Elec Tel

By Stephen Robinson in Washington (Filed: 24/08/2002)

Leading hawks in Washington who back a military attack on Iraq have turned their guns on the New York Times, charging that America's most influential newspaper is deliberately distorting its news coverage to undermine the case for war.

There have been rumblings of concern within the Bush administration and rival sections of the press for some weeks, but the dismay has broken into the open with some trenchant criticism this week of alleged appeasement of Saddam Hussein.

The New York Times, reflecting the views of its predominantly liberal, metropolitan readership and editorial staff, has long been hostile to the Bush administration and to Mr Bush's presidential candidacy in 2000, with its leaders and star columnists almost unanimously hostile - and frequently scathing - about him and his circle.

But the charge is now more serious that the paper's news columns have been turned into propaganda instruments of the anti-war party.

Comments sceptical about the use of military force by once powerful Republicans such as Brent Scowcroft, who served the first president Bush as national security adviser, have been highlighted with front page treatment, even though Mr Scowcroft has been out of the public eye for many years.

Last week the paper gave prominence to a report that the Republican Party was splitting over Iraqi policy, partly based on a highly selective interpretation of comments by Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state.

The New York Times seized on some of Dr Kissinger's caveats to suggest he opposed an American attack, when in fact he had declared there to be "an imperative for preemptive action" against Saddam Hussein.

Other recent news stories have sounded the alarm that a war could wreck the American economy, while a selection of interviews with members of the public appeared skewed to suggest almost no Americans support military action, which is sharply at odds with opinion poll data.

Another story reminded readers that Washington sided with Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, which would not have surprised many readers as it was common knowledge at the time.

Charles Krauthammer, a hawkish commentator in the Washington Post, thundered: "Not since William Randolph Hearst famously cabled his correspondent in Cuba and declared, 'You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war', has a newspaper so blatantly devoted its front page to editorialising about a coming American war."

By convention, American newspapers have opinionated editorial pages while the news pages are supposed to be "objective", though in practice most big city newspapers reflect a faint liberal bias.

Critics blame the editor, Howell Raines, a southern liberal who took over a year ago after running the opinion pages and now seems to be changing the whole paper's outlook.

The Bush administration loathes the paper, as was obvious during the 2000 campaign when Mr Bush was caught on microphone referring to a well-known New York Times reporter as "a major league asshole", a slip which seemingly did him no harm with the public.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 2002