WMDs and the Times

The New York Times does it again. In its editorial in response to President Ahmadinejad of Iran’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, the Times declares that “the trouble is that Iran has a nuclear weapons program...” And there you have it. The IAEA with actual inspectors in Iran has not yet found any evidence of a weapons program, and none of the European countries that have negotiated with Iran over its nuclear energy program have ever claimed that Iran definitively has a weapons program; but if the Times says it, it must be so.
One would think that after the Judith Miller fiasco the Times would be a little more cautious about stating a WMD allegation as fact. They are absolutely right to condemn the Iranian president for his ridiculous repetition of a tired old slogan from the early days of the revolution, but to state as fact that a nation President Bush includes in the “axis of evil” has a program to build nuclear bombs is nothing short of irresponsible. How many Americans will believe Dick Cheney or anyone else in our government when they say that Iran is building the bomb and must be stopped by any means necessary? They read it in the Times, after all.