New York Times Gordon's source on Iran

Gordon's Source on Iran

(updated below)

Michael Gordon (NYT co-writer of Judith Miller) has another hate-Iran piece in today's NYT: U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s

BAGHDAD,
July 2 — Iranian operatives helped plan a January raid in Karbala in
which five American soldiers were killed, an American military
spokesman in Iraq said today.

[...]

General Bergner declined to speculate on the Iranian motivations. But
he said that interrogations of Qais Khazali, a Shiite militant who
oversaw Iranian-supported cells in Iraq and who was captured several
months ago along with another militant, Laith Khazali, his brother,
showed that Iran’s Quds force helped plan the operation.
[...]
“Both
Ali Musa Daqduq and Qais Khazali state that senior leadership within
the Quds force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala
attack that killed five coalition soldiers,” General Bergner said.

Glenn Greenwald points out
that Gordon's only source for this piece is a "military spokesman"
Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner. The source is not doubted, there are no
other sources or viewpoints present. It is in fact, a pure U.S.
military press release.

What Glenn doesn't not tell is the background of Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner. Via sourcewatch we learn:

Kevin
J. Bergner was named February 3, 2006, by President George W. Bush as
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq.
Brigadier General Bergner recently served as Deputy Director of
Political-Military Affairs (Middle East) at the Department of Defense.
He received his bachelor's degree from Trinity University and his
master's degree from City University of New York.

Berger left the White House and became spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq only three weeks ago.

You can bet with a very good chance that his statement, which Michael Gordon dutiful stenographs,  has its origins in the White House.
This bomb-Iran propaganda, the accusation of direct, official Iranian
military intervention in Iraq, is originating from within the center of
the Bush administration. It is fed through a "military spokesman" who
just left the White House to Michael Gorden who's editors dependably
publish it unfiltered in the New York Times.

Given the schemes we know from the start of the Iraq war disinformation campaign, the next step is obvious.

Someone from Bush's administration will appear on television and will cite and confirm Gordon's New York Times reporting as proof for Iran's "bad intent".

Newsweek explained how this worked on Iraq:

The strongest
evidence that Saddam was building a nuke was the fact that he was
secretly importing aluminum tubes that could be used to help make
enriched uranium. At least it seemed that way. In early September, just
before Bush was scheduled to speak to the United Nations about the
Iraqi threat, the story was leaked to Judith Miller and Michael Gordon
of The New York Times, which put it on page one. That same Sunday
(Sept. 8), Cheney and national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice went
on the talk shows to confirm the story.

Here is the transcript Wolf Blitzer's interview with Rice and there is Cheney on Meet the Press:

VICE
PRES. CHENEY: [...]The third thing you need is fissile material,
weapons-grade material. Now, in the case of a nuclear weapon, that
means either plutonium or highly enriched uranium. And what we’ve seen
recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of
unrest, if you will, if I can put it in those terms, is that he now is
trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the
equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs.

MR. RUSSERT: Aluminum tubes.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Specifically aluminum tubes. There’s a story in The New York Times this morning-this is-I don’t-and I want to attribute The Times. I don’t want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it’s now public that, in fact,
he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and
prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds
of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. 

Thanks to Michael Gordon "it's now public that, in fact," Iran attacks U.S. forces in Iraq.

Here we go again ...

UPDATE

1. As Glenn just added, the NYT has changed its story:

Gordon's
article has now been edited substantially, most notably to include
several sentences near the beginning of the article that cast at least
some doubt on the military's claims. None of these facts were included
in the original version:

...

2. As slothrop in the comments points out, CNN ran about the same story
Michael Gorden filed but as an exclusive yesterday. Here is a youtube video
of that segment. The CNN's Michael Ware  in Baghdad and the studio
anchors express little doubt that all they have been told is really,
really, really true.

Associated Press runs the story too and has no caveats either.

According to CNN some "Lebanese Hizbullah fighter" got caught in Iraq and "did confess in interrogations ..."

Let's ask: Does he breathe again now or is he still coughing up water ...