The Iraq Follies
Commentary: Eighteen things you've already forgotten about the media's flawed coverage of Iraq.
March 11, 2008
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In putting together my new book, So Wrong for So Long, on Iraq and the media, I revisited the good, the bad, and the ugly in war coverage from the run-up to the invasion through the five years of controversy that followed. Even though I monitored the coverage closely all along, I was continually surprised to come across once-prominent names, quotes, and incidents that had faded to obscurity. Here is a list of 18 of those nearly forgotten episodes, in roughly chronological order.
1) The day before the invasion, Bill O'Reilly said, "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?"
2) Phil Donahue lost his show at MSNBC, he later claimed, because he did not wave the flag enough. A leaked NBC memo confirmed Donahue's suspicion, noting that the host "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
3) After the fall of Baghdad, MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neocons now."
4) The same day, Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, said, "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."
5) The New York Times' Thomas Friedman wrote, "As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war.... Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons."
6) President Bush's comedy routine during the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2004, included a bit about the still-missing WMD. While a slide show of the president scouring the White House was projected on the wall behind him, he joked, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere...Nope, no weapons over there...Maybe under here?" Most of the crowd roared, and there was little criticism in the media in following days. Mother Jones' David Corn, then Washington editor of The Nation, was one of the few attendees to criticize the routine. Corn wondered if they would have laughed if Ronald Reagan had, following the truck bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241, said at a similar dinner, "Guess we forgot to put in a stoplight."
7) Who was the first mainstream editor/columnist to call for a U.S. pullout? It was the unlikely Allen H. Neuharth, founder of USA Today, who is certainly not known for expressing anti-war or liberal views. His May 2004 column drew wide reader protest but "the old fighting infantryman" (as the former soldier billed himself) stuck to his guns and penned a few more columns in that vein in the years that followed.
8) When the New York Times carried its now-famous editors' note on May 26, 2004, admitting some errors in its WMD coverage, it appeared on page A10 and Judith Miller's name was nowhere to be found. The note is often described today as an "apology," but it was no such thing. On the day it ran, Executive Editor Bill Keller, not exactly chastened, called criticism of the Times' coverage "overwrought" and said that the main reason it even published the note was because the controversy had become a "distraction."
9) Likewise, it's often said that the Washington Post also issued an apology. But the criticism of its prewar coverage came not in an editors' statement but in an article by the paper's media critic, Howard Kurtz. Post editors offered several defenses for the coverage and top editor Len Downie argued that it didn't make much difference anyway, because tougher coverage would not have stopped the war.
10) Stephen Colbert's routine at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April 2006 is remembered for the in-his-face mockery of President Bush—but he also spanked the press, perhaps one reason his mainstream reviews were mixed at best. Addressing the correspondents directly, Colbert said, "Let's review the rules. The president makes decisions; he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell-check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know—fiction."
11) In one of the purest "my bads" of the war, Fox News' John Gibson ripped Neil Young after the rocker released his protest album Living With War. Gibson demanded that Young go see the new United 93 movie and even offered to buy his ticket. Young, it was soon pointed out, had actually written one of the first 9/11 songs—"Let's Roll," about, you guessed it, Flight 93.
12) Surprise: David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, and Oliver North all came out against the "surge" last January after it was announced by President Bush. George Will wrote a column titled, "Surge, or Power Failure?" And, after the botched hanging of Saddam, Charles Krauthammer declared, "We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government."
13) When Valerie Plame finally testified before Congress in March 2007, much of the media coverage focused on her appearance. Mary Ann Akers wrote a piece for the Washington Post titled "Hearing Room Chic," noting that Plame wore "a fetching jacket and pants" and should be played by Katie Holmes in the movie version of her story because they both favor Armani.
14) On March 27, 2007, John McCain, referring to the supposed calm settling on Baghdad, said, "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee." This turned out to be pure bunk, but McCain quickly visited Iraq to try to prove his overall point. There, the Arizona senator went from the ridiculous to the maligned, touring a Baghdad market and claiming all was safe—while troops surrounded him and helicopters twirled overhead. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) likened the scene to "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."
