Slate's Jack Shafer has a good point, here. What every one wants is not for the Times to continue to disappoint on the investigative front. We want them to use their incredible resources to break this thing down.

It's easy to get hung up on the wording of today's editors' note and complain that the Times didn't adequately apologize, or bitch that nobody from the Times was taken out and shot for his crimes. But ignore the editors' note for a moment. The true test of the Times is on the horizon: Having promised to set the record straight on the Iraq WMD story, what sort of journalism will the newspaper commit?

Rise to the challenge, guys and gals. Explode this story. It is still there for the taking.

Post Script: Here are some stories I would attack if I had the resources.

1) The full profile of the INC's defector management program. Who exactly were the defectors? How did they get delivered to the US government? to the media? Where did the coaching occur? 'Where are they now?' [Khidr Hamza] etc.

2) The role -- past and present -- of the US handlers of the INC -- Francis Brooke. The Rendon Group? [Are they still on the payroll to promote the INC? What happened to their contracts on this issue?] Laurie Mylroie seems to have been awfully close. Perle, etc.

3) The real story of INC intel chief Aras Habib Karim, and the intel program he managed for the INC and how it intersected with the OSD, the Information Collection Program. So far, the New York Sun's Eli Lake's reporting on this issue has left everyone else in the dust.

4) The alleged Jordanian dossier? Referred to in the NY Post piece

5) Other countries? The US was not the only country whose intelligence agency was convinced in large part by the INC-managed defectors about Saddam's WMD program. What was the story in Denmark? In Germany? In Britain?

6) What really made the White House, in April, turn decisively against Chalabi and the INC? What happened?

That's a start.

Posted by Laura at May 26, 2004 07:38 PM