Brian Williams came under siege Thursday for lying that enemy fire forced his chopper down in Iraq — with countless critics ridiculing his tall tale and calling for him to be booted as anchor of “NBC Nightly News.”
The $10 million-a-year star was back on the air Thursday night, a day after offering a bizarre mea culpa in which he said he had “conflated” his wartime memories and made “a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago.”
But Williams’ bobbing and weaving did little to stifle the growing controversy over his repeated lies about coming under enemy fire while covering the Iraq war in 2003.
Williams’ return to work capped a day of fast-moving developments for the Peacock Network:
- Sources said the mood inside NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center was “pure panic,” with legendary ex-anchor Tom Brokaw demanding that Williams, his “Nightly News” successor, get the boot. “Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter,” one source said.
- Williams became the butt of countless jokes for saying on Facebook, “I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize.” Internet memes quickly spread along with the humiliating Twitter hashtags #BrianWilliamsWarStories and #BrianWilliamsMisremembers.
Doctored photos showed him wading in the surf alongside Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines and eating pizza in Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper.”
- Stars and Stripes, the unofficial newspaper of the Defense Department, followed up its exposé on Williams’ fabrications with a report alleging he “left out key details and made misleading claims” during his nationwide mea culpa. The paper said Williams’ “wording appeared to be another example of the anchor muddling the facts.”
On Jan. 29, Williams attended a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden with former soldier Tim Terpak, who he said helped protect him in the Iraqi desert. On Friday, “Nightly News” aired a segment on that reunion, in which Williams — for at least the third time — lied and said his aircraft was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG.
“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said in the report.
“Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the US Army 3rd Infantry.”
It was not the first time Williams told the story. The first account of the incident took place on the “Nightly News” broadcast of March 26, 2003, which showed video of a damaged Chinook that Williams said was “almost blown out of the sky” while flying in formation ahead of him.
At the time, he said he was unaware of what had happened until after unexpectedly landing in the Iraqi desert.
But over the years, the story gradually morphed into a whopper of a lie. In a 2008 blog post, Williams wrote of the incident, “We came under fire by what appeared to be Iraqi farmers with RPGs and AK-47s.
“The Chinook helicopter flying in front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire,” he added.
And in 2013, almost 10 years to the day after the mission, Williams appeared on “Late Show with David Letterman,” where he embellished the tale to the point where his helicopter was also struck.
“We were going to drop some bridge portions across the Euphrates [River] so the 3rd Infantry could cross on them,” he said.
“Two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47.”
Letterman responded to Williams’ tale of bravery by saying, “I have to treat you now with renewed respect.
“That’s a tremendous story,” the funnyman added.
Ex-soldiers told The Post on Thursday that Williams’ claims were flat-out false.
“He was not shot at,” said retired soldier Chris Simeone, who was the pilot in command of the CH-47 Chinook chopper on which Williams flew. “It’s intentional manipulation of the people to tell this story.”
Helicopter pilot Rich Krell, who told CNN he was the pilot of the chopper carrying Williams, defended the anchor, saying, “After a while, with combat stories, you just go, ‘Whatever.’ ”
But other ex-soldiers who were there told The Post that Krell was mistaken. Simeone also called Krell “imaginative,” adding that Krell was actually piloting a different chopper.
Simeone said that even Williams’ initial report was a “lie” because there were only two choppers in the formation and neither was shot at.
The Chinook that actually was hit by an RPG had been “on a completely different mission,” he said, and was already parked on the ground when Simeone and his crew landed nearby.
“It’s always been a lie, but it progressed,” Simeone said.
“It was a lie from the beginning and then it just grew.”
Ex-soldier Don Helus, who piloted the Chinook that was hit by the RPG, also said Williams fabricated a claim that his crew didn’t want to be interviewed.
“It’s funny, because in the broadcast, he says that we were shaken up and unable to talk to him. But that was far from true,” Helus said.
“You have a journalist that fabricated a story to enhance his career, and that’s the topic.”