Interview with Jonathan Landay, Knight Ridder, National Security Correspondent

March 24, 2004
Transcription by Volunteer Citizen Journalist Paul Jamieson

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself Knight Ridder.
JONATHAN LANDAY: My name is Jonathan Landay. I'm a senior correspondent for Knight-Ridder -- cover National Security Affairs.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, and how many newspapers does Knight-Ridder -- ?
LANDAY: Thirty-one.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- Hold on. When I'm going to be asking questions, if you could answer in a full sentence as if -- Yeah.
LANDAY: We have thirty-one newspapers, but also we own -- co-own the Knight-Ridder Tribune news service that I think feeds something like 350 other newspapers around the world. So the stories get quite wide distribution.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, great. And why don't you go ahead and tell me -- When you come in each day, where do you get your news from?
LANDAY: Where do I get--? I'm following -- developing sources and developing leads off stuff that I've been reporting now for 18 months on the questionable intelligence that was used by the administration to make its case for the war in Iraq. And so I'll follow developments on it that are breaking in ordinary news developments. But most of what I've been doing for the past 18 months -- except for a three months -- three-to-four month break in the middle where I actually went to Iraq and covered the war -- has been devoted to covering the intel story.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- Do you read the New York Times or Washington Post to see what other news -- ?
LANDAY: Sure -- I mean, I like to know what else other people are reporting, but on this story -- pretty much we're alone. And so -- My real only concern is to make sure that we're covering -- we've covered stuff that other people aren't covering or reporting on -- that we stay ahead.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, great. And -- How have you seen the White House influence the news coverage leading up to the war in Iraq?
LANDAY: Well I have to put the caveat on that I was only here until January of ‘03. And then I went to Kurdistan -- Northern Iraq. But up to that point my impression was that -- Virtually all major media echoed what the White House was saying about Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction program, its ties to terrorists. You'll even hear a lot of mass media back then echoing allegations that Saddam was involved in 9/11. And not just echoing them, but reporting them. And this was nothing -- This wasn't a specific charge that was made by the White House, but if you look at the way they were dealing with the -- that question -- there certainly were enough people, very senior in the administration, who were very happy to imply that without actually saying it. And they were helped because: A) there was media out there reporting it, and B) there were their allies -- talking heads here in Washington -- who were very much in favor of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq -- who were also echoing these allegations -- Some of whom still are. And they were getting on television on a regular basis. They were getting on radio. They were making speeches. They were writing op-ed articles. And nobody was questioning what they were saying, and I think there were a number of reasons why. First of all, everybody who covered this issue for any length of time -- who was involved in this issue for any length of time -- everybody believed that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. The terrorism thing, I would -- I would put to the side. But as far as WMD went, I think, that it was almost universally assumed -- assumed -- that he had concealed weapons that the UN inspectors hadn't found. And I have to count myself in among that group until I began and my partners began reporting the stories that we began reporting in September of '02 -- '01 -- No, September of '02 --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: '02 --
LANDAY: Yeah, sorry -- about people within -- quoting people within the government who were themselves questioning what the administration was saying about the intelligence that the United States had.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, great. Did you see a pattern of -- when reporters were misreporting items, they weren't being corrected -- if it was suiting their agenda. And if it wasn't suiting their agenda -- Was there a certain amount of flack that was given?
LANDAY: Well, you're using the word "agenda" as a kind of -- You're using it in a very broad sense in that you're basically implying that most reporters had agendas. I don't believe that. I do believe that there were some major news organizations that had an agenda --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Oh, I mean the Bush Administration's agenda.
LANDAY: Oh, you're talking about the Bush Administration's agenda. I don't think anybody questioned it. Many people did not -- Most people did not question it. So they didn't go to correct their reporting. And I think that there was another -- there was another issue at play here, and that was the effect of 9/11 on the general US psyche which was -- you know, "We've gotta come together", and -- you know, "It's us against them." And "If you start questioning what the government is saying, you jeopardize -- you could end up jeopardizing your readership, your viewership ratings, your access to official sources." There were all sorts of considerations, I think, that went into the -- contributing to this failure -- And it was a failure of most major media to delve behind -- in a meaningful way -- the administration's rationale for going to war, and the intelligence that it was using to make it's case. Unlike us, because we -- when we started hearing from people, questions about -- people within the government -- raising questions and concerns about the arguments that the administration was making -- And saying, "The intelligence isn't there to support what they're saying." We began to really focus on that question. And what we were doing -- we were talking not to senior officials who were part of the political -- who shared the political agenda -- but people who -- the hands-on. sort of mid-level -- and some senior people too, very senior people too -- who were dealing with this issue, and had serious questions about what was going on.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And that -- What -- The first reports that you started to come out were in September and early October, right?
