In its report on Iraqi trailers that some thought were labs for making biological weapons, the Washington Post leaves the most important question unaddressed. When you start with a lede like this…

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.”
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq — not made public until now — had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president’s statement.

… then you’d better tell us whether the president actually read that report before making his statement. Otherwise, you’re just juxtaposing two events and implying a connection.

The Washington Post doesn’t tell us whether the president got the report before making his statement, and therefore leaves the most important question unaddressed. The story that surrounds this unanswered question is nothing more than obfuscation followed by insinuation.

For instance, as Confederate Yankee points out, the team of inspectors that filed that report was only one of three teams that investigated the trailers:

The actual facts are that a single team of nine civilian experts wrote a “unanimous” report that was only unanimous within their one group, while two military teams of experts reached the conclusion that these were bioweapons labs. By careful and I believe willful deceit, the Post would seem to purposefully imply that all experts examining the suspected bio-weapons trailers unanimously came to the conclusion that these trailers were not used to manufacture bio-weapons, and that the Administration blatantly lied in the face of the evidence. The actual facts are that this was not only a not a unanimous report, but that the “unanimous” report of the one team was actually a minority view overall.

Even so, if President Bush knew about this strong dissent from such an experienced team — even if that team was in the minority — he exercised poor judgment in telling the nation that the trailers were definitely weapons labs. But we don’t know if he knew or not. The Washington Post doesn’t tell us.

And here’s why bloggers are so angry at the Post this morning: It looks like the reporter didn’t want to tell us, because the answer is probably that Bush did not see that report before making his remarks, and such an answer would have diminished the importance of the story.

So not only does the Washington Post leave the most important question unanswered, it makes itself look sleazy in the process.

UPDATE: George Gooding has more on the trailers, plus the fact that this same story was reported three years ago.