Discredited Con Coughlin Sets Sights on Iran
Daily Telegraph author Con Coughlin, who has a long history of writing unsubstantiated articles, is now claiming that Iran is pursuing an “A-bomb project.” Coughlin—who has has in the past accepted phony stories from the MI6 and fabricated his sources—once again, does not provide any evidence or any sources to back up his shoddy assertions in the A-bomb article.
Coughlin was partly responsible for British involvement in Iraq, when he wrote an article claiming an erroneous link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda member Mohammad Atta. The report was proven to be completely false in the UK and American officials also denied such a link.
Coughlin also provided a fabricated document at the start of the Iraq war, claiming that the Iraqi army could deploy its WMDs within 45 minutes. This same counterfeited document was used by Tony Blair in the “doggy” Iraq Dossier.
Coughlin has also flung similar baseless accusations at Iran, using untraceable sources to claim Iran is producing nerve gas and chemical weapons. Indy Media claims Coughlin has written over 150 articles against Iran and outlines some of his techniques in a detailed profile:
Firstly, writings with big and bizarre allegations combined with controversial and eye-catching titles against Iran and upon other Middle Eastern issues are identical to tabloids. Such writings are easily given extra attention and weight based on the position and executive rank of the writer within the Telegraph group. This is to the extent that sometimes such stories are printed as the first or second headline on the front page of these two papers.
Secondly, news, analysis and reports are produced with suspicious, unknown and particularly untraceable sources, which are absolutely impossible to be tracked by readers and critics. These usual sources are unknown “senior Western intelligence officials” or “senior Foreign Office officials”.
Thirdly, articles and reports of this nature are usually published at sensitive and delicate times where there has been a relatively positive shift in the international scope and within the media towards Iran. This is done in an effort to further add to the weight of the other pan of the scale that bears opposition to Iran.
Finally, the pivotal argument and the gist of the story related to the controversial title of these articles do not usually exceed one line or at the most one paragraph. The rest of the analysis or report is focused on unworthy issues such as scattered and marginal background information that are irrelevant to the title, so that the article would be of an acceptable volume, in a presentable format and reader-friendly.
Coughlin takes the same characteristic approach in his recent A-bomb article where he quotes the statements and analyses of unknown officials and experts, but fails to identify a single source:
Iran has resumed work on constructing highly sophisticated equipment that nuclear experts say is primarily used for building atomic weapons, according to the latest intelligence reports received by Western diplomats.
This has raised concerns among Western experts that Iran is continuing work on its nuclear weapons programme, despite Tehran’s protestations that its intentions are peaceful.
“If Iran’s nuclear intentions were peaceful there would be no need for it to undertake this work in secret,” said an official familiar with the intelligence reports.
While European officials yesterday refused to disclose details of the Iranian response, one said that “it was not something that made us jump up and down for joy”.
For more, read Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich’s response to Coughlin’s article.
Irancove @ July 9, 2008