Lazy Reporting From the NYT

As I said in the comments here at Dean's World, picking up on the errors of the New York Times isn't exactly rocket science. Today, in an article entitled 'Security vs. Rebuilding: Kurdish Town Loses Out', they discuss the ramifications of cut-backs in Iraqi water projects:

But with the outbreak of insurgency in central and southern Iraq last year, the United States shifted $3.4 billion from water, electricity and oil projects to pay for training and equipping the Iraqi Army and police forces.

Hmmm, I thought. That looks familiar. Now where could I have seen that story before? Oh yeah. It was in the New York Times last year:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 25 - Rising security and other overhead costs of Western contractors are cutting into the billions of dollars set aside for some 90 planned water projects, allowing them to supply only half the potable water originally expected, Iraqi officials say.

Think it could just be an honest mistake? Maybe it was just a matter of two Times reporters writing about the same subject and happened to cover the same subject matter, right? Wrong. Both articles were written by the same guy, James Glanz.

Of course, even ignoring the dishonesty of rehashing old articles in an effort to attack the reconstruction efforts, I can point to at least three reasons why increasing investment in security for the reconstruction is money well spent:

This



and this



and this