LANDAY: Yeah, I think the first story that I wrote that kind of got the ball rolling was a story -- I think it was in September '02 -- and the lead was something like, "Senior officials with access to top-secret intelligence say that "There has been no alarming increase in the threat from Saddam Hussein detected." And we were off to the races.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So -- Judith Miller and Michael Gordon had their two aluminium tube stories. The Washington Post had one aluminium tube story. And the Institute for Science and Security Studies -- or the ISIS had another study, and then you had your report on October 4th. Had you been working on it? Or did you on that day when you got the CIA report start working on it?
LANDAY: No, I mean I hadn't been working on it -- I was still looking at other questions. One of the major questions we were looking at was "How much of the suspect intelligence was influencing the military planning?" And it turns out it was in quite a few ways. But that was the first time I wrote a story about that, and I think what leapt out at me -- as opposed to other journalists -- was this acknowledgement -- in this CIA public report on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programs -- that disclosed a dispute over the nature of these tubes. The rest of the report was just everything else we had been hearing for years about what was suspected in terms of Saddam's weapons. But this for me was a real tale-tell signal that we were on the right track in terms of our general reporting theme, which was questionable intelligence. And it turns out that there was a dispute -- not only about the tubes -- but there was a dispute over the Niger uranium, and a dispute over the nature of Saddam's unmanned aerial vehicle program, over his nuclear program -- Stuff that eventually we reported out -- a lot of it for the first time. But this for me was really the first real eye-opener -- confirmation that we were really on to something.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Now, I guess -- It's your job, as a reporter -- is to do these reports, and you get them printed. And then you kind of sit back and see how it affects the kind of dialogue and the debate. From your perspective, were the reports that you were making -- Were they not getting into the mainstream thought of America? And if so, why not?
LANDAY: Not really -- Because Knight-Ridder is not -- doesn't own newspapers --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, hold on. Just start again with the -- kind of a brief recap -- or with a sentence --
LANDAY: Yep. Our stuff wasn't really getting headline play throughout the United States, because Knight-Ridder doesn't own newspapers in New York and Washington -- these very important, key centers of influence in the United States. They were getting noticed, because there -- They were being published, not just in Knight-Ridder newspapers, but other newspapers that subscribe to the Knight-Ridder Tribune Service. And then it was -- they were being noticed to some extent here in Washington, because the Pentagon everyday does this compendium early in the morning of national security stories called "The Early Bird." And it circulates -- it's a very good compendium -- of what the press is reporting that day on National Security topics. And it gets circulated throughout the government. And so -- Some of our stuff was starting to get noticed, but still we weren't -- there weren't any major -- you know -- people weren't really paying enormous amounts of attention. In fact, the mainstream press continued reporting that he had weapons of mass destruction, and their possible ties to terrorism. And the administration was also pursuing that -- those lines very aggressively as it sought to turn public opinion in favor of a war against Saddam. And it was one of the more frustrating parts of doing this. At the same time, we're not in this to gain recognition for ourselves, we're in this because it's our job as reporters -- for better or for worse -- Constitutionally, to hold the government accountable for it's actions, and what it's telling the American people. And that's what we were doing. We were doing our job. One of the more important facets of that is -- I mean, I think one of the major reasons we got into it in the first place is because Knight-Ridder owns three papers that are -- that serve the bases from which most of the ground troops -- who invaded Iraq -- were drawn from. This is -- the paper in Macon, Georgia, the paper in Lexington, Kentucky, the paper in Fort Worth, Texas. And my boss, John Walcott said to us, "We have a special responsibility, because we own those papers. Because the families of soldiers who are being sent -- the loved ones -- the daughters, the sons, the wives -- are going to look to our papers to inform them of not only what's going on in terms of the making of the case for war, but the war itself. And the ramifications that a war in Iraq could have for them, and their loved ones." And so that for us was a really special consideration in all of this.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Why don't you talk a little bit about the difference between investigative reporting and beat reporting. And where you fit into that?
