« Previous · Home · Next »
HuffPo Yanks Green Zone Series
By John
After this post was published, some commenters and bloggers, especially Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard raised a number of questions about its accuracy. As is our policy, we asked Mr. Sanders to either provide backup for his factual claims or retract them. His response follows. In it, he acknowledges three "flat-out" inaccuracies: Apache helicopters fall under the auspices of the Army not the Air Force; the USS Independence was not, as claimed, headed to the Persian Gulf in 2002 (it was decommissioned in 1998); and Sanders left out the word "battalion" in the sentence, "a pair of Apache helicopter battalions can devour more than 60,000 gallons of fuel in a single night's attack." These have been corrected in the post.Sanders also raises the issue of jet exhaust that results when "a squadron of F-22s, say, fly sortie after sortie, at fairly low elevations, over a crowded neighborhood in Baghdad." Goldfarb says "an F-22 has never, ever, flown a sortie over Baghdad, let alone at low altitude and in squadron formation." In his response, Sanders disputes this, but Air Force spokesperson Maj. Kristin Marposon told HuffPost that F-22s have not been used in Iraq.
As for the other facts in dispute -- namely the number of jets stationed on aircraft-carrier groups in the Gulf, the number of stealth bombers and US planes in Saudi Arabia, and the number of aircraft carrier task forces stationed in the Gulf -- Sanders offers a detailed explanation of how he arrived at his figures. We'll leave it to you to decide the persuasiveness of his explanation. For us, it confuses as much as it clarifies.
Mr. Sanders feels that the dispute over these details obscures the larger point of his argument. Maybe so, but we are committed to maintaining the highest possible standards of accuracy and transparency. Accordingly, we will not be running the remaining parts of his Green Zone series.
Responsible decision. Goldfarb notes that: ...the Huffington Post has corrected its mistake and, in fact, demonstrated a laudable commitment to accuracy and transparency. Professional journalists--you know who you are--could learn a thing or two about journalism from Arianna Huffington.
He's right. Credit to HuffPo, they acted like real pros here. And yeah, The New Republic could learn a thing or too from Miss Huffington. Instead of saying "hey we screwed up" back in August, TNR has dragged out the Beauchamp affair so long that everyone -left and right- seems to be universally pissed at them for their lack of integrity. Compare that to HuffPo, who effectively killed the Sanders story on the spot. No one is going to remember this affair next week, while TNR is going to be suffering from the Beauchamp scandal for years.
Sanders retraction, by the way, was obnoxious. Read:
The argument about pollution stands; and nothing on the Weekly Standard takes on the pollution numbers! I begin the essay by saying that I write as a lay person--I am not a mathematician, not a military person, not a trained climatologist--and it would be wonderful to put together such a team and reach an absolutely authoritative version of this essay, if such a thing is even possible. At any rate, I feel initiated into this world of blog politics. As a friend told me from the outset, one cannot take on the military in this country, without getting knocked about.
Oh put down the violin dude. I'm not naive enough to think that the military should be immune from criticism. But you made an argument, and people held you accountable for what you said. And, surprise!, some folks even wanted you to defend your position. The fact that you were dumping on the service had nothing to do with your columns getting yanked, it had everything to do with the fact that you phoned in the research. So have a Coke and a smile and knock off the victim crap. This is your fault.
Mr. Goldfarb wants to know about the number of planes in Saudi Arabia. Here's my sentence: "To all that, we must add the 1,000 jets stationed on aircraft-carrier groups in the Gulf, along with 22 Stealth Bombers and another 700 planes in Saudi Arabia. First, the sentence, which perhaps could have been more clear, does not say that there are 22 Stealth Bombers in Saudi Arabia; the sentence says, we must account for them in terms of their pollution, wherever they are hidden.
Quote: In Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia.
First, the sentence, which perhaps could have been more clear, does not say that there are 22 Stealth Bombers in Saudi Arabia...
@(&*)#(()@*%
Let me quote from Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis (p. 141): "Before our withdrawal from Saudi Arabia in 2003, we habitually denied that we maintained a fleet of enormous and easily observed B-52 bombers in Jeddah because that was what the Saudi government demanded." This is the heart of my argument: "So long as military bureaucrats can continue to enforce a culture of secrecy to protect themselves, no one will know the true size of our baseworld, least of all the elected representatives of the American people." The question is how many in a fleet?
One, B-52s aren't stealth bombers. Two, that was 4 years ago. Three, the size of our current force of B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s isn't a secret. Four, the location of the bomber force (secret or not) has no bearing on the size of the bomber force.
As to the exact number of planes in the Gulf and in Saudi Arabia, again Chalmers Johnson, this time from The Sorrows of Empire, (page 239), says that by January 1991, the Prince Sultan Air Base "started to receive aircraft, and by the beginning of the Gulf War. . .it was capable of housing, servicing, and arming five fighter squadrons of aircraft and their supporting personnel (a typical American squadron consists of twenty-four aircraft.)" A few paragraphs later, he mentions F-15s and F-16s taking off there, after 1996. "In the years leading up to the second Iraq war, the air force flew a total of 286,000 missions from Prince Sultan and other Persian Gulf bases. . . ." I do not think it is possible now to know how many planes we had in Saudi Arabia prior to our leaving in 2003. The point I want readers to keep in mind is the amount of pollution generated by those hundreds of thousands of missions and how little we know about them--type, number, and so on.
Uh, how little you know about them. A symptom that could have been cured with a some basic fact checking.
Punch in Sultan Air Force Base on Google and you get the following: The Saudi base is very large and it has extensive landing and plane storage facilities. It has a 15,000 foot runway. Couple this with the numbers of flight missions from Chalmers Johnson. This was a large operation. I used the figure 700 planes. It sounds to me that it was larger, much larger, than that.
