Best of the Web Today - March 14, 2006 Opinion Journal - Wall Street Journal
editorial page
By JAMES TARANTO

Torturing the News--II
Yesterday we noted that the New York Times had published a page 1 story on
Abu Ghraib on the same day that it published a story on page 8 about the
murder of a hostage, who, as the Times reported the next day on page 10, was
apparently tortured before being slain. Today the Times reports its Abu
Ghraib story may have been fake:

The online magazine Salon is challenging the identity of a man profiled by
The New York Times in a front-page article on Saturday who says he is the
iconic hooded figure in a published photograph who was abused by Americans
at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004.

Salon bases its challenge on an examination of a set of 280 Abu Ghraib
photographs it has been studying for several weeks and an interview with an
official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as the C.I.D.,
who says the man identified by The Times is not the detainee in the
photograph.

On Monday, Chris Grey, chief spokesman for the investigations unit, asked
about the challenge, confirmed to The Times in an e-mail message: "We have
had several detainees claim they were the person depicted in the photograph
in question. Our investigation indicates that the person you have is not the
detainee who was depicted in the photograph released in connection with the
Abu Ghraib investigation.

The story raising doubts about the page 1 story appeared on page 17.