LANDAY: Well, I kind of straddle -- I kind of straddle the line between beat reporting and investigative reporting, because National Security issues are probably the most opaque that are dealt with by the government. Because that's just the nature of the beast. And therefore, to be able to report on National Security issues you have to be able to do investigative reporting. Because obviously these are issues that the government doesn't really want to talk about a lot. And so -- I kind of mixed the two together. And -- I write daily -- I write daily reports too based on sort of what's happening that day -- stuff on the hill. I covered the war. I spent three months in Kurdistan -- reporting on not just the preparations the invasion of Iraq by the Americans, but also the Iraqi Opposition. And what they were doing up there in terms of trying to get their act together for post-Saddam -- as well as the operations against Ansar al-Islam -- the extremist Islamic group that was based up in Kurdistan. And so, I was reporting everyday -- or trying to -- on daily developments. And I do the same thing here. But -- In trying to get to the bottom of the use of the intelligence for the justification of the war, that requires a lot of investigative techniques. And that means -- In a lot of ways, you have to sort of be an intelligence analyst. A lot of the most important stories I've done haven't relied on secret sources or leaked documents. There's a lot out there in the public domain that merely needs to be scrubbed and read over. And when you do it for a second time -- You know, the first time you hear a speech, you kind of report on the speech -- and you put it aside. What I've been doing -- since all of this really started bubbling up -- is going back, and re-reading speeches and statements. And when you go back and do that, then you -- things hit you that didn't hit you the first time. Because when you wrote it -- when you listened to it the first time, there wasn't -- You were reporting on -- I was reporting on the questionable intelligence, but it wasn't really a huge issue. And so a lot of stuff you kind of jumped over back then. Now, I've gone back and re-read virtually every speech that Vice-President Cheney's made, that the President has made, that Colin Powell has made -- news conferences -- white papers. There's a lot out there that you can do without having to develop secret sources and getting people to leak documents to you. Beyond that -- I think a lot of the mainstream press has gotten fat and lazy. And they've gotten to a point where they have assumed that they're just going to be given stuff. They've gotten used to being given stuff -- Because this is the way this town works, "Oh, you know, I've got something coming out. I'll leak it to so-and-so, and they'll put it in the paper and it'll get a lot of attention. And then we'll have -- We'll have more people at our news conference." And so that tends to dilute entrepreneurialship -- and the desire to do investigative stuff. ‘Cause it's hard, it's tough, it's time consuming. And I think, as I said -- A lot of very large media -- television and newspapers -- have just gotten used to getting handouts, and therefore have lost the fire in the belly. In our case, we didn't have access to the senior officials that these other large media have had -- do have. And it required us to scramble. But it was good in a way, because we were able to sort of go below their level -- to the level where there wasn't this political agenda -- where people were truly bothered by what was going on -- and find people who were willing to talk to us.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So do you think that if you worked for either the New York Times or a major television show that you wouldn't have been able to do -- develop the same type of sources, and do the same type of reporting that you were able to do?
LANDAY: No. I don't think I'd be able to do the same kind of reporting that I've been able to do if I worked for television -- absolutely. Because in today's television news, rarely puts stories on that they can't put pictures to. And a lot of stories can't -- are so complicated and technical that you can't put pictures to them, and therefore they're not going to get on air. If I had been working for an organization -- a news organization that had been publishing stories that essentially substantiated the administration's case for war, I doubt very much whether stories that called into question the other stories that my publication was printing -- would get printed.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So editorially they would have been squelched?
LANDAY: Yeah. Because it would have meant, "Well, wait a minute, we reported last week that it was like this." And now you're saying, "Well, that was bogus -- that was bogus information -- or there was questionable intelligence." And now, not only are you calling into question the story that we published last week, but the credibility of the reporter who reported that story. And I don't think that would have gone over very well.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Do you know of any instances of other fellow reporters who were on the same beat as you, trying to report the same type of stuff, but were editorially not --
LANDAY: No. No. Because -- All's I know is that -- we -- My bosses have been nothing but as supportive as any journalist would ever want their boss to be. We have been told, "This is the most important story that we could possibly cover, and go for it. Do what you gotta do." Because the decision to go to war -- to take a country into war -- There is no graver decision that a President can make than to take a country into war. And given what we have found in our reporting -- in terms of the questions raised about the rationale that the American people were given -- we've been told, "Just keep doing it."

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Now if you were -- You went to Iraq in January, right? If you were in the United States -- Do you have any, I guess it's more hypothetical, but what type of beats would you have been looking at?
LANDAY: Oh, I would have still been on the Iraq -- There was no other story. It was Iraq. You know, 24/7 --

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Any specific issues as far as the tubes, or Niger or?
