This past weekend, 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon was interviewing “Curve Ball,” the notorious Iraq defector whose fabrications about his country’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction” played a large part in the US decision to go to war. But Rafiq Ahmed Alwan wasn’t happy with Simon’s pressing him for “the whole truth,” and ended the interview abruptly by standing up, shaking Simon’s hand, and saying, “Until next time.” (See that interview here.)
60 Minutes has a long tradition of “walk-offs,” as it happens, and not all of its stonewallers are nearly as polite as Mr. Curve Ball. CBS has compiled a video of the program’s best and most dramatic pull-off-the-microphone moments, starring French President Sarkozy, the late Senator Moynihan, Edward Teller (the father of the H-bomb), and others. Enjoy:
@Lauren,
Your characterization "...whose fabrications about his country’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction” played a large part in the US decision to go to war." is misleading, I think.
The decision had already been made to invade Iraq. Judy Miller's piece about Curve Ball was a piece of propaganda -- a deliberate lie --pushed by the Iraq Study Group and New York Times reporter Judy Miller to mislead the American public about the purported existence of WMDs as they made their distorted case for a decision they already made. See Wolfowitz, for instance, and his "beareaucratic reasons" for using the Curve Ball lie.
Let's not rewrite history, please. We all have very clear memories about how that went down, even if you journos choose amnesia for whatever reason.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 04:36 PM
What James said.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 07:24 PM
@Lauren,
I had hoped for a reasonable response from you, addressing the issue I raised.
Am I to conclude that you find my concern with your factual error unimportant? Or that rather than owning up to your factual error you choose to hide behind silence and ignore me, and let the error stand?
Again I have to ask, what does someone have to do to get a correction here at CJR?
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 07:38 PM
James is right, it didn't play a large part in the decision (that die was cast by neo-conservatives long before Bush got elected) but it did play a large part in the public justification.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxerr_iGRXE
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 07:46 PM
Pardon me, I said Iraq Study Group, I mean White House Iraq Group (WHIG)
The White House Iraq Group (aka, White House Information Group or WHIG) was the marketing arm of the White House whose purpose was to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the public.
#5 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 07:52 PM
James, look around. How often does CJR review foreign-policy journalism? Now, I'm not suggesting there's a dubious motivation, but it seems very odd that a multi-trillion dollar, overseas empire is all but ignored by a site that spends practically all its efforts on economic-crisis journalism.
#6 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 14 Mar 2011 at 08:06 PM