If you’re busy, say with a job, you may not have time to do hours of investigative research of the policy issues that affect your everyday life. I know I don’t. I do, however, depend on journalists to report the facts straight on important policy issues. That’s why I’ve been bothered by recent reports about Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapons. The reporting sounds eerily like the buildup to the Iraq war which we know was based on false evidence.
For an alternative view of this issue check out C-Span’s interview of Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector from 1991 to 1998. You’ll remember that in 2002 Ritter was one of the few experts who questioned whether Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction as our media often reported. Last weekend, Ritter was on C-Span’s Washington Journal questioning the evidence that Iran has nuclear capabilities. Ritter talked about the difference between what he called fact-based analysis and faith based analysis. He discussed why he questions the NYTimes Sunday article about Iran having data to make a bomb. And he discredited these “quotes” often attributed to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the U.S. press: 1) that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust happened and 2) that Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Check it out.
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