More Criticism of the NY Times

They make it so easy, especially for Bill Roggio and friends:

The surge is failing, according to New York Times. The U.S.
has fallen short of securing Baghdad by July, and the Iraq security forces have
been hopelessly infiltrated by Shiia militias. The Times’s conclusion is based
on a one-page memo. The memo, actually a status update on the situation in
Baghdad, was never intended to serve as a full report on the progress of the
Baghdad Security Plan. But that didn't stop the New York Times from characterizing the memo as such.

The article’s entire premise seems to be the statement of
a single, unnamed senior American military officer, who claims the architects of
the Baghdad Security Plan "assumed most Baghdad neighborhoods would be under
control around July... so the emphasis could shift into restoring services and
rebuilding the neighborhoods as the summer progressed." As Fredrick Kagan has noted in
THE DAILY STANDARD, this rosy assessment was made by General Casey, the outgoing
commander of Multinational Forces Iraq. But the current military leadership in
Baghdad has never made this claim.

We wrote about this earlier. In the Gray Lady's defense, they have to milk even the most erroneous reports for any negative news to keep to their quota.