In what amounts to a damning self-indictment, the New York Times admitted in a September 26 editorial that it “never quarreled with one of
basic premises” for launching its war on Iraq—the supposed threat from weapons of mass destruction.
The editorial, titled “The failure to find Iraqi weapons,” never explains, however, why the newspaper—considered the most influential voice of what once passed for a liberal establishment in America—uncritically accepted the government’s premises.
The obvious question is why the Times, with its hundreds of reporters and annual revenues totaling over $3 billion, did not question the Bush administration’s official story. Why did it not use its considerable resources to conduct its own independent investigation and challenge the claims of the government? Is that not the supposed task of an independent media?
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Yet the Times insists that its readers assume only innocent motives and good intentions on the part of the Bush White House. While faulting the administration for its doctrine of preemptive war and suggesting that the absence of any weapons in Iraq is “an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration,” the newspaper nonetheless suggests that all can end well: “If Iraq can be turned into a freer and happier country in coming years, it could become a focal point for the evolution of a more peaceful and democratic Middle East.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/nyt-s30.shtml 
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