On 4/12/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Because he has to disclose the sources to his editor. You think
> they'd just run stuff on Hersh's word?
it sure seems as if the WaPo runs some stuff based on Woodward's word alone. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles</blockquote>
Daily newspapers don't have much time to fact-check, but presumably magazines have more time to do so. But a lot of what's said in Hersh's Iran article is beyond any fact-checker's capacity to check. Fact-checkers can check the accuracy of names, titles, locations, citations, quotations from written sources or recorded conversations, statistics, and things of that nature, but how can anyone actually "fact-check" the level of enthusiasm in Washington to actually use tactical nukes against Iran, rather than just threaten to use them (which is par for course and no news)?
Hersh writes that "Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as 'over the shoulder' bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars." That's the most interesting thing in the whole article. If that's true, Washington is certainly upping the ante in the intimidation department, but that's different from how close it in fact is to striking Iran with conventional weapons, let alone tactical nukes.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>