Three of Hedges ' articles were based upon the stories of Iraqi defectors , who had been furnished to Hedges by the Information Collection Program of the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress . The program promoted stories to major media outlets in order to orchestrate U.S. intervention in Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks . Most significant of his reports in this period was a November 8 , 2001 , front-page story about two former Iraqi military commanders who claimed to have trained foreign mujahedeen how to hijack planes without using guns . Hedges quoted a man whom he believed to be an Iraqi general : " These Islamic radicals ... came from a variety of countries , including Saudi Arabia , Yemen , Algeria , Egypt , and Morocco . We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States " . The two defectors also asserted there was a secret compound in Salman Pak facility where a German scientist was producing biological weapons
9/11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Chris Hedges