SI.com - Writers - Setting the record straight

SI.com: "ATHENS, Greece -- I had a feeling SI.com might ruffle some feathers in Washington with my story last week about Iraqi soccer players' displeasure with President Bush after he used the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign ad.

But I can't say I expected former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) officials to publicly question the accuracy of the story, so let's set the record straight.

When asked about the SI.com piece on Monday's ESPN2 broadcast of Cold Pizza, former senior CPA official Don Eberly reiterated a quote from a Reuters interview of Mark Clark, a British consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee and himself a former CPA official.

Clark's statement, which was passed along by Eberly, was this: "It seems the story was engineered."

I don't know about you, but I take "engineered" to mean anything from "not on the level" (at best) to "fabricated" (at worst). Curious about Mark Clark's definition of the word, I called him on Monday."


Grant Wahl
Sports Illustrated