LANDAY: I did do reporting on Niger, when I came back. In fact, I broke the story that said the CIA had informed the White House about it's reservations about the alleged uranium shopping trip that Iraq had made in Niger ten months before the President trotted it out in his State of the Union address. So I was still, even despite that three-month break, I was still able to get back into it fairly quickly. And actually, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way -- Because a lot of the time I spent up in the north was with the Iraqi National Congress, and the Iraqi opposition. And I was able to watch that part of this whole -- this whole thing. And get a sense of the people who were involved, particularly the group that was providing a lot of the questionable intelligence -- defectors who have since been determined to be fabricators or exaggerators -- I was able to cover them. And to experience, in fact -- in instances where I think I was misled, not by the Iraqi National Congress, but I believe by some of the Kurdish officials, who were up there. And the drum they were banging about al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam now seems -- based on intelligence since the end of the war -- that while there were connections between Ansar and al Qaeda, they were probably a lot more tenuous than I was being made to believe -- and other journalists were being made to believe when we were in Kurdistan.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So -- looking back at -- I want to go back to the Iraqi National Congress and the -- What can you say -- Or I guess first -- The links between giving Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorists to attack the United States, and speak to what the CIA has since come out --
LANDAY: Well actually, the fact is that the CIA came out before the war with questions about that particular assertion by the administration. A letter --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Hold on. When you say, "that particular assertion." Can you just repeat it?
LANDAY: In fact, the CIA itself disclosed it's own disagreement with the administration's assertions about Saddam being capable of giving Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorist groups. In a letter that -- part of a letter to the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham -- And I think it was in November of '02. CIA Director George Tenet said, "Actually, it's our judgement that this would be -- that Saddam wouldn't do this except under -- you know, as a very, very, last resort, desperate -- desperation move. That we don't believe that he would do this except if we was about to go down, and he wanted to take as many people down with him as he could -- particularly Americans -- He might, under those circumstances, provide Weapons of Mass Destruction to extremists like al Qaeda." And in fact, if you look at the National Intelligence Estimate -- that at that time, in October of ‘02, was still classified -- it says the very same thing -- It says, "We don't believe --" It says something along the lines that, "We judge that if he decided to use Weapons of Mass Destruction against the United States and it's allies, he would probably do it using Iraqi intelligence officers. That he would have them do it. And only as a last, very last, desperate -- desperation move, would he provide Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorists." And the reason is because -- that he would be -- he would be afraid that they could be traced back to him. And that he didn't want to take that risk. So the administration had been given this judgement by the CIA as early as October of '02. And yet, none of their statements reflect that judgement. Instead, their statements continue to hammer on this question of whether this danger of Saddam providing terrorists with Weapons of Mass Destruction. And so yeah, there's -- There was a question about what the administration was saying by the -- raised by the CIA itself, before the war.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One aspect of this whole campaign for the Bush administration to sell the war in Iraq was using the UN -- the United Nations weapons inspections process as, in a way, the international legal justification for the war -- What is your impression of how the Bush administration treated the inspections process?
LANDAY: Well, there's no doubt in my mind, because I did some reporting on this, that Saddam was using the sanctions to enrich himself. And to raise money outside of UN control for use in whatever he chose to use it for. And it seems now that he was mostly using it to maintain the loyalty of his Ba'ath party -- you know, with privileges and houses and property and visits to palaces, which were really like -- you know, I've been in a bunch of them -- luxury playgrounds -- with incredible swimming pools and bars and what have you -- and gyms, vast dining rooms. But these were kind of rewards for loyalty. And I think a lot of the money that he was making illegally off the sanctions were going to the -- was going to that, it was going to other things to support the regime. It seems quite unlikely now that it was being used to build Weapons of Mass Destruction, which have not been found -- at least, not up to this point. But -- I think that in retrospect, I think there were people like David Kay, the former head of the US weapons inspection effort, post-Saddam, who are saying, "Seems like the UN inspections regime worked." That it in fact had, by the time Saddam, basically threw them out in 1998, had in fact succeeded in ferreting out most -- most of his really bad stuff. They had destroyed the nuclear program, and they had basically uncovered and destroyed most of the chemical and biological programs. There were still -- There were still elements of the programs that hadn't been uncovered -- lot's of paper, the expertise, missiles -- they were working on missiles illegally -- illegal missiles. But on the whole, I think, a lot of people will agree now -- a lot of experts will agree now that on the whole the UN inspection regime succeeded in what it was designed to do.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Do you think that the Bush administration used the UN pretext for the war?
LANDAY: That's not for me to say. I don't think you can -- I mean, a "pretext"? Certainly the Bush administration cited this long litany of UN resolutions that Saddam had failed to abide by -- And there's no doubt that he had failed to abide by these resolutions. There was not full -- full and complete disclosure. There wasn't. But the whole question is what he hadn't disclosed -- what he still had -- "How much of a threat was that to the United States and Saddam's neighbours?" And it seems now that it wasn't much. There's not much you can do about the storehouse of knowledge they had accumulated, particularly the competencies of their scientists -- that's knowledge gained, and not lost. But in practical terms, it doesn't seem -- now -- having had US troops scouring the place for almost a year -- that he had these vast stockpiles that the Bush administration accused him of having. And that in fact, very prominent news organizations reported him as having based on interviews with so-called defectors.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: On February 24th Newsweek broke that Hussein Kamal back in 1995 had told the UN and the CIA and MI-6 that he had -- that they had destroyed all the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Did you see that report?
