Neocon Iran Story Referred To UK Press Watchdog

By Cernig

Just after the IAEA's new report on Iran was issued, neoconservative hack Con Coughlin ran a story in the UK's Daily Telegraph which quoted an unnamed US official as saying that enough urianium for 6 atomic bombs had been redirected from Iran's Isfahan enrichment facility.

But the IAEA has already told the Telegraph that it’s report was false.

“The article, entitled ‘Iran renews nuclear weapons development’ published in [Friday’s] Daily Telegraph by Con Coughlin and Tim Butcher is fictitious,” IAEA Spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in a statement.

“IAEA inspectors have no indication that any nuclear material is missing from the plant,” reads the statement.

Despite the IAEA's denial the story was picked up uncritically by another neocon hack, Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post, as one of three reasons, all spurious, for attacking Iran right away.

But now the British Press Complaints Commission has received a complaint about Couglin's story from the Westminster Committee on Iran, and is to investigate.

The complaint issued today from the Westminster Committee on Iran, raises wider issues of media impartiality when reporting on Iran and raises concerns about the use of unnamed sources and sensationalist headlines. It also points out that the co-author of the piece, Con Coughlin, is none other than the journalist who, with the help of unnamed intelligence sources revealed link between the 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Ata, and Iraqi intelligence which was latter proved to be inaccurate. On 24 January 2007, relying on an unnamed "European defence official" Coughlin alleged that North Korea is helping Iran prepare a nuclear weapons test. In December the Telegraph ran a headline article, also by Coughlin, claiming that Iran was "grooming Bin Laden's successor". Both stories were questioned by Middle East and military experts, and neither has since been substantiated. Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East correspondent described the Bin Laden claims as "wholly implausible" and pointed out that Al Quaeda, a Sunni organisation would not be supported by the Shia administration in Iran.

A spokesman for the Westminster Committee on Iran said today:

"The challenge by the IAEA regarding the accuracy of this article needs to be examined. Whilst we recognise the quoting of unnamed sources as an essential aspect of news reporting, we ask the Press Complaints Commission to assess whether there are any grounds to find that this practice has been misused.

Of course, the Commission has no legal standing, being just a body for self-regulation of the British press, but it would certainly prove embarassing to Coughlin and the Telegraph were the Commission to call for a retraction or censure him as other newspapers would be sure to note it on their own pages.

And at least it's a start at pushing back against neocon war hype.

Comments

[Daniel Voorhees]

A neocon "log cabin republican" named Donald Douglas, has linked to this blog page as a serving of "the nihilist left's anti-Western wannabe intelligence pro". The zionist neocon clique really wants this war, inconvenient facts be damned. Concrete fact "supports terror". Ethnic Kosher subjectivity is patriotic. The neocons are the spiritual decendents of Bolsheveks. Carline Glick is another Ilya Ehrenburg.

[courtneyme109]

"And at least it's a start at pushing back against neocon war hype."

True! Because Baer's Persian bought and paid for "Devil We Know" AIN'T working! LOL