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White House Press Secretary is an exceedingly difficult job in the best of times. Outgoing Secretary Scott McClellan did not appear to serve in the best of times, and in an administration that many journalists have argued has not been very forthcoming to the press (aka, the American people).

A few days after the story below and the subsequent resignation of Mcclellan under a White House shakeup under new Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, Gordon Peterson of ABC's Inside Washington (April 23) suggested; "don't you feel sorry for Scott Mcclellan, they put him out there, and he's like a human punching bag."  Evan Thomas, of Newsweek, added, "I felt sorry for him every day."

While those are valid points to an extent, was the following demonization of the press by McClellan a reflection of the current administration's disdain for the all too ocassional hard hitting journalism, or McClellan's own spin? Before attributing it to the latter, note that the White House has suggested that it wants to prosecute reporters for breaking stories about government conduct that most Americans would not support, in the case of the Eastern European prison story, or that clandestinely violated federal law and probably violated our Constitution's most basic clause, in the case of the NSA wiretap program.

It has been suggested herein that both the general media and the Washington Post have not adequately covered issues in a way necessary for voters to arrive at informed choices, and that invariably, this has often aided the Bush administration's side of events. So what happens when the Washington Post "roughs up" the administration a little? Plenty.  Press secretary Scott McClellan, at a press briefing April 12, referring to the Post's lead story of the day, called the Post "reckless," and "irresponsible," and added, "I don't know how the Washington Post can defend something so irresponsible."  But it appears that McClellan's damning statement against the media did not remotely reflect the facts. 

McClellan's full quote: 

It sounds like McClellan has a good case. But in examining the facts, at best he well overstates it. If the Post left readers with the impression that the "President was saying something he knew at the time not to be true," it would have to be the reader's own conclusions, because the Post article lays out the facts:

The evidence does indicate that at the time that Bush spoke, "U.S. Intelligence officials possessed evidence that it was not true."

What remains slightly ambiguous is if, as the article seems to imply, the conclusions forwarded in a field report on May 27, were as definitive as the authors recent summations. Since these experts actually conducted their examination in the field, and concluded it by May 27, 2003, it would appear so.

Why is this even such a big story? 

McClellan, as noted above, also stated in his press conference, "And that assessment remained in place for quite some time."  That seemed to be the second point of the article, if, for whatever reasons (still unknown), the CIA and the DIA disregarded or disagreed with the field report initially, why, if the conclusions seemed to be correct, did that assessment nevertheless remain in place "for quite some time"?

The issue is relevant, for two reasons. First, as this letter to reporter Dana Milbank and Ombudsman Deborah Howell at the Post point out, there was a lot of information gathered in the few months leading up to March 19, 2003 by inspectors in Iraq; inspectors who, prior to the vote on the Iraq resolution authorizing the use of military force, had been denied access for a period of several years. Internationally, Great Britain aside, this information bore a great deal of relevance. In the United States, it was largely discounted, if not outright ignored (both in what is commonly referred to as the "run up to the war," and in the 2004 election battle of rhetoric regarding the presidential candidates' respective positions).

Similarly, the findings of the weapons inspectors in those first few months aside, as the Post article puts it:

So why were these findings, which, clearly conflicted with the findings of at least some of  the "groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003," not integrated initially?

But the more relevant inquiry is -- since it was "hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," as the Post reports, quoting one "former senior official who spoke on the condition" of anonymity, why was it proclaimed that these were biological weapons labs, rather than that there was evidence that these may have been used for weapons labs? 

In other words, as McClellan put it in his press briefing, "the very day that he was talking about it, numerous papers were reporting on the briefing by the intelligence community. The intelligence community said that they were 'highly confident' that they had discovered a "mobile biological production plant." It seems to make the Post's case, that, as before the war, information that was debatable, and that had several sides, was presented as "fact."

While the President may have in one sense gotten the short end of the stick (as McClellan also said, he is "looking into" when the White House may have become aware of this "matter")on the other end, as numerous articles have pointed out, the administration prior to the war led a very aggressive campaign based upon perhaps an incomplete picture of information -- that turned out to paint in incorrect picture. Thus it is natural that a continuation of such an approach would be relevant. The article is very clear as well to distinguish between intelligence officials and agencies, and the White House. 

In essence, McClellan's case, let alone the strong nature of his charges, is almost completely baseless.  But not quite.  The headline to the article reads, "Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War. Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to the Contrary." Technically correct, this could be construed as slightly misleading (although, again, it is isn't known what the administration knew, and when, but presumably they had no knowledge of the conflict).  The article's second paragraph, as recited above, stated something similar, but included that key fact that "U.S. Intelligence Officials possessed information" that it was "not true." Whether it is fair or not to impart that information to the White House, as the headline leaves open, is unclear. But it seems that on the issue of WMD intelligence, the administration, as it does on so many other matters, perhaps no longer gets the full benefit of the doubt.

Again, as to why the noted field report was not integrated sooner, or why, even today, it remains classified, it is unclear, as McClellan did not really address these issues in the briefing.

It seems, though, on balance, that, contrary to his assertions, the Post was neither "reckless," nor "irresponsible," let alone culpable of reporting that is so "irresponsible," McClellan could "not know" how the Post could defend it.  If he is being truthful, perhaps that is part of the problem.

Internet sources

Read the article. Judge for yourself. 

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