LANDAY: That transcript of an interview between Hussein Kamal and Rolf Ekeus{?} and I think there was a Russian, it was the UN's Russian -- he was a Russian nuclear expert, I believe -- has been available on the internet. And when you read through it, absolutely there's Hussein Kamal saying, "I ordered everything destroyed." And if you apply some logic to that whole incident, the fact is that Hussein Kamal, it was in his interest to have said the opposite. Because here he was trying to get political asylum in Jordan -- or the United States, or wherever he could -- and what defectors usually do is pump up their own importance, pump up what they know, so that they are of more value to the people they're talking to. In this case, he basically said, "Hey, I destroyed it all." And people who were interviewing say, "Well, what value is he anymore? He's basically told us what he knows." And so, I think that in retrospect, if you look at what he was saying, there was no reason for him to lie. He did disclose the location of this treasure trove of documentation on biological weapons that were on his chicken farm -- the so-called "Chicken Farm Documents." Having done that, he then says, "There wasn't anything else." So in my mind -- in retrospect, and a lot of this is in retrospect -- I say, "What interest did he have in lying about that?" He -- His interest was in actually to string things out -- to make it sound as if he knew where lots of other stuff was, so that they would offer him protection -- that they would offer him asylum. And in fact, they didn't. And he went back to Iraq, and was killed.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But even at the time though, it was late February -- February 24th when this transcript was made publicly available. And you have the administration using Hussein Kamal by name, as this defector in all this talk about, "We have to talk to the scientists and defectors." And then this transcript becomes available -- Do you think the media -- or somehow this should have been more well known?
LANDAY: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, it still wasn't even known -- and I'm trying to remember exactly when this came out -- But I believe that Vice-President Cheney made a speech that kicked off the real drive to war -- I believe it was at a Veterans of Foreign War convention in August of ‘02 -- where he -- and this is the speech in which he talks about, "Some of us are sure he's reconstituted his nuclear weapons program" -- Just before he makes that statement, he talks about how, "We know --", and I'm paraphrasing here, "We know Iraq is aggressively seeking nuclear weapons. And how do we know that? Because defectors with first-hand knowledge have told us that. And they include Saddam's son-in-law." Well, when I went back and re-read that, I said, "Wait a minute, that's not what Hussein Kamal said. He actually said exactly the opposite." And so, we wrote this. And at the same time, queried the Vice-President's office about, "How is it that the Vice-President says one thing, and yet it's -- How is it that the Vice-President is claiming Hussein Kamal said one thing? When in fact, this transcript has him saying exactly the opposite?" And I believe the reply was somewhere along the lines, "Well, there are other sources of information." But, you know, I'm kind of dubious.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Reuters had picked up the story and asked Bill Harlow at the CIA. He denied that was any existence of this document -- or that it was even there. And then the story just died -- I mean, it originated in Newsweek. And it came out, Reuters picked it up, and then nothing else happened with it -- And so it was out there, and so do you think -- And I guess from your perspective you were in Iraq, right? So you didn't -- Did you hear about it in Iraq even?
LANDAY: We had access to a lot of stuff -- up in the North they've got satellite internet cafes, and so I was able to have access to a lot of stuff. I do somewhat recall that story. But I can't talk what happened here. Because I wasn't here, and I wasn't able to follow it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- Let's see -- Can you give a kind of overview of the aluminium tubes issue from when it first broke in early September, and what you were able to discover?
