Iran Claims Fly While Media Bombs

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"As they duel over how best to deal with Tehran," Senators John McCain and Barack Obama "are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program," reports Jonathan Landay. "The U.S. intelligence community ... thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency ... has found no evidence to date of an active Iran nuclear-weapons project." But, in a recent Fox News interview, Obama said, "Iran is stronger now than when George Bush took office," and "they have been developing nuclear weapons." During a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, McCain said, "Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons poses an unacceptable risk." Most media have been "failing ... miserably" at calling out the presidential candidates' unsupported Iran claims, notes Columbia Journalism Review. "We launched one Middle East war this decade in part because politicians made claims about an adversary's weapons capabilities that turned out to be wildly inflated -- and the press, for the most part, went along. ... The press has some pretty powerful evidence with which to challenge the candidates on the question of Iran's nuclear program -- the nation needs journalists to do just that."