Judith Miller Returns to 'NY Times'

By: Greg Mitchell On Wednesday, The New York Times answered the question of whether Judith Miller, a reporter sternly criticized in its pages twice in the past week, would write for the paper any time soon.

Miller's byline appeared over a significant story on page A10 -- ironically, the same page that held the newspaper's controversial editors' note exactly one week earlier. The story featured several unnamed sources. And yes, Ahmad Chalabi showed up near the end, stoutly defended by another Iraqi National Congress official.

So much for the theory that the Times would keep Miller away from writing about Iraq, or using anonymous sources -- or at least stay clear of Chalabi.

Nowhere in the story is there any reference to Chalabi's track record with Miller or the Times, or his stunning downfall last week. More irony: The Miller story (co-written by Warren Hoge) appeared on the same day the Times, on its front page, strongly suggested that Chalabi had passed a vital U.S. secret to the Iranians.

Yet more irony: Right next to the new Miller story was a lengthy article titled, "Powell Presses C.I.A. on Faulty Intelligence on Iraq Arms."

You can't make this stuff up. (Well, come to think of it, maybe you can.)

The Miller-Hoge article looked at how Benon V. Sevan, former head of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, had defended the program in an e-mail message passed along to the Times by an (unnamed) U.N. official. Sevan said he had been the victim of a "smear campaign," accused of pocketing money from the program.

Some have suggested that Chalabi was behind that smear campaign, but Miller and Hoge make sure that a spokesman for the INC denies this on behalf of Chalabi -- as if anything said by Chalabi or anyone associated with him should be taken seriously now, particularly by Judith Miller. The spokesman claimed that Chalabi was unhappy when Sevan's name appeared with others in an Arab newspaper as possible recipients of tainted money.

"Chalabi has been running his own investigation into the United Nations' old Oil-for-Food program," Newsweek reported last week. "By identifying Iraqi businessmen and political figures who were siphoning off money from the humanitarian program, not to mention certain European and U.N. officials who may have had their hands in the till, Chalabi could resort to playing a blackmail game."