After writing several articles supporting Bush's rush to war and the associated lies both before and afterward, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is viewing the resulting damage.

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where are the links between Iraq and 9/11? What's Bush's latest justification for this unprovoked attack which killed 1000s and wasted $billions? Friedman hasn't found any and he says it doesn't really matter.

Molly Ivins wrote about what she called "the weirdest media reaction of all [to] the ongoing nonappearance of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" singling out Friedman: "What I cannot believe is that respected journalists, most notably Tom Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, would simply dismiss the nonexistent WMDs as though it made no difference. Of course it matters if our government lies to us."

Ivins makes this point which should be obvious: "Look, if there are no WMDs in Iraq, it means either our government lied us to us in order to get us into an unnecessary war, or the government itself was disastrously misinformed by an incompetent intelligence apparatus. In either case, it's a terribly serious situation."

See Questions Of Mass Destruction by Molly Ivins, TomPaine.com, D.C. - May 19, 2003: http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/7824

Friedman - and the mass media in general - cannot be troubled to examine these issues. After tacitly endorsing the series of lies the Bush Administration used to justify the war, they now applaud Bush's continuing circus train of fabrication, distraction and deception.

Friedman traveled to Iraq and sent his readers a "Postcard From Iraq" which excuses the wanton waste of life and resources there. This passage: "The Best Thing About This Poverty: Iraqis are so beaten down that a vast majority clearly seem ready to give the Americans a chance to make this a better place" makes me wonder if yet another New York Times reporter is just making things up? (Emphasis in original)

See Postcard From Iraq, By Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, May 21, 2003: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/21/nyt.friedman/

Nothing I've seen from any other source suggests anything like this, or that Bush ever had any intention of making Iraq "a better place." Clearly Friedman is well informed about the Middle East, but he is reporting on what the Iraqis "seem" ready to accept, as opposed to what he knows and really sees in Iraq.

Full disclosure. I get an allergic reaction when I see the word "seem" used like this: "...Iraqis are so beaten down that a vast majority clearly seem ready...." Of course Friedman has no idea what a "vast majority" of Iraqis think or feel. Unfortunately, a quick reading might lead readers to conclude he conducted exhaustive research to ascertain this data. He hasn't.

Friedman's "seat of the pants" justifications for Bush breaking apart the civil structure of Iraq without anything close to a sensible plan for nation rebuilding continued:

"Most Important Statistic I Heard: Iraq is 60 percent Shiite. Of those 60 percent, maybe 30 percent would favor a Khomeini-like Islamic republic. That's only 18 percent of the country. As such, two things seem clear: the next president of Iraq will be Shiite, and Iraq will not be Iran." Postcard From Iraq, by Thomas L. Friedman, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/21/nyt.friedman/ (emphasis in original)

Naïve Assurances

This is incredibly naïve. Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim relatives dominated Iraq through the Ba'ath Party with far less than 30 percent support. Consider the leader of what Friedman calls one of "The Iraqi Political Factions With the Most Energy" and "the most important Iraqi exile Shiite leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim [who] had come back from 23 years of exile in Iran a day earlier - to press for "Islamic democracy" in Iraq." Postcard From Iraq, by Thomas L. Friedman, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/21/nyt.friedman/ (emphasis in original)

Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim the Shiite cleric returns from Iran where the Islamic Republic there protected him to a hero's welcome in Iraq, but Friedman says it's "clear" that Iraq under this Ayatollah will not resemble Iran? Oh hold on, Friedman only says it that seems clear. Maybe to him. It seems very unclear to me.

Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim starts with 60% co-religious support and - by Friedman's estimate - hard core support from one-third of all Iraqis. That's by far the largest and best organized plurality in a chaotic and divided field. Against this surge toward Islamic Republicanism, Friedman touts "Kurdish factions and aides of Iraqi National Congress exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, who all advocate secular democracy."

Reality check. The Kurds, an oppressed ethnic minority, will never lead Iraq toward secular democracy or anything else. Even if the other Iraqis would allow it, Turkey never would. Chalabi, despite Friedman's endorsement, is a man without a faction. Clearly an exile, he is hardly any kind of a "leader."

First of all, "He has not lived in Iraq since 1956, apart from a period organizing resistance in the Kurdish north in the mid-1990s," according to the IraqiNews.com website. He's been out of Iraq for nearly fifty years. So what? That's the least of it.

Second, he has questionable credentials according to IraqiNews.com:

[Chalabi's] main political support came from the US Congress, the Pentagon and parts of the CIA. The US State Department does not trust him and has raised questions about Iraqi National Congress's accounting practices. In 1995 he organized an uprising in the Northern Iraq, which was called off by the CIA at the crucial moment, and which subsequently led to the deaths of thousands of INC members.

IraqiNews.com also reports, "Dr. Ahmad Chalabi was leader of Iraqi National Congress until April of 1999, when he was demoted to the rank of an ordinary member." No wonder! And no wonder" Dr. Ahmad Chalabi has little support from leaders of the various Iraqi exile groups, or from Iraqis living in Iraq."

