Right Voices

Expert Said to Tell Legislators He Was Pressed to Distort Some Evidence

WASHINGTON, June 24 — A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration’s views, several Congressional officials said today.

Looks pretty ominous for the Bush Administration, doesn’t it? The headline, itself, is quite accusatory. Read the headline again. What does it say to you? That this expert was pressured to distort evidence, leading one to believe that this expert did, in fact, distort evidence. Is that what the New York Times would like us to believe?

You gotta scroll down to paragraph 7 where it reads:

Mr. Westermann told lawmakers last week that while he felt pressure, he never actually changed the wording of any of his intelligence reports.

So, was he actually pressured? Or, did he FEEL pressured? Oh, and as a side note – he didn’t actually distort any evidence at all.

Oh, and paragraph 9 where it states:

Administration officials said his most specific complaints concerned issues related to intelligence on Cuba, and he has not yet provided similar specific complaints about the handling of intelligence on Iraq.

So, he wasn’t even speaking on Iraq – - he was speaking on Cuba. But wait a minute – - didn’t the lead in paragraph to this article specifically state that he was ‘pressed to tailor his views on Iraq’?

All of this came out of a Congressional closed-door hearing. So we have a closed door hearing and unnamed ‘Congressional Officials’ – - and then this quote from the article:

The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said tonight, “We don’t comment on closed hearings, but I can tell you that the secretary and deputy secretary have full confidence in John Bolton.”

So, they don’t comment on closed hearings. Is that a fact? Does that mean the NYTimes invented this story? Leaves me wondering.