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Monday, December 1, 2008 12:00 AM

NBC and McCaffrey's coordinated responses to the NYT story

Emails obtained between NBC executives and the retired General further underscore NBC's gross indifference to journalistic ethics.

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  • Monday, December 1, 2008 02:20 PM

    Missing McAffrey's most egregious sin

    In nailing NBS, you're missing the forest for the trees. Here's the story:

    "General McCaffrey harbored significant doubts about the invasion plan. An informal participant in the war planning, he was troubled by Mr. Rumsfeld’s resistance to an invasion force of several hundred thousand, he acknowledged months and years later in interviews. Mr. Rumsfeld’s team, he said, was bent on making an “ideological” point that wars could be fought “on the cheap.” There were not enough tanks, artillery or troops, he would say, and the result was a “grossly anemic” force that unnecessarily put troops at risk.

    That is not what General McCaffrey said when asked on NBC outlets to assess the risks of war. As planning for a possible invasion received intense news coverage in 2002, he repeatedly assured viewers that the war would be brief, the occupation lengthy but benign.

    “These people are going to come apart in 21 days or less,” he told Brian Williams on MSNBC."

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