CBS offical statement
Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bush\ufffds service in the Texas Air National Guard.
Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents\ufffd origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source.
Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point. Burkett\ufffds interview will be featured in a full report on tonight\ufffds CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (6:30-7:00 p.m., ET/PT).
Burkett did provide the documents, but claims to have gotten them from somebody else. Notice that CBS implies that they know who Burkett claims to have gotten them from, but have not be able to verify their story yet.
In any case, CBS messed up in rushing these documents out. This will be a blow on CBS's credibility for some time.
Jay