See Dr Ahmad Chalabi biography, Iraqinews.com: http://www.iraqinews.com/people_chalabi.shtml

Whatever "energy" or other support Friedman "seems" to see behind Chalabi, others don't see it. Again from Molly Ivins, "Newsweek's report today on Donald Rumsfeld's favorite Iraqi, Ahmad Chalabi, leaves one with the strong impression we should not be putting all our eggs in that particular basket. See Questions Of Mass Destruction by Molly Ivins: http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/7824

This is what Newsweek asked about Chalabi, the "leader" Rumsfeld and Friedman assure us will keep Iraq from the radical Islamic path: "To his American friends, Ahmad Chalabi is a democrat and a paragon of Iraqi patriotism. To his enemies, he's a crook. Does he have the stuff to reshape Iraq?" The answer, according to Newsweek, is no.

'IT'S ASTONISHING HOW LITTLE SUPPORT HE HAS'

That goes for many Iraqis inside the country. Nobody in Iraq can be sure what Chalabi's agenda is, or who his real allies are. A high-ranking U.S. military-intelligence officer told NEWSWEEK he was stunned when he began talking to locals, even anti-Saddam locals, about Chalabi's credibility. "It's astonishing how little support he has," the officer said. When a U.S. general asked the officer what he was hearing, the officer told him, "I'm sorry to say it, sir, but I'm afraid we're backing the wrong horse."

See Banker, Schmoozer, Spy by Christopher Dickey and Mark Hosenball, NEWSWEEK, May 12 issue: http://www.msnbc.com/news/909076.asp.

Chalabi's "faction" includes himself and little else other than good will from Bush administration right wingers like Donald Rumsfeld, former Bush officials like Chicken Hawk Richard Perle, and pundits like Friedman.

By contrast, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim's faction starts with 30% support which could reach 60% or higher. The same Bush officials who back Chalabi exhibited shock if not awe as a million radical Shiites mobilized in Iraq recently, admitting they "underestimated" this faction's organization and size. Friedman assures us not to worry. I am not assured.

To illustrate the leverage an energized religious minority can exert, look closer to home. An even smaller minority of religious right wingers and plutocrats backed Bush's climb to power and his administration's efforts to remake America into Iran. Apparently Friedman has no concept of this.

This administration has dirty hands

We can all agree Saddam is gone and good riddance. That doesn't excuse Bush's lying about WMD's and everything else. It doesn't excuse journalists accepting these lies at face value. It doesn't excuse Friedman supporting, repeating and adding to these lies.

Ivins skewers "The Friedman camp's reasoning" as "lies don't matter" journalism. Everyone can agree that "Saddam Hussein was such a miserable bastard that taking him out was worthy in and of itself," Ivins explains: "As a human-rights supporter all these years, I made that argument, too. I even made it when the Reagan administration was giving Saddam WMDs." See Questions Of Mass Destruction by Molly Ivins: http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/7824

That's true. Liberals like Molly Ivins consistently opposed Saddam for decades while Republican right wingers kept supporting him. Liberals opposed killing innocent Iraqis no matter who killed them -- Saddam or Bush. Right wingers kept flip-flopping.

Right wingers often flip flop on the dictators they install and support with our money and then topple at our expense. For example, Dick Cheney went from backing Bush I sending $billions of our taxes to Baghdad to attacking Saddam to trading with Saddam as late as 1999 to supporting Bush II's Iraqi crusade.

This administration has dirty hands when it comes to Iraq, and has never demonstrated honor or honesty regarding the rush to war or its aftermath. Still, Friedman is again repeating the tired, discredited Bush line about eager, grateful Iraqis welcoming an American occupation. He proclaims a dubious "exile leader" as a likely heir apparent, thus minimizing the growing threat that Iraq will take a radical turn.

For more information, see Bush is doing exactly what bin Laden wants: http://www.mikehersh.com/Bush_doing_what_bin_Laden_wants.shtml

Worst of all, Friedman is cheerleading for the ludicrous pro-Bush fiction that any of this was ever about anything beneficial to Iraqis at all. Why does Friedman echo Bush's empty words about how he waged this war to "liberate" Iraq? Friedman knows Bush's decisions killed well over 100 American troops and 1000s of innocent Iraqis, and added to the suffering of millions more.

Friedman knows Bush is lying

Friedman knows Bush is lying to the American people about all of this. Why doesn't Friedman just tell us the truth, and let us contact Bush to demand fair treatment of the Iraqis? Instead, Friedman is spinning - misinforming his readers. He wants us thinking something which isn't reality and defending Bush's failure and lies. Is he campaigning for Ari Fleischer's old job?

I see no excuse to twist the facts or mislead readers into believing Bush ever had any honorable intentions toward Iraq. I think it's an abuse of trust, and somewhat patronizing. Does Friedman think we can't be trusted with the truth that Bush is a lying thug? In the end, trying to shield readers from the ugly truth will backfire.

I prefer reports which tell us "the way it is," as Walter Cronkite's closing line promised. I don't want misleading impressions some reporter passes off as facts saying they "seem" to be true. I want reasoning, evidence and support for these contentions. I don't expect to have to fact check for the New York Times. I don't expect anything less than accuracy.

The Bush people will do whatever they want in Iraq. Unless Americans know the truth about this war, Bush will launch another and then another. Friedman and the rest of the mass media refuse to hold Bush accountable. Rather than influencing Bush to do better, they are once more enabling him to do worse.