Reuters: NY Times Ombudsman Criticizes Paper Over Iraq

Institutional failures at The New York Times led to it being used in a "cunning campaign" by those who wanted the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the paper's ombudsman said on Sunday.
Daniel Okrent, who has the title "public editor," wrote in a scathing review of the paper's coverage of the weapons issue ahead of the Iraq invasion last year that The Times had been guilty of flawed journalism.

"Some of The Times's coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines," said Okrent.

The newspaper's editors on Wednesday acknowledged they had failed to challenge adequately information from Iraqi exiles who were determined to show Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and overthrow him.

The editors said they "should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism." Among other things, they said the paper had relied on "misinformation" from Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, once considered Washington's top Iraq ally.

No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were found in Iraq after the invasion.

Say what? So far, we have brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, ricin, sarin, aflatoxin, mustard gas, chemical and biological weapons labs, illegal long-range missiles and parts of a nuclear weapons program, buried in a scientist's back yard. Get real, Reuters.