at the airport, he offered a new spin. "I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad."

And the legend of Baghdad Bob was born!

[jimtorr]

Where has the NY Slimes been for the past ten years, with this truth they've suddenly discovered?

I will not soon forget, how the NYT worked to keep Saddam in power.

[ohioWfan]

I will not soon forget, how the NYT worked to keep Saddam in power

Along with their cohorts in crime....CNN.

[livius]

Actually, this is an excellent and very vivid article. Is the New York Times actually taking off its PC (pro-Saddam) blinders and looking at reality?

This is a very positive sign!

[CyberAnt]

"Yet during the whole sequence, it now appears, Mr. Hussein was barely five miles farther north in the district of Adhamiya, one of the last safe strongholds for him in Baghdad, in the neighborhood of Al Safina beside the Abu Hanifa mosque"

This paragraph bothers me. This statement is an assumption that the author knows it to be true. He's making the statement as if he knows Saddam is alive - which is not the truth.

This is just the typical NYT stuff - making statements which are in question as if they are fact. This is totally irresponsible!!

[DoctorMichael]

Bump for later reading.

[sullivan-fan]

John Burns was and is a great reporter. An exception to the rule at the NY TImes.

[Doe Eyes]

I will not soon forget, how the NYT worked to keep Saddam in power.

Would you post an example?

[solzhenitsyn]

Excellent article, HAL! The last paragraph was thrilling.

[amom]

marked for later read.

[AncientAirs]

A slick reporter, self-rightous and self-serving, but in the end only repeating the dismal truth revealed earlier by CNN. Outdone only by his handlers, the editors at the NYTimes.

[HAL9000]

I'd say he's a damn good journalist. Specifically, how is he "self-rightous and self-serving"?

He will probably win his third Pulitzer Prize for this article, and his earlier one - "How Many People has Saddam Hussein Killed?"

[arasina]

Excellent article. So good and full of truth that I can't believe it was printed in The New York Times. Terrific analysis from a first person point of view, particularly his reporting about the looting and use of the quotes from the woman who said she had paid for the items a thousand times under Saddam's rule. The majority of other reporters have condemned the looting without any idea of its cause and they didn't care to look any deeper because it would injure their cause.

[jimtorr]

I cannot post a specific article, no, since I refuse to register with the NYT web site.

It's the entire tone of the NYT's reporting over the past18 months in general, and the past six months specifically.

Here is a link to a FreeRepublic thread that talks about a typical article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/878531/posts

this is the NYT news pages, as opposed to financial, sports, editorial sections.

[jimtorr]

Ooops, sorry, I was trying to post a link to this thread on another thread.

[jimtorr]

Say,..........this is the thread I'd intended to post to.......and I've already had my tea this morning. Maybe I've just been looking at this monitor to much.

[68skylark]

I am one of those who is glad to have a vivid accounts from Iraq, like this one from John Burns.

But I have to agree with the theme of some other people here -- it seems to me like the NY Times is really getting on the anti-Saddam bandwagon only now that the regime is gone.

I think it's fair to ask what they knew about Iraq in the months before the war started. I'm sorry to say that I bet they knew a lot more than they printed, and I suspect they held back information only because of their anti-Bush animus.

Is that a fair suspicion?

[HAL9000]

There's often an exception to the rule, e.g. Burns or Safire.