LANDAY: My recollection is that it was broken in the New York Times. My recollection is that on the Sunday Talks that day, I believe, both Vice-President Cheney and National Security Adviser Condolleeza Rice both pointed to the article -- as a way of being able to skirt around the restrictions they were under to discuss classified -- discussing classified information. And at that point, I don't think anybody was questioning this story, except perhaps David Albright. And Michael Massing in his piece in the New York Review of Books, does a very nice job in reporting that whole history. I only got into it when the CIA published this unclassified assessment of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. And again, you know -- There was this litany of allegations that we had heard for almost years. And then, in the midst of this, reading myself -- reading that there was -- There was a dispute between experts within the intelligence community over the nature of these tubes, and that in fact, some experts believed that they were actually for ground-to-ground rockets. That jumped up at me, and I wrote the story that way. And in reporting the story, I was able to get to a man who had been involved in the US centrifuge program for years, who had also had access to data that had been produced from the examination of the tubes. And he said, "These are not for centrifuges." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Well, because they're anodized on the outside." In other words, the outside coating is -- makes them extremely smooth -- very aerodynamic -- and it's much more likely they're for ground-to-ground rockets -- because they had this coating on them, than for centrifuges. He also told me that it was the wrong type of aluminium -- that the aluminium was not suitable for the production of centrifuges. Now, in retrospect, what we learned -- later on -- was that, in fact the dissent on the nature of the tubes was quite extensive. And it was shared by the one place that is the repository of US knowledge of centrifuge technology, and that's the Department of Energy. The other place where there was dissent was the Intelligence and Research Bureau at the State Department. And both their dissents were based on an analysis -- an examination of the tubes that were conducted by one of the US nuclear labs. And my understanding of what happened was that this nuclear lab -- and I think it was Sandia, I'm not sure -- actually took these tubes and spun them at the incredible rates of speed that centrifuges operate at, and they fell apart -- they disintegrate -- they could not withstand -- they buckled -- they could not withstand -- this high-speed rotation. And, hence, their dissents -- based on analysis that was done by the US -- by a US nuclear lab. If you read the report that the CIA -- the unclassified report the CIA put out, what they said is that "a majority of analysts believe that these tubes were for -- could be used as centrifuges." But my question is, "Who is that majority?" Is that majority simply a majority of experts who sat down at a table -- representatives of the intelligence agencies -- sitting down at a table and voting? -- and voting? Or was this a majority of metallurgists? People who are highly -- have high degrees of knowledge about engineering? About centrifuges? Metallurgy? I doubt that that's what it was. I believe it was probably the first.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So do you think that there was political pressure exerted on --
LANDAY: I can't say. I can't say if there was political pressure or not. I cannot say.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And uh --
LANDAY: In that particular -- I cannot say that there was political pressure in that particular instance --

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But you can say there's political pressure on other instances? --
LANDAY: We've reported that there has been political pressure applied to some analysts -- in various forms. It's not -- It doesn't take the form of, you know, "You will do this." But our understanding is it goes somewhere along the lines of, "Well, that's interesting -- that's an interesting way that you have portrayed this data. But couldn't you do it this way?" And if you're a senior enough person who's saying to a GS-8, a GS-9, "Couldn't you look at it this way?" Are you as a GS-8 -- or GS-9, GS-10 -- going to say, "No!"?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And -- A trend that's happening is the -- Politically -- and this may be off your beat -- but that there's -- with the administration is using a human rights justification to say, "We're deposing an evil dictator." How does that play in? How does that argument play in to -- How do you see it? And how does it play in to your coverage?
LANDAY: You know, if you go back to all the speeches that were made on Iraq, there's a component there of how -- of this man's horrendous, cataclysmic human rights record. They make references to it. But it's not their chief justification for war. Their chief justification for war was the spectre of a mushroom cloud -- a nuclear weapon -- designed and made by Iraq being used against the United States. That was the justification for war. And in all of the case -- speeches that I've read, the human rights argument is not the primary argument.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay --The Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, have you read that?
LANDAY: Oh sure, many times --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Can you speak to the last section 8. "The Rules of Construction." Talking about, you know, the bounds of which this act was supposed to be used, in regards to the use of armed, United States Armed Forces?
LANDAY: I can't talk specifically to that. I mean, what I can talk to is the fact that this act, which the Clinton administration signed -- under political pressure -- was the result of very intense, serious lobbying by Iraqi Opposition groups, particularly the Iraqi National Congress, here in Washington -- and by their allies outside the government, and indeed in Congress. It was written -- It was a document that was written in Congress by people who were -- by a person who was very, very close to Ahmed Chalabi, who went on to -- his name is Randy Schuenneman -- he went on to head the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. And the obvious -- the obvious intent of this bill was to aid, not just the Iraqi National Congress, but other Iraqi groups, in trying to overthrow Saddam. At that time, the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, was promoting a plan that came to be known as "The Chalabi Plan" which did have -- called for a very prominent role for US air power in protecting an enclave -- an opposition enclave in Iraq. And I believe that that's sort of where this act was really going.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So let me just read that for you real quick, and see if you have any reactions -- the section 8. "RULE CONSTRUCTION: Nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States armed forces in carrying out this act." Do you see that that part of the act was ignored, and the regime changed --
LANDAY: Oh no. No, not at all -- I don't think it was -- That -- That's kind of what we call "weasel language" because it doesn't bar them from using American Armed Forces -- it doesn't -- There's no prohibition. It just says that this act shouldn't be used as an authorization. But it doesn't say, "US armed forces are going -- are prohibited from taking action in Iraq." No. That's a Presidential decision that has to be, usually is approved by a Congressional -- a separate -- completely separate Congressional vote. And what they -- I guess that language is intended to do, is to basically say, "This is not -- The vote on this act -- The passage of this act, does not represent a vote authorizing -- a vote by Congress authorizing the use of military force."

