4/3/2008
Qais Mizher, New York Times reporter, former Officer under Saddam
The New York Times’ coverage of Basra is written under Qais Mizher’s byline, using Qais Mizher’s “experience as a captain in the Iraqi Army before the 2003 invasion and essentially a war correspondent since then…” as reasoning to consider him an ‘expert’, I suppose.
Got that? The New York Times reporter was an officer in Saddam’s army. Nice. By the way, officers were not drafted (that’s how the enlisted ranks were filled). Officers had to be selected and regularly vetted for loyalty and effectiveness. So Saddam decided that he could trust our intrepid correspondent and so did the New York Times.
Makes you wonder: Would the Times have hired former Nazi officers to cover the three-year insurgency against the American presence in Germany in the late 1940s? Even if they spoke the language, knew the countryside well and said they “never really believed” in that evil ideology?
And is it smart to send an Iraqi Army captain from the Saddam era to cover the actions of the new Iraqi army? Are they likely to welcome him? Is likely to view them fairly?
It depends on what you mean by ‘fair’. 