15) In April 2007, CBS' Bob Simon admitted to Bill Moyers that his network should have dug deeper into the false claims on WMD. "I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light—if that doesn't seem ridiculous," he said.
16) Contrary to popular belief, the New York Times, which had editorialized against the invasion, did not call for a change in course or the beginning of a withdrawal from Iraq until July 8, 2007.
17) On Meet the Press in July 2007, David Brooks declared that 10,000 Iraqis a month would perish if the United States pulled out. Bob Woodward, also on the show, challenged him on this, asking for his source. Brooks admitted, "I just picked that 10,000 out of the air."
18) Also in July 2007, an old clip of a C-SPAN interview with Vice President Cheney from 1994 surfaced, in which he defended the decision not to depose Saddam Hussein during Gulf War I: "Once you got to Iraq and took it over…then what are you going to put in its place?…It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq." He explained, "And the question for the president…was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and the author of So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press), which was published this week.
1. Kurdistan was legally granted its independence in the same exact set of treaties (following WW1) which created all the various Arab nations, out of the previous Turkish-Ottoman empire.
2. In the following 85 years, the Kurds had their asses kicked several times, as the direct result of never gaining this promised and legally mandated independence.
3. The USA and UK were playing a cat-and-mouse game of ‘no-fly zone’ incursions on a daily basis and Saddam was flaunting his disregard for the treaties which ended the Gulf War-I.
4. That is all the USA needed as reasons to topple him.
However, the first giant mistake was not drawing three new nations, Kurdistan, Shiitestan and Sunnistan. The reason for this error in judgment was probably multi-faceted.
Had the USA done it that way, we would not have had to say in the Shiite or Sunni regions and let them do what they wanted to each other (good or bad). A profit sharing arrangement for the Kurdish oil reserves could have been worked out, thereby keeping a carrot-and-stick dangling. In other words, the revenue sharing would stop, the first time anyone tried to invade Kurdistan.
The next set of mistakes were greed based. Namely, wanting to keep a giant military presence in the entire country indefinitely, just to pump up the revenue for the military industrialists.
Face it, if Jesus himself appeared incarnate before George W. Bush and told him what He wanted done, Bush-W would still be guaranteed to screw it up.
Kurditan? [deleted]eistan? sunniistan? what is wrong with you? I can only assume that you believe the proper basis for a country is religious and ethnic purity. That sort of thinking creates ethnic cleasing and genocide as occurred in Bosnia, crotia, and serbia back when the Germans recognized croatia as a separate country from yugoslavia because of religious and ethnic distinctness.
The reason Iraq is a bit quieter now is that the ethnic cleasing is just about done.
As to the "no fly" incursions, it has been well established in the press that Britain and the US had been stepping up air attacks in Iraq for a series of months to try and provoke a response.
The same scenario is being used on Iran as we speak.
* After UN negotiations in which Iraq agreed to US overflights by U2 spy planes with the flight plans released to Iraq by the UN just before takeoff, the US launched TWO planes over Iraq: one from Kuwait, and one from Turkey. Since only one plan was sent, one plane was a bogey, and Iraq launched fighters to intercept. The Air Force grounded their U2 flights as US papers screeched the headlines, "SADDAM REJECTS OVERFLIGHTS", and "IRAQ THREATENS U2S". In almost all these stories, the fact that an extra plane was sent was hidden in the part 'continued on page B11'. In all of them it was characterized as, 'a mistake'.
This was followed up in Britain in 2006 where a memo called, 'The White House Memo' was leaked (along with the long forgotten Downing Street Minutes), where British press said, 'Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure Saddam into war'. http://www.channel4.com/news/articl es/politics/the%20white%20house%20memo/161410
But hey, if you want to focus on the fashion, that's cool too.