Okay, instead of getting all your information from Chalmers and the internet, a simple phone call to an Air Force public affairs office would have explained that Prince Sultan's primary use was enforcing the UN mandated southern no-fly zone in Iraq. It hasn't been a major hub for US forces since 2003.
Let's now turn to the question of the number of carrier task forces in the Gulf. First, from Reuters: "On January 20, 2007, the USS Stennis set sail for the Persian Gulf as part of an increase in US military presence within the Middle East. The Stennis joined the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the United States Fifth Fleet of operations. On May 23, 2007, the Stennis, along with eight other warships including the carrier USS Nimitz and amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard, passed through the Strait of Hormuz. US Navy officials said it was the largest such move since 2003." (Link)How many ships does this total? Ten or Twelve? How many "carrier task forces" does that constitute? The web site Global Security (March 9, 2003) reports that "five carriers have been deployed to the region at the same time. . . an unprecedented floating air force. . ." The site says that the Kitty Hawk and the Constellation are already in the Persian Gulf. That's in addition to the Stennis, the Nimitz, and the Eisenhower. "The Lincoln left Everett, Washington. . . and was ordered back to the Gulf." We now have a total of six carriers, and who knows how many "carrier task forces," since each carrier usually travels, according to Global Security, with a "battle group of at least two cruisers, a destroyer and a submarine. Aboard each carrier is an air wing with about 70 aircraft, roughly 50 of which are strike planes." The DoD says that the Stennis actually holds ninety planes. Given the rest of the ships involved, the number is 1,000 or even more.
Does this guy have no concept of time? He's quoting Global Security from 2003 and Reuters from 2007. And even using his screwed up chronology, he still didn't account for the thirteen aircraft carriers which he claimed were all in the Gulf at the same time.
Honestly, his pseudo-retraction only make things worse. HuffPo said that it "confused more than it clarified," which is true effing statement right there. Can you imagine what the other two columns must have looked like?
Had he just said "sorry, I f*cked up. My bad." I wouldn't have got all pissy and wasted my time pumping out this enormous post.
Anyway, go read Qando and Murdoc for more. I'm as donezo as Sanders' tenure at HuffPo.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://op-for.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1325
Comments
I'm thinking of writing an article in the same vain.. "The US Postal Service's Addiction to Oil" I'll be sure to include the 'mail mercenaries' err. mail contractors.
The only thing he was correct about is that noone has questioned the main premise of his piece. Of course the entire premise of his piece is "the military uses a lot of oil and pollutes" which is inarguable, but there is no discussion of what if anything can or should be done about it. One gets the impression that he would just like it to go away (and I mean that I really do get that impression from his article). The problem is that even this seemingly simple statement is so obscured by the blizzard of half-baked and misunderstood "facts" he throws around that everyone is too busy laughing and pointing fingers to even bother engaging the fact that he never MADE an argument to agree or disagree with. He might as well have pointed out how much pollution the trucking industry or merchant shipping generates. There is no point!
these fellars have got a real problem. for a civilian trying to keep track of ships in the u.s. fleet and air force aircraft is like trying to herd cats.
one of the major problems with airplanes is that they can be here or there in short periods of time. they do not sit on the ground waiting for someone to count them.
uncle sams canoe club is a little touchy about exactly where any of their active ships are. its one of those things that they learned a couple of centuries ago. they do have an office in the five sided house that trys manfully to keep track of them all, but on occasion they do lose one or two for a short period of time.
one thing about ships is that even though they don't move that fast they do move continously. if the fleet is in norfolk this afternoon and you lose track of them for a couple of weeks they can be in the gulph.
(if all else fails ask the hookers over in town, they know all of the details two weeks before they happen.)
any civilian that wants to know (except the grey haired fellow in the white house) will run into the routine: if you can't confuse them with the truth, then baffle them with bull%^*$.
C
"At any rate, I feel initiated into this world of blog politics. As a friend told me from the outset, one cannot take on the military in this country, without getting knocked about."
So, his real point is that it's all the Army's fault he doesn't know what he is talking about. I'm surprised he didn't just come right out and blame it all on Bush.
Just because he says a lot of stuff that happens not to be true and does not bother to even try to make sure that what he says is accurate does not mean that he is not qualified to ramble on about something he knows nothing about. In fact, I think it makes him over qualified to ramble on about something he knows nothing about.
But the fact that Huffers actually did the right thing in a grossly understated way is truly inspiring. It's like seeing a dog ride a bicycle.
Post a comment
Potential comment conditions listed here. Oh, and you may use basic HTML for formatting.
I particularly like this part:
"Already sitting in the Gulf were ten other "Carrier Task Forces" built around the aircraft carriers Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Enterprise, John F. Kennedy, Chester W. Nimitz, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Harry S. Truman, and the Abraham Lincoln. Ninety attack planes sit on each carrier's deck, ready at any moment to fly into combat."
That, last I checked, was about our entire carrier force, if you pull Connie out of mothballs. I’m surprised he doesn’t have Hornet in there somewhere – or Midway or Coral Sea or Ticonderoga or FDR or Langley, for Christ’s sake. According to Mr Sanders, "home porting" now exists for our carriers exclusively in the Gulf.
A classic example of someone who knows nothing - absolutely nothing - of what he writes and complains with a comment of "So what with the details!".
Specificity and accuracy is the heart and soul of writing opinion pieces, and Mr Sanders's fact-checking (or lack thereof) makes his opinion about as worthy as the proverbial warm bucket of spit.