Gerson, New 'Wash Post' Columnist, Provided Key Phrase in 'NYT' WMD Piece
By E&P Staff
Wednesday, September 13 2006
Wednesday, September 13 2006
Published on AllBusiness.com
Since Michael Gerson's appointment as a new op-ed columnist for The Washington Post was announced on Monday, much attention has focused on his work at the White House – he was a key Bush speechwriter and policy aide until this summer – and his authorship of the famous "axis of evil" phrase. But according to a new bestselling book, he also played a central role in spinning one of the false "WMD scoops" in 2002 that the New York Times has tried to live down ever since.
That article, by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, appeared on Sept. 7, 2002, six months before the invasion of Iraq.
Early in their just-published book "Hubris," Michael Isikoff and David Corn assert that it was Gerson who conceived the "sound bite" that Iraq's alleged nuclear program could not be proven but "the first sign of a smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud."
Gerson, they write, was a member of the influential White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and within that group his "vivid metaphor, an administration official later said, perfectly captured the larger point about the need to deal with threats in the post-September 11 world. The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times reporters contacted the White House to talk bout their upcoming piece, one of them leaked Gerson's phrase—and the administration would soon make maximum use of it."
When the Miller-Gordon piece appeared, it was topped with the headline, "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts." It also included, as it turned out, numerous false claims from defectors about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons. But one phrase jumped out. Unnamed administration officials were worried that "the first sign of a 'smoking gun' might be a mushroom cloud."
It then gained even wider currency when, the same day, Vice President Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press," cited the Times story and the "very clear evidence" in it about Iraqi WMD.
The book also reveals that Gerson also played a key role in inserting references to the now-discredited "Niger" uranium/yellowcake link in various Bush speeches, including (famously) in the State of the Union in 2003. He also played a part in preparing Secretary of State Colin Powell's crucial, deeply misleading, speech to the United Nations a few weeks later.
Gerson appears in another passage in the book. After the invasion of Iraq turned up no WMD, he allegedly returned from a senior staff meeting and told a colleague "that some White House officials were insisting it didn't matter whether any weapons were actually found – so long as the war was viewed as a success. They were wrong, Gerson said. It mattered for the president's legacy."
That article, by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, appeared on Sept. 7, 2002, six months before the invasion of Iraq.
Early in their just-published book "Hubris," Michael Isikoff and David Corn assert that it was Gerson who conceived the "sound bite" that Iraq's alleged nuclear program could not be proven but "the first sign of a smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud."
Gerson, they write, was a member of the influential White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and within that group his "vivid metaphor, an administration official later said, perfectly captured the larger point about the need to deal with threats in the post-September 11 world. The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times reporters contacted the White House to talk bout their upcoming piece, one of them leaked Gerson's phrase—and the administration would soon make maximum use of it."
When the Miller-Gordon piece appeared, it was topped with the headline, "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts." It also included, as it turned out, numerous false claims from defectors about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons. But one phrase jumped out. Unnamed administration officials were worried that "the first sign of a 'smoking gun' might be a mushroom cloud."
It then gained even wider currency when, the same day, Vice President Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press," cited the Times story and the "very clear evidence" in it about Iraqi WMD.
The book also reveals that Gerson also played a key role in inserting references to the now-discredited "Niger" uranium/yellowcake link in various Bush speeches, including (famously) in the State of the Union in 2003. He also played a part in preparing Secretary of State Colin Powell's crucial, deeply misleading, speech to the United Nations a few weeks later.
Gerson appears in another passage in the book. After the invasion of Iraq turned up no WMD, he allegedly returned from a senior staff meeting and told a colleague "that some White House officials were insisting it didn't matter whether any weapons were actually found – so long as the war was viewed as a success. They were wrong, Gerson said. It mattered for the president's legacy."
