Jon Stewart lays into journalist he accuses of causing the Iraq War

Jon Stewart has laid into Judith Miller, the former New York Times journalist who is said to have played a role in the US government's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

In a heated exchange, the Daily Show host accused Miller of pushing the administration towards "the most devastating mistake in foreign policy that we've made in, like, 100 years".

Miller, who has just released a book detailing her take on events, published several articles in the build-up to the war, in which more than 100,000 people are estimated to have died, which linked Saddam Hussein to weapons of mass destruction.

One of the criticisms of the articles is that a lot of the information, as Miller admits in the interview, was provided to her and her NYT colleague from sources in the US government. A government that was seemingly hell bent on going into war in the aftermath of 9/11 and one that could use those articles to sway public opinion.

Stewart ended the interview sombrely:

I appreciate you coming on the programme. These discussions always make me incredibly sad because they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility for it, and they pass the buck to every individual but themselves. It’s sad.

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