Under so called "International Law" the Security Counsel gets to prescribe its own remedies for what it deems as breaches of its resolution(s). But neither is it a per-se breach of (so called) “International Law” for one member-nation to do the policing unilaterally.
By the same reasoning, it is also up to the U.N.S.C. to prescribe that such a unilateral action is banned. Which is why all the “Permanent Members” reserve a “veto” for themselves, to cover just such an event.
I was therefore not referring to “International Law” anyway. I was referring to national law. The USA could neither (in good conscience) abandon its protection of the Kurds, nor could it permit the daily challenges to the Kurdish air space (and other events) to continue (and expand). The toppling of the Saddam regime was LONG overdue. Anyone who defends Saddam is defending a genocidal lunatic (lawyer) who fed his political opponents into dog-food grinders and proudly believed himself the reincarnation of one of the most evil despots in the history of the world.
I disbelieve your statements about USA and UK “stepping up” air attacks in hopes of provoking Saddam. Certain European nations (including France and Germany) were complicit in this entire scheme--as part of their attempt to replace the US Dollar with the Euro--as the standard currency which is traded for oil. Naturally, the UK (who is not on the Euro currency) would wish to side with us.
You wrote:
“The reason Iraq is a bit quieter now is that the ethnic cleansing is just about done.”
Not true on either count. Have you been following the news? Iraq (civilian) body-count past 30 days in the hundreds. This, BTW: has little to do with “ethnic cleansing”. Its all about political power and control. The internal “terror” is being supported by Iran, who had slowed down over the previous 6 months after USA met with them and hammered out an informal (off the record) arrangement re: their Nuclear ambitions. I am personally convinced that Iran is helping both sides in Iraq. Because their foremost goal is instability, eventually permitting the over through of the Iraq regime--with an Iranian (puppet) Islamic theocracy.
We all learn as children that the first thing to do in a fight is to separate the people fighting. But we forget as adults. There have been dozens of countries which succeeded or gained their independence in the past 100 years. You say this was to promote “ethnic cleansing.” I say that such events avoid civil violence more often then they create it. Pakistan is one (huge) example. Even the Hindus well realize that the succession and separation was the only way to avoid a civil war, which is why most accept it. Many of the Jews lost in the holocaust would have been saved if the League of Nations mandates (and international treaties) calling for the re-formation of an independent “Jewish National Home” had been observed. Kosovo just went independent from Serbia a month ago. The aim of this separation was not to kill (or “cleanse”) Serbs. People don’t like being minorities. Often, they shouldn’t have to.
Just one item that I suggest was very interesting pre the war.
In I think Feb of 2001, Colin Powell stated that Saddam Hussein was "contained" and he did not present any danger to us or his neighbors.
Since he was the one who went before the UN and said just the opposite, this is very damning.
the oldest reason will become the newest. Self defense of our nation.
Brought to you by ME, I can type 'gooder';)
Bert08
Bill Corcoran, Chicago, corkcol@aol.com
Trollstein's suggestion - that it was a giant mistake not to divide the nation into three separate fiefdoms with interlinked economic dependencies - would have been assured to suffer and fail, with any borders created by an occupying force falling in violent upheaval of some sort.
Nation-building ain't pretty. It's even uglier when a country with near-sufficient infrastructure and economic support systems is trashed through military force prior to undertaking a process of resurrection. The whole of the idea of regime change was a trap, with a series of blunders waiting for the fool who went forward with such an ill-conceived notion.
to die as fast as possible. I for one
would like to know why all the governors of Alaska want all the wolves
dead. Bush must have campaigned for her.
Not "fiefdoms". Whatever form of government the respective nations wanted. Obviously, what has thus transpired has not been successful. It is always unknowable as to what might have been under varied conditions. Nonetheless, the Kurds could have easily been co-opted and not only wanted (and needed) our protection but cheerfully paid for it. This would NOT have constituted any sort of "occupation". The term: "occupation" is used way to loosely. Its origins related to wars of CONQUEST, which, after one side folded, was under temporary military governance of the opposite side. Today, the USA no longer is involved in wars of 'conquest'. The last few have been wars of liberation. As soon as the Iraqis had a constitution and an elected parliament, the coalition forces were no longer "occupying" anyone because they were there with permission.
