The factually challenged Washington Post

As of late the Washington Post, that fine newspaper of breaking scandals open and doing investigative journalism... in the early 1970's... has found itself challenged by the fact that it no longer understands its 'local beat'. That local beat, being situated in Washington, D. C. is, primarily, the Federal Government. It is well neigh impossible to be factually challenged in the center of the hub of the Federal Government and all of the hangers-on lobbyists, public interest groups, Embassies, Government press releases and the such like. And not being able to actually understand little things, like: how the Government spends money, and how the Government appoints people to do things.

You would think the Washington Post, with more than enough *attack* groups and ideologues, would have no problem finding REAL things to vituperate on against the Administration. But that has proven not to be the case.

Consider my review of the WaPo article run to denigrate and deride the rebuilding effort in Iraq. As someone who has actually had to review budgets, ensure that projects were spending money properly and, generally, having some knowledge of this process, I do understand what spending figures mean and goals achieved mean. The Washington Post had two writers and who knows how many editors look that article over and let actual, factual numbers slip through! Yes they did! And then horribly misrepresented them to say 'look how bad a job the US Army Corps of Engineers is doing'. While in point of fact those figures, in the context of their placement within the fiscal year and the spending rate normally allotted by the Federal Government to get long term projects done showed just the opposite of mismanagement. The USACE was and IS doing a fantastic job of ensuring that money is spent efficiently, in the correct order for getting real results and in a fashion wholly in-tune with the entire spending and budgetary process of the Federal Government.

Those numbers do not get made up by 'accident' nor lied about: the DoD Inspector General is one pretty nasty office and that is above the Army IG, which is *no* smoothie. If you critically mishandle things as the Washington Post reported a few things would happen: 1) budget and spending numbers would be out of alignment during one of the quarterly reviews, 2) mis-spending would not go unnoticed or unreported, 3) projects would fail, 4) the program, and all of its projects that can be frozen, would be frozen for an oversight review, 5) the Commander and his staff would be called in to account for their mismanagement, 6) individuals would be relieved of duty if not actually brought up on charges, 7) a new oversight group and staff would be brought in, 8) all of this would be headline news for MONTHS.

In this modern age the actual General in charge of the operations in Iraq wrote a letter to the Washington Post and then put it up on the USACE website for rebuilding Iraq. He took them to task for that mischaracterization and others which were worse. Amongst those was reporting on 3 year old problems and then leaving them hanging in the article and NOT reporting that they had been targeted, fixed and new methods put in place to remedy them. The piece also cited lack of rebuilding on clinics and hospitals while neglecting to tell the reader that water and sewage capability are necessary for a hospital to be run properly. Those infrastructure projects MUST come first or you then create larger problems of facilities that make problems WORSE. The choice of overloading the good facilities until that point in time is a harsh one, but rather that then to have hospitals turn into mortuaries, where the sick enter and leave feet first.

That article was one of misreporting, lacking of context and leaving old problems that had been resolved to look as if they were *still* problems. After 3 years!

And now the Washington Post has decided to do another piece on Iraq and the post-war administration of it. Let me be right up front: there were mistakes that were made there and problems which did not get addressed and some wrong-headed attitudes that should have been quickly resolved by FIRING PEOPLE. That did not happen. Those are plain and valid things to report upon as they are actual, real events. What is being done by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in this front-page 17 SEP 2006 article is to go on and *invent* facts and problems. Some of the attacks leveled are extremely personal in nature as to the competence and capabilities of individuals and HOW the Government appoints individuals and spends money. The outright falsehoods are being exposed by Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review Online in this 18 SEP 2006 response. Mr. Ponnuru has an advantage of actually KNOWING the individuals involved in the slanderous attacks and having some understanding of how the Federal Procurement system operates.

Mr. Ponnuru does not mince words and calls the article a "hit piece". He is not the only one to raise major questions on this article as Paul Mirengoff at Power Line has also done so with this 17 SEP 2006 article. Mr. Mirengoff raises substantial, ethical questions about the disingenuous crossing of theme with the actual individuals involved and what those individuals could actually do. By crossing up a concept of 'nepotism' or 'landed emplacement of cronies' with individuals who are demonstrably neither and not ideologues, Mr. Chandrasekaran ill-reports facts and tries to muddy issues which are clearly not amenable to such mud.

Finally is the overall attack on Nation building by Mr. Chandrasekaran. I would suggest that he do a comparison with ANY peacekeeping mission by the UN and contrast it with Iraq. How can the US accomplish in a few short years what the UN is *still* trying to figure out in the Balkans for over a decade? And, mind you, that was handed to them as a well run situation well on its way to real peace and security... and NONE have flourished since the US and other European Nations handed the situation to the UN. Perhaps Mr. Chandresekaran could look into THAT and find something worthwhile to report... like its problems in Kosovo.

Compared to *that* the US is doing a fantastic job as I demonstrate with various Good News articles on Iraq: here, police blotter 'rip-n-read' for the factually challenged media, what those purporting about little things in Iraq AREN'T trying to show you, Quiet and Hidden news part 1 and part 2 just in case the MSM wants to report on things that are not red and runny, the people of Iraq telling of how it is to live under the tyrant. Seems the US is doing better than the UN at just about anything... so why criticize the US more than the UN? I have no idea... perhaps Mr. Chandrasekaran has a vested interest there... I really don't know *why* someone would do such.