In a July 11, 2004, article entitled, "Kerry campaign says Bush misled US on Iraq," (p. A13) the Boston Globe allowed Sen. John Edwards to advance the theory that Vice President Dick Cheney unlawfully pressured the CIA to bend its information in favor of the war on Iraq.

John Edwards accused the Bush administration yesterday of misleading the nation and of manipulating intelligence analysts to win support for the invasion of Iraq ...

Edwards said Vice President Cheney probably pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to skew its work in support of the war.

"We know that Dick Cheney spent significant amounts of time at the CIA," Edwards said.

(emphasis added for rebuttal)

        But Edwards' words fly in the face of a US Senate intelligence committee report [Note: This is a very large pdf file] released only two days earlier that concluded that there was never any inappropriate pressure by the administration or Vice President Cheney on the CIA. From an AFP news release on the report:

"The committee didn't find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities," the 400-page report said.

And "the committee found no evidence that the vice president's visit to the CIA were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's WMD programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments," it added.

(emphasis added)

        The Boston Globe, in its apparent campaign for a Kerry presidency, made no mention of this aspect of the report in its article and allowed Edwards' words to be published unchallenged, even though the senator sits on the Intelligence Committee and its report refuted his own words!

 

TheMediaReport.com asks ... "Where's the honesty?"