Why hasn’t the revelation tucked within article received any play in, say, the New York Times today?
“…today it emerged that the offer only applied to military bases – which could let Saddam hide chemical and biological arms stockpiles elsewhere…
The disclosure that restrictions were, after all, attached to Saddam’s offer was made by the London ambassador of the Arab League which brokered the deal in the first place.
Ali Muhsen Hamid claimed Iraq was being sincere, but he stipulated that civilian sites would not be available to the inspectors. ‘We support anywhere, any military site (for inspections), but not as some people have suggested for inspections against hospitals, against schools.'”
I’ve checked the New York Times and WaPo’s Iraq stories today, and find no mention of it. This piece ran yesterday in the online version of the London Evening Standard.
Have the NYT/WaPo followed up on this and found the quote from Ali Muhsen Hamid to be inaccurate? (And if so, wouldn’t that be news as well?)
Are we just seeing a delay in cycle time — have the American media just not noticed it yet? (And if so, shouldn’t they be hiring some bloggers who are paying closer attention than they are — say, this one and this one, both of whom had this story).
I’ll cut the NYT and WaPo one more day of slack on this before I cry “bias”, but the TTLB radar is up and humming… stay tuned…
Update: OK, this isn’t looking any better. Henry Hanks points out that this article was referenced in yesterday’s Best of the Web from WSJ’s OpinionJournal and FoxNews (I can’t seem to locate the FoxNews citation). Those aren’t exactly, er, low visibility spots to hide something. (And its right at the top of BOTW, too). Hanks also mentions that Ali Muhsen Hamid claims to have been misquoted — but that there is a transcript that disproves that claim.