As Ruchi Parekh reported in this morning’s Daily News Roundup, Seymour Hersh has published a provocative and important piece in the London Review of Books, in which he claims that the White House deliberately “omitted important intelligence” and “presented assumptions as facts” when making the case that the al-Assad regime was responsible for August’s chemical weapons attack. Hersh writes that U.S. intelligence agencies had evidence that the al-Qaeda-linked rebel group, the al-Nusra Front, was potentially responsible for the attack. (I will have a post soon at Just Security analyzing Hersh’s story.)
The following is a sample of the wide spectrum of reactions to the Hersh piece from journalists and other commentators on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/corbettreport/status/409724716501315585
I've been reading Seymour Hersh's latest re 8/21 and Syria. He's months behind the dialogue and data.
— Dan "the Legal Juggernaut" Kaszeta 🇱🇹 🇺🇦 (@DanKaszeta) December 9, 2013
The funniest part of the Hersh article is the portrayal of #Obama as a restless foe of #Assad, willing to go to any lengths for intervention
— Alex Rowell (@alexjrowell) December 8, 2013
https://twitter.com/steveplrose/status/409989037898747904
https://twitter.com/evanchill/status/409889674002321409
https://twitter.com/jkirchick/status/409905644033286144
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/409854316845879297
The @LRB had an ex-@NewYorker fact-checker work on Hersh's Syria piece, which the NYer passed on: http://t.co/wPMxYYZKeB
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) December 9, 2013
https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/409689481483395072
Would love to see a media reporter report out why this didn't appear in the New Yorker http://t.co/Ta7xacclKU
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 9, 2013
.@CShoebridge does seem to anticipate Sy Hersh in 8/13 story, "Syria Chemical Weapons Used… But Used by Whom?" http://t.co/Mti3sthMNU
— Jeffrey Kaye (@jeff_kaye) December 9, 2013
.@MikeElk Correct. I think both Hersh critics and supporters grossly overstating what he concludes and how consistent it is w/known facts.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 8, 2013
https://twitter.com/Ali_Gharib/status/409690108565012480
https://twitter.com/PhilGreaves01/status/409993410976571392
https://twitter.com/praddenkeefe/status/409705394487844864
@les_politiques I've just written a piece for Foreign Policy highlighting a few key points he appears unaware of
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) December 8, 2013
@Ali_Gharib Yes, I have a great deal of respect for Seymour Hersh, people shouldn't be a dick about his work
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) December 8, 2013
https://twitter.com/mattaikins/status/409684055622303744