A compilation of Brian Williams’s television appearances shows how his accounts of a 2003 episode on military helicopters in Iraq gradually became more perilous.
Brian Williams, the embattled NBC news anchor whose credibility plummeted after he acknowledged exaggerating his role in a helicopter incident in Iraq, was suspended for six months without pay, the network said Tuesday night.
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His downfall began when he appeared at a New York Rangers game with an Iraq veteran in a tribute to a retiring command sergeant major. Mr. Williams suggested the sergeant had evacuated him from a dangerous situation in Iraq, after, saying “the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.,” referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”
The military publication “Stars and Stripes” was tipped off that Mr. Williams’s account was inaccurate and contacted Mr. Williams, who admitted that he was not on the helicopter that was forced down. “I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Mr. Williams told “Stars and Stripes.” “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
