Rich Lowry Misrepresents USA Today Article to Cite Progress in Iraq
Reported by Janie - January 16, 2006
Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, incorrectly quoted an article from USA Today in an attempt to argue that the US backed invasion of Iraq has been improving over the past year, while appearing on Dayside today.
During a debate segment, while arguing with Democratic Political Analyst Ellis Hennican, Lowry said "There's a front page article in The USA Today, today about how over the last year attacks have actually gone down."
The article, found on USAToday.com, does not make such a claim. The article itself is entitled "US Tally of Wounded Troops Drops 26%". According to the article, military officials stated that the 26% decrease of wounded troops in 2005 signals that attacks have declined. No hard numbers were given on the amount of attacks in either 2004 or 2005, and the statement that attacks have declined was merely the conjecture of military officials, and was not proven within the article.
Lowry, in his attempt to paint a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, neglected to mention that the amount of troops killed in action only decreased by 1 from 2004 to 2005, signalling there has not been any significant change in the amount of deaths of US forces.
There has been no correction of the facts to-date, and Dayside viewers were presented with spin, rather than hard core facts expected from a news program.
