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Fox's Follow Through?

By Matthew Felling

June 18, 2007 / 1:16 PM EDT / CBS News

(AP)

In the current issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh has an explosive profile of Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, who was responsible for the investigation into the affairs of Abu Ghraib. While it's usually wise to read Hersh's work with a skepticism meter up higher than usual, as his stories frequently rely in part on unnamed sources, his piece on Taguba is entirely on-the-record with the now-retired soldier. The article goes chapter-and-verse into what Taguba says everyone knew, when they knew it, and how much obfuscation he believes surrounded the scandal.

Digging deeper into the story, I found that Chris Wallace of Fox News accomplished a journalistic coup when he interviewed Army General David Petraeus on yesterday's "Fox News Sunday" for what Wallace billed as "his first appearance ever on a Sunday talk show."

The interview began as follows:

Good morning and happy father's day from Fox News in Washington. Here's a quick check of the latest headlines:

General Ray Odierno, the number two U.S. commander in Iraq, says American and Iraqi forces have full control of only 40 percent of Baghdad. He says in the rest of the city, they either lack control or there's a high level of violence.
Meanwhile, the military I.D. cards of two missing American soldiers have been found. They were discovered during a raid on an Al Qaida safe house.
And former Army General Antonio Taguba, who led the investigation into events at Abu Ghraib prison, says he believes senior officials were involved in directing the abusive interrogations. He also tells the New Yorker magazine he was forced to retire early because of his pursuit of the case.
Joining us now, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus. General, let's start with the latest news. It was announced yesterday that U.S. forces found those two military I.D. cards of the missing American soldiers. Do you have any new leads on where they are? ….

So that was the setup for the segment, with the ID story leading off the discussion. Given Wallace's introduction, I was very interested to see what Petraeus would have to say about the New Yorker piece, if anything.

They began talking about the IDs of the missing soldiers. One point from the intro: check. Then they discussed General Odierno's estimate about Baghdad's security situation. Another point from the intro: check. But in the course of the discussion, they never returned back to Taguba's allegations of wrongdoing in Abu Ghraib.

To his credit, Wallace asked about the report that suggested the surge hadn't resulted in measurable progress, along with asking the General if it wasn't frustrating to hear Senators say he's out of touch with Baghdad. But in the course of a 15-minute interview, why didn't Wallace get around to Taguba's comments to Seymour Hersh – an issue he brought up when setting the stage?