Update: The Man in the Hood

The New York Times has given itself yet another black eye, this time acknowledging that it identified wrong man as the hooded prisoner standing on a box in a photograph that came to symbolize abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The newspaper's March 11 profile about Ali Shalal Qaissi was challenged by Salon, the online magazine, which said that an Army investigation had concluded the prisoner was a different man. (See also my March 14 post on Iraq II: Who Is That Man in the Hood?)

Said the contrite Times:

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. A more thorough examination of previous articles in the Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi's claim.

Mediacrity, for one, says that the apology isn't enough and is yet another example of the Times liberal bias and eagerness to skew the military. Maybe, but the military and Bush administration deserve to be skewered -- and then some -- for condoning what is clearly a policy of allowing torture.