Lay all of Judith Miller's New York Times stories end to end,
from late 2001 to June 2003, and you get a desolate picture of a reporter
with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by U.S. government
officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's ark of scam artists.
And while Miller, either under her own single byline or with NYT
colleagues, was touting the bioterror threat, her book "Germs," co-authored
with Times-men Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, was in the bookstores
and climbing the best seller lists. The same day that Miller opened an
envelope of white powder (which turned out to be harmless) at her desk at
The New York Times, her book was No. 6 on The New York Times best seller
list. The following week (Oct. 21, 2001), it reached No. 2. By Oct. 28 (at
the height of her scare-mongering campaign), it was up to No. 1. If we were
cynical .
We don't have full 20/20 hindsight yet, but we do know for
certain that many sensational disclosures in Miller's major stories between
late 2001 and early summer 2003, promoted disingenuous lies. There were no