Nick Madigan of the Baltimore Sun reports, "The trial of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, and recent disclosures ... are shining a harsh light on the sometimes overly symbiotic relationships between reporters and their sources. ... John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, a media watchdog group, said 'star' journalists and government officials 'go to the same parties' and 'rely on each other in many ways that are invisible to the public, that often involve trading favors mutually beneficial to their careers in the media or in government.' Stauber, the co-author, with Sheldon Rampton, of The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq, said the Iraq war was possible only 'because most of the mainstream media became like a propaganda arm of the Bush administration' and failed to point out that 'the best available evidence indicated no relationship between Saddam and 9/11, no relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda, and no active WMD program in Iraq.'"

As part of a program to give voice to a select group of think tanks, on January 30 the Washington Post printed an article by toxicologist and epidemiologist Gio Batta Gori, titled "The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke." Gori claims that many published studies on the health hazards of secondhand smoke are based on unreliable data, and that smoking restrictions aimed at protecting public health are "odious and unfair." The byline describes Gori as a "fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda," and mentions his former position as deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention. Hmmm... sounds like a high-level scientist, all right. However, the Post fails to mention Gori's longstanding record of financial and contractual ties to the tobacco industry. Previously-secret internal tobacco company documents now on the Internet (and available to any reporter) show decades of payments made to the esteemed Dr. Gori, primarily from cigarette maker Brown & Williamson, for promoting pro-tobacco views on secondhand smoke in publications and public testimony. Without this information, readers were kept in the dark, unable to evaluate Gori's damning critique of well-established public health research.

The United Kingdom's Environment Agency has opened an investigation into toxic groundwater contamination in south Wales after examining evidence that Monsanto knowingly contracted to dump thousands of tons of waste in British landfill sites. In 1968, a Monsanto committee secretly considered disposal options for Aroclor, a trade name for cancer-causing PCBs, and wrote: "[I]t will be impossible to deny the presence and persistence of Aroclors. ... The alternatives are [to] say and do nothing; create a smokescreen; immediately discontinue the manufacture of Aroclors; respond responsibly, admitting growing evidence of environmental contamination." The Guardian reports that Monsanto's detailed planning has publicly emerged only decades after the dumping due to a U.S. lawsuit. The company issued a defensive response, stating that the then-parent company, Pharmacia, informed contractors about the cancer-causing PCBs and "did not dump wastes from its own vehicles." The British government is also under attack for failing to release to the public its own information about the chemical releases. One quarry has been leaking PCBs and other chemicals for years.

"In recent days, White House officials have made a special effort to argue that [President] Bush has always been concerned about climate change," reports the Los Angeles Times. An open letter from John Marburger of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and James Connaughton of the Council on Environmental Quality claims that "climate change has been a top priority since the president's first year in office." The letter quotes selectively from a June 2001 Bush speech, omitting parts where he sought to minimize the human impact by stating, "We do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have." Environmentalists point out that Bush reneged on a 2000 campaign pledge to reduce power plant emissions, and withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. The oil giant ExxonMobil is also greenwashing itself, reports the Washington Post. While company reports still claim it is "difficult to determine objectively the extent to which recent climate change might be the result of human actions," Exxon spokespeople are now asserting, "The appropriate debate isn't on whether the climate is changing but rather should be on what we should be doing about it."

On February 10, the New York Times ran a story about "an increasing body of evidence" suggesting "an Iranian role" in supplying the "deadliest weapon aimed at American troops in Iraq." Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell wants readers to consider the source. The sources cited are "civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies," almost all anonymous. And the author of the piece is Michael R. Gordon, who "on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion," including the infamous "aluminum tubes" story. In other Iran news, the Washington Post reports that Vice-President Cheney's national security adviser, John Hannah, called 2007 "the year of Iran." President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have said the U.S. has "no intention of attacking Iran."

Image from the movie "Iraq for Sale"

Military contractor DynCorp has retained Qorvis Communications for "messaging and image work," reports O'Dwyer's. Qorvis is best known as being the PR firm for the Saudi Arabian government. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, is investigating DynCorp for "accounting problems and unauthorized spending." At issue is a $43.8 million State Department contract "for a camp that was never used by police trainers," including $4.2 million that DynCorp billed for "unauthorized work." Another $36.4 million expenditure, intended "for weapons and equipment, including armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment ... cannot be accounted for," reports the Dallas Morning News. DynCorp also holds contracts for police training in Afghanistan -- and a new $95.6 million U.S. Army contract, "to support and maintain various aircraft fleet," reports Associated Press.