- “U.S. Ties Iran to Deadly Attack,” July 2, 2007, by Michael R. Gordon
- “U.S. Says Iran Helped Iraqis Kill Five G.I.s,” July 3, 2007, by John F. Burns and Michael R. Gordon
- “U.S. Says Iran-Supplied Bomb Kills More Troops,” August 8, 2007, by Michael R. Gordon
- “Hezbollah Trains Iraqis in Iran, Officials Say,” May 5, 2008, by Michael R. Gordon
Now fast forward two years, and we arrive at the article about the WikiLeaks document dump and Iran’s involvement in Iraq:
- “Leaked Report Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias,” October 22, 2010, by Michael R. Gordon and Andrew W. Lehren
You might be forgiven for seeing a consistent pattern emerging here. And when you look at the two-year-long string of articles about Iran and Iraq listed above, with all those accounts from often unnamed U.S. officials, and then the WikiLeaks documents that bear out these anonymous accounts with more detailed anonymous accounts, you wonder if Gordon is not defending his own record when he wrote last month that:
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
Given that last clause, and in light of what happened in 2002 and 2003, you might even wonder if Gordon is reading the WikiLeaks documents cautiously enough and seeking out dissent. The least, it seems, we readers can do—maybe must do—is show some caution of our own in accepting these claims about Iran.
My experience as a ground level intel collector for the Army was that:
1) There is a push for numbers from the people you report to, each team is expected to produce a certain level of reporting as this is a way to measure productivity, things like value of the reporting are secondary, briefing higher levels of command that your guys have produced hundred of reports a month is an easily grasped measuring metric. Now I certainly never made things up and while I had enough sense to filter out obvious bullshit there are definitely people who for reasons like needing to produce reporting, lack of common sense, or lack of cultural and historical knowledge of the region they were in, would just report whatever bullshit their sources fed them without making any efforts to verify it or even think about it for a minute.
2) Sources are sometimes only good for one specific thing like targeting the cell they are a member of or targeting the Al Qaeda guy who lives down the street or whatever. Once they outlive their usefulness they will sometimes make shit up in order to keep the rewards coming.
3) The truth is tricky thing over in that part of the world. Moreso than in the west, rumors and shit that sounds good are often all it takes for people to believe something. So once something like 'Iran is arming the Shiite militias' becomes the conventional wisdom, then everybody knowingly nods and says of course this is so, everybody knows it. The way a collector asks a question is an important part of this too. 'Where does the militia get weapons from?' is different from 'Does the militia get weapons from Iran?' Cues like that may tip off the source and lead them to answer in a way they think the collector wants to hear.
I think it certainly worth being skeptical of the reports. However, I'm pretty sure based on actual evidence the government has presented (weapon lot numbers, use of EFPs by Shiite militias) that Iran has at the very least provided some arms to Shiite militias. Now I don't think this is a reason for war or bombings or sanctions or whatever. It's not personal, it's business.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 2 Nov 2010 at 09:53 PM
Excellent article, Ali.
My only qualm is your generous description of Michael Gordon as a "journalist." There are many more fitting epithets I can think of, but as this is an academic journal, I'll keep them to myself.
Obviously, Gordon learned a thing or thousand about promoting jingoistic propaganda on behalf of the US government when co-penning all those "Iraqi aluminum tube" articles with Judith Miller all those years ago.
Keep up the great work, since the NYT (and WashPo, etc) clearly haven't.
#2 Posted by Nima Shirazi, CJR on Wed 3 Nov 2010 at 03:06 AM
Thank you for exposing the questionable reporting of Michael R. Gordon. Reputable analysts such as Gareth Porter have refuted his and the U.S. military's contentions about Iranian involvement in Iraq again and again to no avail. What is missing from this story is that Gordon has regularly "enhanced" the official reports, speculating on Iranian actions far beyond any evidence he might have obtained from the field. The role of General Kenneth Bergner is also important here. Bergner, effectively a flack for the U.S. military with no direct experience in the Iraqi war zone, was sent to Iraq as a kind of public relations effort to see that Iran was implicated. Bergner and Gordon made a perfect pair of cronys. Bergner would provide questionable information, and Gordon would hype it further. The long litany of articles cited in this piece, as well as the most recent one should be read with this in mind. The Wikileaks documents do no more than repeat the same bad information on which this earlier erroneous reporting was based. GIGO.
#3 Posted by William O. Beeman, CJR on Wed 3 Nov 2010 at 08:23 AM
Another example of false reporting about Iranian weapons in Iraq appeared in a 2008 edition of The Los Angeles Times:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/05/iraq-the-elusiv.html
As reported there, the US forces were going to have a news conference to show the Iranian arms captured from dissidents to support the claim that Iranian arms are used to kill "our boys" in Iraq. When they found out that none of the arms were from Iran, they had t cancel the news conference.
#4 Posted by George, CJR on Wed 3 Nov 2010 at 12:12 PM
Geez!!!!! NO mention of Israel's hand and supporters in feeding false intel. to march the US into attacking yet another Muslim "enemy" of the Jewish state.
NYT Judy Miller was drummed out of her job.for fabricating.
Unfortunately there are more Israel firsters like Gordon to push the war agenda.
Niger documents prior to Iraq invasion were indeed fabricated.
Who????and can same state FORGER provide false passports???:
Methinks yes. Israel.
AH,yes those "intelligence sources" that drive everything,
@$2 biiion a week
#5 Posted by bruce, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 09:25 AM
Ali;your assessment has been developed a great value judgment of the subject
#6 Posted by kami, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 11:05 AM
Great input by James, the army intel guy... very well said.
#7 Posted by Bill, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 01:55 PM
I think the most notable takeaway from the Wikileaks documents is that the left will take away from it whatever they want to and disregard the rest. They salivate over reports of torture by the Iraqi government and civilian casualties but disregard the complete thrashing of the Lancet excess mortality study (which was shown, once again, to be complete horseshit) and the field report in Iranian backing of militias and Revolutionary Guard activity in Iraq.
As to William O. Beeman’s comments: I would have hoped that Gareth Porter would have lost is “reputation” in saner circles after his love affair with the Khmer Rouge … I guess it shows once again that being a good lefty means never having to say you are sorry.
#8 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 03:22 PM
Strange to see Mike talk about being discredited for having the "wrong" friends...
accusing Porter of a love affair with the Khmer Rouge.... Gee, I wonmder who Mike's ideological friends are... Maybe the Neocons...??? As for the Lancet, perhaps Mike could tell me about their Psyops...?? Or is psyops somethng the military practices..??
Main Entry: psyops
Part of Speech: n
Definition: psychological operations carried out by the military, esp. to influence the attitudes and perceptions of individuals, organizations, or governments.
Do you think there is any chance that the military may NOT be truthful...??? Make up lies to hide large numbers of Iraqi or Afghan lives lost...?? Speaking about Cambodia, Wasn't the American bombing of Cambodia a contributing factor in the carnage..?? Invasions and occupations kill large numbers of innocent children, women and men....
#9 Posted by thomas, CJR on Sat 6 Nov 2010 at 11:49 PM
when will the world sanction israel, this nutty regime that is the sole threat to peace in the middle east and in the world in general? they lie, and start wars. True warmongers.
#10 Posted by Jack, CJR on Sun 5 Dec 2010 at 09:07 AM