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess the blurring of that line comes in when Ari Fleischer is saying our policy is regime change --
LANDAY: But wait a minute, but you know -- The fact is that the Clinton administration signed that bill. And that bill's policy makes it -- that bill made it the policy of the United States to change the regime in Iraq. And -- It was something that the Clinton administration signed -- Bill Clinton signed -- not Bush. And so the policy of regime change was established under the Clinton administration -- so Ari's right.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But it says, "The sense of Congress regarding --" It's a "sense of Congress" language. It says, "It should be the policy of the United States --" It isn't saying that it is the policy. And when I went back to read the actual floor debates, there was actually a debate over that specific issue where Ron Paul -- or Lee Hamilton is saying in defense of that -- "We should have no illusions about the bill. Let us be very clear about what the bill does and does not do. The bill states the sense of Congress, it does not change US policy." Ron Paul disagrees, and he says that, "I would like to challenge that statement that it doesn't change it, because it should be the policy." And he says, "It sounds pretty clear." And Lee Hamilton comes back to say, "I think the gentleman from Texas questioned my statement a moment ago in which I said that the bill states a sense of Congress. It does not change US policy. I believe my statement is correct for a couple of reasons. The language in the bill is only a sense of Congress. It does not say what the policy is. It says what the policy should be."
LANDAY: Yeah, but again, this is what I called weasel language. I mean, they're really famous for that kind of thing here in Washington. Where you know, you're looking to strike a political compromise that -- that satisfies both sides -- that both sides can interpret in the way they want to interpret it. And in this case, I believe, the Clinton administration interpreted it as US policy.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And -- Can you speak to Ahmed Chalabi and what the DIA had kind of -- their assessments -- or him being a fabricator? And at what point did --
LANDAY: Well no -- They never assessed him as being a fabricator. No.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Or the Iraqi National Congress Intelligence?
LANDAY: Well, what they -- What they determined was, first of all -- and there were actually two reviews -- There was one done by them, and there was one done by -- How would you put it? -- by the National Intelligence Council, which is -- or the "NIC" -- which is an advisory group of very prominent experts under -- that report to George Tenet. And my understanding is that in both cases -- both reviews -- formal, and I believe one was formal, and was sort of an informal "look" -- I don't know that they were kind of really structured -- But my understanding is that both reviews concluded that the information that was provided by these defectors was "marginal at best" -- most of it useless. And that some of these defectors were fabricators and or exaggerators -- or had been coached to say what they had said.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. In late October, The New York Times broke the Office of Special Plans -- that this special unit --
LANDAY: A day before us.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Oh Okay. So why don't you speak to that?
LANDAY: Well, actually -- No -- What they -- They didn't actually break that story. What they broke was the creation of this intelligence analysis cell that was under Douglas Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, that had gone back to look at connections between state -- states and terrorist groups. What the article didn't report, and what we did the next day -- and we were working on it at the same time -- was that information that was being used by this unit also included stuff that was coming from the Iraqi National Congress. And that stuff that the regular intelligence agencies, like the CIA, wanted nothing to do with. And that then "the product" -- as it's called -- the product -- or the report was then provided to the White House. And we now know that it was actually briefed to Secretary Rumsfeld and to CIA Director George Tenet. And we also know that -- now, we didn't know it at the time -- that even Department of Defense officially disavowed what this report said -- And -- Or the material in this report -- It disavowed this material as being conclusive evidence that there was connections -- there were -- that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin were working together to kill Americans.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. So when you take a look back during the pre-war time period -- How do you assess the media's performance and what they could have done better?
LANDAY: Well, I think the media's performance generally was -- was woeful -- absolutely woeful. They, for the most part, act as conveyor belts of administration information, information that we now know had some pretty major problems with it. And nobody, very -- nobody outside of Knight-Ridder -- us -- and maybe, and I haven't done a review, but I think you need to talk to Michael Massing about what he found -- but I don't think anybody -- that's making -- that's a pretty broad statement. Let me just say -- Most of the media failed miserably in assessing the administration's justification for going to war in Iraq.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And -- How could they have done it differently?
LANDAY: Done what we did. And that is, "Here's the justifications. Let's examine them. Let's see what's true and what's not." They could have done it by doing their job. And I, you know -- It was pretty lonely out there for a very long time.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: What kind of stories after October was Knight-Ridder looking at -- as far as the intelligence -- What kind of other --
LANDAY: After what October?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: After -- When I was just -- On your website, you have a special -- on REALCITIES -- there's special coverage from Iraq.