The fact that we are too stupid or too corrupt (or possibly both) to effectively lead even justifiable military actions, is more the pity. I say, if we have no intent to be the world's ‘police officer’, then, we first need to stop spending all our recourses on international military equipment. Once we build-out the capacity for projecting “super-power”, the worst of all possible worlds would be to shirk a justified conflict. Then, we have bankrupted ourselves in return for the right to be called cowards and losers.
Unfortunately, the media's dilemma is only too substantial. Americans as a rule do not thank the messenger, when the message is that we need to look past our accustomed and comfortable stance of reflexive self-justification. Modern no-consequence living has led us to expect a luxury lifestyle -- without consideration of the pollution, exploitation, and species-extinctions that spring from it -- and the same attitude is applied to our media consumption. We look for, and remember better, the stories that make us FEEL better, without reminding us of the media's past mistakes, without asking us if we should hold it to account. We don't want to revisit the myth of our unassailable rightness; either as a country, or as an audience of history.
We love it, when we hear those attractive lies that justify our reactionary stance.
We swallow them whole; bait, hook, and all. What do you mean, we were wrong all along? Get thee behind my cable box, satan!
In trying to convince the rest of the draining swamp of neo-cons, trolls, and fascist sympathizers, that the "spoiled, selfish child" theory of government is a dead-end, we are warring against their unevolved human desire to be (and remain!) right, in the face of all proof to the contrary.
If we want a better national consciousness and conscience, we need better media. A media that of necessity sucks up to the base need for self-justification, is only a recipe for more self-delusion, with all the ills that come of that.
And the only way to make a smarter, more moral media is for us to demand it.
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Kill your TV, and free your mind.
Sincerely - Max.
The most pointless war in history comes up on its fifth Anniversary this Thursday, 3/20. Here are some things to remember in keeping with the "spirit."
5. The fifth anniversary of the intial bombing from the "Shock and Awe" campaign.
4. 4,000 U.S. dead - within a dozen as of today, but, sadly, it will probably hit 4,000 on or very near 3/20/08.
3. 30,000 wounded U.S. soldiers. It's worth remembering that the only reason we aren't seeing Vietnam-range deaths is that the casuality/fatality ratio was 2.6:1 in Vietnam and it is over 16:1 now (my figures are about two years old). Of course, we are seeing horrific injuries now - TBIs alone are on a scale that was unimaginable in Vietnam - i.e. the injured would have simply died then. We, whether Bush admits it or not, will be paying the bill - as we should - for this terrible war for generations.
2. The second longest foreign war in U.S. history. Only Vietnam, at 12 years, was longer.
1. The most expensive foreign war in U.S. history. Yes, even more than Vietnam. Even in inflation adjusted dollars. 1 could also stand for 1 Trillion dollars spent, including the spending on the injured, and the cost of oil rising due to instability (so much for the "war will be paid for by Iraqi oil" as stated by Mr. Rumsfeld). Only our Revolution and Civil War were more expensive, but those were fought to create, and then to preserve, the Union. What have we gained from the Iraq war?
0. The number of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq - ostensibly the reason for going in in the first place.
where is the america and congressmen's morality - bush visits the brainwashed soldiers and feigns caring about them -
where is the compassion for all the iraqs who have perished at our senseless war - where does it say that one is not patriotic for not supporting this war -i am disgusted at being a american - i served in the peace corps
in latin america with my heart and devotion to improving the lives of those improvished people and now we are becoming a third world country - with the elite running the country and caring not for its citizens -
ty for having the courage to not conform or be politically correct -
lynette roberts
1-Since the war began, 23,000 have been killed.
