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Al Qaeda

• October 25 -- More Hard-Luck Stories from Guantanamo Inmates
Tim Golden has two huge front-page stories on the military and diplomatic struggles over the inmates at Guantanamo Bay: "Many of the detainees sent to Guantánamo turned out to be low-level militants, Taliban fighters and men simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time." Not until the last four paragraphs does Golden note some released prisoners are now fighting American troops in Iraq.

• August 25 -- Harping on Overseas Unpopularity of Guantanamo
We get the point, Neil.

• July 23 -- Times Again Tries to Minimize Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties
Douglas Jehl insists the final 9/11 report "finds no indication that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the 1990's 'ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship,' a conclusion very different in tone from assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials." But the report actually goes into significant detail about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.

• July 23 -- Sandy Berger "Disrupted" Millennium Terror Plot?
After a string of blame-Bush stories in the Times, reporters David Johnston and Douglas Jehl squelch most of the anti-Bush bias in their story on the 9/11 commission's final report. But some misinformation still leaks through.

• July 12 -- Still Ignoring the 9/11 Commissioners
Philip Shenon's story on the 9/11 commission's upcoming final report again insists the commission undermines White House arguments about a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda--despite what the cochairmen of the commission say.

• June 25 -- Now They Tell Us: NYT Confirms Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties
Thom Shanker has a scoop supporting the Bush administration's contention that there were in fact ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq (no matter what the paper's previous headlines have implied). But why didn't they tell us last week?

• June 22 -- Could Bush & Co. Have "Foreseen" 9-11?
Douglas Jehl again argues the Bush administration missed clues to the WTC attack.

• June 22 -- More Moore, Less Clarke
Intelligence reporter Philip Shenon pens a quasi-review of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" and goes out of his way to defend Moore. Also: What became of media hero Richard Clarke?

• June 21 -- US in Iraq Like Soviets in Afghanistan?
Distortions old and new from reporter Edward Wong in his latest from Baghdad. First he compares the U.S. liberation of Iraq to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, then wrongly claims Bush pressed for war by citing a working relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda.

• June 21 -- Safire vs. The Times
Columnist William Safire opens with a broadside against the Times' misleading front-page treatment of the 9-11 report, and then takes on the editorial page.

• June 21 -- More Misleading on Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties
Times reporter Tom Zeller challenges liberal conventional wisdom on the idea that the 9/11 report contradicts Bush and Cheney's claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Will his colleagues ever do the same?

• June 18 -- Jehl Calls Bush Into Question Over 9-11
Douglas Jehl pens a slanted analysis of Bush and the 9-11 report: "…that panel has called into question nearly every aspect of the administration's response to terror, including the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda were somehow the same foe. Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House."

• June 18 -- Dick Cheney Takes On "Outrageous" NYT
David Sanger and Robin Toner's front-page story is headlined "Bush and Cheney Talk Strongly of Qaeda Links With Hussein." More accurate would have been "Cheney Castigates NYT." Then again, the vice president hasn't been too impressed with Times headlines lately.

• June 17 -- Czech It Out: Times Tries to Squash Al Qaeda-Iraq Link
The NYT has worked overtime to discredit Czech intelligence reports of a meeting in Prague between 9-11 terrorist Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer. James Risen cites the 9-11 report to justify dismissing the allegations: "…the Sept. 11 commission said its investigation had found that the meeting never took place." But the report doesn't--as Risen's own story shows.

• June 17 -- Doubting David Attacks Bush's Iraq Speech
David Sanger reports on a Bush speech and works in his own doubts about Iraq: "Mr. Bush focused on the best news he could find in the 14 days before the handover. He said that thousands of schools had reopened and that electricity had been restored, not mentioning that electricity was being generated far below the levels his own administration set as a goal." But Sanger leaves out a lot.

• June 17 -- Hitting Bush's "Spotty Scorecard" on Iraq Invasion
Richard Stevenson sees trouble for Bush from the 9-11 report: "In questioning the extent of any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the commission weakened the already spotty scorecard on Mr. Bush's justifications for sending the military to topple Saddam Hussein."

• June 17 -- Bush's "Dishonest" War Efforts
An editorial on the 9-11 interim report begins: "It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11." The report actually confirms a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but that doesn't stop the editorial page from calling Bush dishonest.

• June 17 -- The 9-11 Report: Overreaching to Blame Bush
Philip Shenon and Christopher Marquis take the front page for the first in a series of blame-Bush stories in the wake of the 9-11 commission's report: "The staff of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks sharply contradicted one of President Bush's central justifications for the Iraq war, reporting on Wednesday that there did not appear to have been a 'collaborative relationship' between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."

• May 28 -- What's Happened to the Times' Terror Concern?
The Times has been critical of Bush for failing to act against terror threats before 9-11--yet its dragging its heels in laying out current terrorist threats.

• May 27 -- Bush's Response to Terror Threats: Either Passive Or Politicized
First the Times jumps on Bush for not acting on vague terrorist threats in a daily briefing he received a month before 9-11. Yet when John Ashcroft speaks out about a new Al Qaeda threat, they question the political timing in the headline and story.

• March 10 -- Twisted Terror Priorities at the Times
The Times' twisted priorities on the war on terror: Possible miscalculations by the Bush administration get top-shelf treatment, while potential terrorist threats are either played down or (in the case of Jehl's story) not mentioned at all.

• November 20 -- The Times Finally Checks Out Pentagon Memo
After several days, the Times finally weighs in on a story regarding the leaked memo alleging ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

• September 22 -- An Anti-Wolfowitz Whopper
Reporter Eric Schmitt’s story on a talk by Paul Wolfowitz includes this whopper: “‘Iraq did have contacts with Al Qaeda,’ Mr. Wolfowitz insisted, momentarily silencing the audience with an accusation even President Bush now says is unsubstantiated." But Bush said last week “There's no question Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.”