LANDAY: Yeah.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And it goes through --
LANDAY: It goes right up to last week.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I mean, I'm looking at from August 26th to March 19th. Okay? So there's --
LANDAY: You mean of ‘02?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Of ‘02, right -- Of '02 up to ‘03. So there's 9/6/02, 10/4/02 --
LANDAY: Oh, Yeah. I mean, we -- Yeah, Okay.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: 10/8, 10/27, 12/20 -- So what I'm asking is from 12/20/02 to March 19th --
LANDAY: We did some -- actually some very groundbreaking stuff. And perhaps the most important was the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon, and the failure to plan for what happened in Iraq -- the fact that they planned for stuff that never happened. And with the intension of -- getting -- making it possible for Ahmed Chalabi to replace Saddam Hussein. Now, they dispute that -- rigorously. But I can tell you that virtually everyone else you'll talk to who was involved in that process, involved in the planning, will verify that -- as did Richard Perle, who was then the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, in an interview with us in that very same story. He said, "Yes absolutely. And it's not -- And it's the CIA and the State Department's fault that this whole thing failed. Because they didn't back that planning." They didn't back the goal of basically shaving off the top layer of the regime, and replacing it with Ahmed Chalabi and the INC -- a man who pledged, publicly, to signing a peace treaty with Israel, and a man who had promised to allow US bases to be located in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Do you see that shift in the military footprint into Iraq was a motivation or just a consequence?
LANDAY: It depends -- I mean, I think that various people who were involved in this had various motivations. For some of them, yes. Getting the military -- Getting a major US presence in the so-called -- right in the slap-bang -- in the middle of what's known as the "Arc of Instability." -- this arc of instability that -- across the Islamic -- largely across the Islamic world. Absolutely -- was one of the motivations of some people who were involved in this.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And when you're --
LANDAY: And they've succeeded.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So have you looked at some of the Project for a New American Century?
LANDAY: No. I'm well aware of the documents, yes.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. So when you explain to people why the Iraq war happened, what would you say?
LANDAY: It depends on whose motivations you're talking about. I think there were a bunch of motivations involved -- All of which sort of came together. I mean, they were all self-reinforcing. Getting US bases in the "Arc of Instability." Getting Saddam Hussein out of power -- perhaps genuinely because people believed he had Weapons of Mass Destruction. And they were really were genuine concerns that he could give them to terrorists. But I think that the fact that he was still in power, you know, how many years after George Bush, the first President George Bush left office. I also think -- People talk about the -- oil being the motivation -- I'm not so sure about that. My take on that would be -- There wasn't an effort to control oil. It was an effort to ensure that nobody controlled oil -- that it remained a free-flowing commodity. Because the oil market is such a fungible -- oil is such a fungible commodity now, that even if you stop oil flow -- anywhere in the world -- it will impact prices of oil coming out from other parts of the world. So the idea is, you don't want anybody -- Saddam Hussein -- to be able to control the flow of oil. You want it to remain an uncontrolled open market. So I think that was probably more a motivation than some idea that the United States wanted to go in and take control of the world's second largest repository for oil. So I think you had -- Then I think there was also this concern about the security of American troops in Saudi -- Gotta get them out of Saudi. That gives motivation to extremists like bin Ladin -- gives them justification for -- or it gives them a justification for waging jihad. And it gets American troops closer to the areas that the administration believes they should be closer to. If you read books that are out there now -- particularly the one by the former, the one featuring the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, it's quite clear that this was on the agenda -- that Iraq was on the agenda before 9/11 -- that they came into office with the intent of regime change -- Some of them -- Some senior members of this administration. And so, I don't think you have to look very far to find the reasons for the war.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, let me just do a quick look over here -- Oh, can you talk about the collaboration process, that you were kind of engaged with, with other beats? -- A lot of the stories, I see on the byline there's a lot of names --
LANDAY: Yeah, we work very closely together. Three of us -- Four of us, actually. Most of the stories have been done by Warren Strobel and myself. Warren is the diplomatic writer. I do National Security. Our beats kind of overlap in that regard. And then John Walcott, who is the Bureau Chief, who has been reporting National Security for years here in Washington. He worked the Pentagon for Newsweek, and I believe the State Department for The Wall Street Journal, but also wrote a book on terrorism -- terrorism in the 1980's. And so has very, very good sources. And then our senior military writer, Joe Galloway, who has his own sources. And Joe, I don't think there's anybody who knows the American military the way Joe does. Joe is the co-author of "We were Soldiers Once and Young" So he's been covering the US Military since Vietnam. And we all different sources. We all have different access to different types of information. And so -- We have the two source rule here, which is, "You get something. You gotta get a second source on it -- at least a second source." And I gotta tell you that up to this point, in 18 months of reporting, not many people have come back to us to say, "You got this wrong."