U.S. Protest Group points to Media Seeding

World Can't Wait, an aggressive U.S. protest organization (that focuses largely on George Bush and his administration), has sent out a bulletin encouraging readers to contact editors of various U.S. newspapers in response to their assertions that Iran already has a nuclear weapons program. (In the article, they are explicitly referring to a 'weapons' program, rather than an energy program). Theisen compares this to drumming up support for the Iraq War by seeding papers with implications of Iraq WMD's.

From the bulletin:

Challenge the Renewed Bush Regime Lies About Iran! Follow Ken Theisen's example:
12-05-08 From Ken Theisen, World Can't Wait Steering Committee:

This article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle which originated with the Baltimore Sun. It appears it was in many papers across the country under different titles but with the same content. The article asserts as fact that Iran has a nuclear weapons program and goes on to detail how Obama may deal with it. I think we need to counter this article and others like it. I am relatively sure this story was planted by the Bush regime. It is similar to the propaganda put out prior to the Iraq invasion. It reminds me of the Judy Miller stories in the NY TIMES.



I have written the letter below to the Chronicle in the hope that they print it. (It is 199 words long.) I am also going to write a letter to their ombudsman to raise the same point and hopefully get him to do a piece on it. If people in other cities that have papers that printed this article want, they can use my letter as a sample to write their own letters. Ken Theisen

Dear Editor:

Please consider publishing this letter to the editor.

"There is no credible evidence that Iran currently has a nuclear weapons program. Despite this, the article "A Visit to White House can't even hint of enormity of job" (12/04/08) basically assert that Iran has such a program. The article states that Obama intends to halt Iran's nuclear weapon program. The author further says Iran is "rushing headlong toward building" a nuclear arsenal. He also refers to Iran's race to build a nuclear arsenal." Where did the author obtain these "facts?"

Both the Bush regime's own National Intelligence Estimate and numerous reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency contradict the above assertions. The "news" article makes no mention of these facts.

Prior to the Iraq invasion, numerous media stories appeared with propaganda from the Bush regime about the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam. Judy Miller of the New York Times often scooped other reporters with the "details" of Iran's [Ed. He may mean "Iraq's"] non-existent weapons programs. It turned out that her scoops were based on leaks from the Bush administration in it attempts to mislead the public. Is this happening again, but now with Iran the intended target? If so, why is the media going along with this deception?"