NBC anchor’s memories of Second Lebanon War questioned
In 2007, Brian Williams said Katyusha rockets flew right under his chopper in northern Israel; earlier, he said the projectiles had already landed
NBC anchor Brian Williams didn’t only exaggerate experiences in Iraq in 2003, but also offered a conflicting account of a helicopter ride over northern Israel during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, US media reported over the weekend.
NBC News President Deborah Turness said Friday that an internal investigation had been launched after questions arose over Williams’ false on-air statements that he was in a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while in Iraq in 2003.
Williams apologized for those statements on Wednesday and over the weekend announced he was temporarily stepping away from the “NBC Nightly News,” calling it “painfully apparent” that he has become a distracting news story.
But Williams may have mixed up more than one helicopter-related war story.
During the Second Lebanon War, Williams wrote a blog post for NBC in which he describes flying in a helicopter as the areas below, in northern Israel, are struck by rockets.
“In a Blackhawk helicopter at 1,500 feet, we are flying over the northernmost part of Israel. With us is a high-ranking general in the Israeli Defense Forces. Over the constant air traffic control radio traffic in Hebrew, we learn there is activity on the ground right below us,” he writes.
“The trails of smoke and dust visible out the window are where Katyusha rockets have landed — in this case in the uninhabited Israeli countryside, and in some cases they have set fire to the surrounding brush. The missiles are unguided and random. And plentiful.”
The TV personality proceeds to describe witnessing a rocket launch “from a distance of six miles.”
Several weeks later, Williams provided a similar account on The Daily Show, saying he saw rockets “passing underneath us, 1,500 feet beneath us.”
In a 2007 interview, Williams tweaked the story slightly, telling a student: “There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in.”
Thousands of Katyusha rockets were fired at northern Israel during the 2006 war with the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
Since Williams’ apology on Wednesday, questions also have been raised about his claim that he saw a body or bodies in the Hurricane Katrina floodwaters that hit New Orleans in 2005.
His remarks in a 2006 interview drew suspicion because there was relatively little flooding in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the area where Williams was staying.
A person at NBC confirmed that Williams stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, which is in an area where a news photographer and a law enforcement official said they saw bodies.
