WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (AFP) - The Washington Post, a leading US daily, said Thursday its editors in the months leading up to the Iraq war underplayed stories questioning White House contentions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday," said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks.
"There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?" he added.
In retrospect, said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "we were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale.
"Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part."
In the months leading up to the Iraq War in March of 2003, there were persistant doubts about intelligence reports underpinning White House contentions that Iraq posed a threat because it was hiding weapons of mass destruction and had links with international terrorist organizations.
No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found in Iraq since then and US investigators have dismissed any serious contacts between Saddam Hussein's regime and international terrorists.
In the aftermath of the war, the US media in general has been criticized for lacking objectivity in its coverage of the Bush administration's drive to punish Baghdad.
"We did our job but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder," assistant managing editor Bob Woodward said in an interview.
"We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for (the war) was shakier" than widely believed. "Those are exactly the kind of statements that should be published on the front page."