Fire Sale Explains So Much
The Post's whoring sale of its newsroom can't be really surprising to anyone, but the fact that it's now so blatantly out in the open is enough to generate conspiracy theories aplenty. For example, today had two seemingly "unrelated" articles: first, an op-ed by Yosemite Sam (John Bolton), urging Israel to strike at Iran's nuclear facilities and second, an A1 story about recently declassified accounts of Saddam Hussein's interrogation, in which he tells his interlocutors:
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Hussein's fear of Iran, which he said he considered a greater threat than the United States, featured prominently in the discussion about weapons of mass destruction. Iran and Iraq had fought a grinding eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein said he was convinced that Iran was trying to annex southern Iraq -- which is largely Shiite. "Hussein viewed the other countries in the Middle East as weak and could not defend themselves or Iraq from an attack from Iran," Piro recounted in his summary of a June 11, 2004, conversation.
"The threat from Iran was the major factor as to why he did not allow the return of UN inspectors," Piro wrote. "Hussein stated he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq."
Fred Hiatt is an open neoconservative. I'm not suggesting that the news story itself has an agenda behind it, but one wonders about the placement. As the op-ed pooh-bah, Hiatt ostensibly makes the call as to what goes on the opinion page when. If you wanted to see Iran blown up, it would certainly help if "even Saddam was afraid" of those crazy mullahs.
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