2-CNN ran story showing her holding up 2 bullets, unfired, saying they were fired by Coalition forces into her house. But bullets she shows are unfired. Later was shown she lied, buy little coverage in media, none on CNN
3-AP showed a photo it claimed was a soldier being held hostage in Iraq and an assault rifle being held to his head. Fake story, toy doll and plastic gun, Ap fell for fake photo and did not print the truth
4-Scott Thomas Beauchamp-New Republic-was hired to write false stories, one being of the dehumanizing effects of the war on him and his fellow soldiers, that it occurred in Kuwait. It was later shown that his story happened before he ever went to Iraq. Truth never printed media.
5-Boston Globe-Fake story, fake pictures. Paper printed story of US Troops raping an Iraq woman. Pictures turned out to be commercially available porn. Fake story with no story about the truth.
6-James Forlong-Sky News-Fake footage, fake story. He peresented faked footage of a missle test as actual combat in Iraq. He later committed suicide. No true story follow up
7-Michael Iskioff-Newsweek-The story of the Koran being flushed down toilet at Gitmo. Caused Muslims riots around the world and many deaths. No evidence it ever happened. No story printed to that fact.
8-Jesse Macbeth-Phony soldier-claimed he and others committed atrocities during operation Iraqi Freedom, and the he as a US Ranger kiled more than 200 people as they prayed ata mosque. All his stories were proven lies, but no stories printed in main media.
9-Washington Post-Plastic Turkey story stating photo of Nush with a Thanksgiving Turkey with troops in Iraq was really a plastic turkey. Story was used to paint White House as a public relations spinmachine, but in fact Turkey was real Multiple newspapers issued the normal page 32 retraction, but no story as to why the fake story was even done.
Yes, there are many Iraq War stories put out by the media as fake or lies about something that actually happened and known to be fake or lies.
Below is a link to Bill Clintons transcripts as to why he bombed Iraq in 1998. However you can Google it up yourself. Just type in Clinton transcript, 1998, Saddam Hussein, WMD, Iraq etc. You will get several news agencies versions of the transcript, as well as the transcript of a few months earlier of Clintons address to the Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff? which goes into other details.
These documents blow liberals away. They have little latitude for their present day arguments after Billy Bobs own words.
One wonders why the media has so totally ignored them, and even in some cases tried to sweep them under the rug (of course, we all know the answer to that one).
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stor ies/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998 /02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/
Of course the above transcripts show just how naïve Obama is, and how inexperienced he is. Even though it is popular media driven opinion that the war is wrong, if Obama was sharp enough he would have seen through the medias indoctrination. Is it possible that Bill & Hillary both approve of the war? Maybe both the Clintons like using international affairs to play domestic politics, and that is why they Now claim the war is wrong (after all, she did vote for it)!!
Also, I do not remember anyone calling Clinton a terrorist when he bombed.
The whole affair right from the get go of 9/11 to the last few days have been one scary ride. I remember so well all the revenge filled flag waiving americans comming together to fight a common enemy "the terrorist" and I must addmit allso that I to wanted these criminals and I still do want them to face justice but seeing the health of the justice system that let it-self be used by some very crafty lawyers like john yoo who in a few moments changed the law in form of a presidents memo giving bush and mostly cheney absolute power to abuse. And the sleeply revengefull americans voted this madman and his criminal rouges in again even tho there are many stories pretaining to voter fruad and minority vote fixing in favor of the neo-cons.All the while the real numbers of wounded soldiers are finally comming out and the deplorible treatment they receive after they return home not to mention the millions upon millions of dollars that have gone missing disappered gone not a trace. The really sad thing and most of you know that a person can go on for a long time listing the mistakes and out right failings of americas policies towards other countries who do not tow the old line but my old fingers would were out and I am shure I dont need to preach to you all. I am really stump at finding ANYTHING positive any suggestions folks?
As my old Mushum (grandfather in my language) used to say manifested destiny my ass!
Peace Sisters and Brothers