>> the US government has not confirmed it

What have they done to deserve your trust? They started a war that they deny is a war. They told us a year ago they set Iran back a decade. Then they tell us 9 months later they're weeks from a nuclear bomb. I wouldn't trust the warmongers to admit they're child killers.

I haven't said anything about trusting them. I am simply correcting statements about what the US has supposedly "admitted".

It's one thing to say "I think the US did XYZ".

It's quite another to say "It is an objective truth that the US did XYZ, in fact they even admitted it".

Transposed to the Guardian, if they want to write "we think the US did XYZ", they should clearly frame it as an opinion piece. Instead they are writing "it is an objective truth that the US did XYZ" - which is false. That is journalistic malpractice.