On February 13, the Washington Post reported that US special forces were already on the ground in Iraq, doing special forces type stuff. The article brought in a lot of flack and the newspaper’s ombudsman has responded. While I’m not in favor of the media putting the lives of US soldiers at risk, I think that this was an important story that was worth reporting. There’s a big difference between massing troops on Iraq’s border and secretly inserting our troops into the country to prepare for an invasion. The source for the story was the Pentagon — if they’re leaking this information to reporters, then we have to assume they have a reason for doing so. The bottom line for me is that I’m going to assume that the Pentagon and the Washington Post have a better sense of what’s OK to report (in terms of risk to our troops) than I do. If nothing else, the editors of the WaPo don’t want to read an article in the Washington Times next week with the headline, “Soldiers Exposed by WaPo Captured In Iraq.”