Whatever one thinks of the translation Cole finally settled on (and the debate continues on Slate's Fray), the fact that is not in dispute is that the quote Hitchens yanked from the Gulf2000 discussion was not Cole's final position. This must be corrected by Slate.
Furthermore, there seems to be a gross neglect of audience consideration in Hitchens' original piece and now Sullivan's follow up. Cole was writing for the Gulf2000 group, comprised of fellow scholars and experts. Both Hitchens and Sullivan have presented Cole's statements to that audience as intentional distortion. However, this is an audience with the capability to judge for themselves. The relation in the Gulf2000 group is expert-to-expert, not expert-to-novice as on Cole's blog. I find it implausible to think that Cole's analysis (even if it is wrong--which I am not convinced of) was insincere. Who thinks that Cole believed he could pull one off on the Gulf2000 group?
In the context of expert-to-expert conversations one can expect one's errors to be corrected by his or her interlocutors and hence less epistemic caution is in order, so long as participants in the conversation remain open to correction. This is likely why the Gulf2000 conversations are private: so that participants are able to more freely and boldly debate. The situation is different with Cole's blog where he has a duty to his audience of novices to make more restrained and secure judgements and to offer qualifications of statements that might be controversial in expert circles. Perhaps Cole fails in this duty to his novice audience, but Hitchens and Sullivan haven't shown that by cherry-picking quotes from a discussion with an audience of fellow experts.
Hitchens, on the other hand, has demonstrably failed in his duty to his Slate readers. As I already mentioned, he indisputably failed to present the position Cole finally settled on in the Gulf2000 discussion over the accuracy of "wiped off the map." Moreover, he failed as a journalist to perform the simple task of contacting Cole for comment on the piece. Finally, he conflated the epistemic duties of the expert-to-expert context with the expert-to-novice context in a lame attempt to take an argument that Cole was in error (which, again, he later admitted in the Gulf2000 discussion) and turn it into an argument that Cole intentional distorts and abuses his position of expertise.
One final note. Hitchens' defenders have seized on Cole's mentioning Hitchens' notorious drinking problem to explain the deteriorating quality of his work. That was perhaps an ad hominem and intemperate on Cole's part. However, Cole has made plenty of other points regarding Hitchens' hit piece and focussing on the ad hominem is a bit of a red herring. Two fallacies don't make a right.