Friday, October 14, 2005

The story of General Judy

With all the gossip around Judy Miller and the Plame case, it's a good time to remember this episode in Judy's checkered career: General Judy by Billmon, Whiskey Bar blog 06/25/03.

Back in those heady days, True Believers still had hopes of finding some shred of evidence of those WMDs that Judy had been reporting on.  And she herself played a special role in the search.  Billmon linked to this story: Embedded Reporter's Role In Army Unit's Actions Questioned by Military by Howard Kurtz Washington Post 06/25/03.  It's not that Kurtz, aka "the loathsome Howie Kurtz", is a model practitioner of the journalistic arts.  But compared to Judy Miller, even Howie looks like a real journalist.

As the article explains, Judy was essentially directing an Army team call MET Alpha, which was looking for WMDs in Iraq.

The MET Alpha team was charged with examining potential Iraqi weapon sites in the war's aftermath. Military officers critical of the unit's conduct say its members were not trained in the art of human intelligence -- that is, eliciting information from prisoners and potential defectors. Specialists in such interrogations say the initial hours of questioning are crucial, and several Army and Pentagon officials were upset that MET Alpha officers were debriefing Hussein son-in-law Jamal Sultan Tikriti.

"This was totally out of their lane, getting involved with human intelligence," said one military officer who, like several others interviewed, declined to be named because he is not an authorized spokesman. But, the officer said of Miller, "this woman came in with a plan. She was leading them. . . . She ended up almost hijacking the mission."

Said a senior staff officer of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, of which MET Alpha is a part: "It's impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the mission of this unit, and not for the better." Three weapons specialists were reassigned as the unit changed its approach, according to officers with the task force.

And she was effetively able to countermand a general's orders, in the following manner (my emphasis):

On April 21, when the MET Alpha team was ordered to withdraw to the southern Iraqi town of Talil, Miller objected in a handwritten note to two public affairs officers. It said:

"I see no reason for me to waste time (or MET Alpha, for that matter) in Talil. . . . Request permission to stay on here with colleagues at the Palestine Hotel til MET Alpha returns or order to return is rescinded. I intend to write about this decision in the NY Times to send a successful team back home just as progress on WMD is being made."

One military officer, who says that Miller sometimes "intimidated" Army soldiers by invoking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Undersecretary Douglas Feith, was sharply critical of the note. "Essentially, she threatened them," the officer said, describing the threat as that "she would publish a negative story."

An Army officer, who regarded Miller's presence as "detrimental," said: "Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat," this person said, and MET Alpha "was allowed to bend the rules." ...

Miller later challenged the pullback order with Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne. While Petraeus did not have direct authority over Col. Richard McPhee, the commander of the 75th task force, McPhee rescinded his withdrawal order after Petraeus advised him to do so. McPhee declined two requests for comment.

"Our desire was to pull these guys back in," said an officer who served under McPhee, adding that it was "quite a surprise" that the order was reversed.

I bet.  It is very surprising.  There's obvious more to Judy than gullible and irresponsible journalism about WMD.  Kurtz also refers to an earlier story in which he published an e-mail of Judy's saying that most of her front-page stories on the WMDs came from her friend, the scamster (and Iranian spy?) Ahmad Chalabi.

Billmon reflected on the story:

So there you have it: Not only does the brass have to take orders from Rummy and his pet chicken hawks, they have to toe the line for the gang's favorite media hack as well. Is it any wonder the generals hate their bosses so much? ...

The more I think about this story, the more insane it sounds. It looks like Miller became the neocons' "woman on the ground" with Alpha Team. So a New York Times reporter ended up with her own direct line to the Pentagon, allowing her to countermand the orders of commanders in the field????

And the question of just what that arrangement was all about has never been satisfactorily answered.  At least not in public.

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