Jim Young/Reuters
Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter whose stories on Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction helped lead to war, says the Bush administration didn't lie and she wasn't spun. In a Wall Street Journal essay, Miller admits she "made my share" of "mistakes about Iraq" but "no senior official spoon-fed me a line about WMD." Miller doesn't mention one specific article or mistake. In 2004, the New York Times said several of her major reports were flawed ("U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts; Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert") because they were based on "information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on 'regime change' in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate...." First among them was Ahmed Chalabi, who said it didn't matter if the administration was wrong about WMD. “We are heroes in error,” Chalabi said. “As far as we’re concerned, we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.” Miller doesn't mention Chalabi.