War and Forgetfulness

Iraq: A Bloody Media Game

opinion by Norman Solomon

Three and a half years ago, some key information about UN weapons inspectors in Iraq briefly surfaced on the front pages of American newspapers -- and promptly vanished. Now, with righteous war drums beating loudly in Washington, let's reach deep down into the news media's Orwellian memory hole and retrieve the story.

"US Spied on Iraq Under UN Cover, Officials Now Say," a front-page New York Times headline announced on Jan. 7, 1999. The article was unequivocal: "United States officials said today that American spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors ferreting out secret Iraqi weapons programs.... By being part of the team, the Americans gained a first-hand knowledge of the investigation and a protected presence inside Baghdad."

A day later, a followup Times story pointed out: "Reports that the United States used the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq as cover for spying on Saddam Hussein are dimming any chances that the inspection system will survive."

With its credibility badly damaged by the spying, the UN inspection system did not survive. Another factor in its demise was the US government's declaration that sanctions against Iraq would remain in place whether or not Baghdad fully complied with the inspection regimen.

But such facts don't assist the conditioned media reflex of blaming everything on Saddam Hussein. No matter how hard you search major American media databases of the last couple of years for mention of the spy caper, you'll come up nearly empty. George Orwell would have understood.

Instead of presenting a complete relevant summary of past events, mainstream US journalists and politicians are glad to focus on tactical pros and cons of various aggressive military scenarios. While a few pundits raise cautious warning flags, even the most absurd Swiss-cheese rationales for violently forcing a "regime change" in Baghdad routinely pass without challenge.

In late July, a Wall Street Journal essay by a pair of ex-Justice Department attorneys claimed that the US would be "fully within its rights" to attack Iraq and overthrow the regime--based on "the customary international law doctrine of anticipatory self-defense." Of course, if we're now supposed to claim that "anticipatory self-defense" is a valid reason for starting a war, then the same excuse could be used by the Iraqi government to justify an attack on the US (even setting aside the reality that the US has been bombing "no fly zones" inside Iraq for years).

Among the first to testify at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's recent hearing on Iraq was "strategy scholar" Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon and State Department official. He participated in the tradition of touting another round of taxpayer-funded carnage as a laudable innovation -- "our first preemptive war."

Speaking alongside Cordesman was Richard Butler, the head of the UN weapons inspection program in Iraq at the time that it was spying for Washington. At the Senate hearing, Butler suggested that perhaps the Russian government could be induced to tell Baghdad: "You will do serious arms control or you're toast." Like countless other officials treated with great deference by the national press corps, Butler strives to seem suave and clever as he talks up the wisdom of launching high-tech attacks certain to incinerate troops and civilians. As a matter of routine, US journalists are too discreet to bring up unpleasant pieces of history that don't fit in with the slanted jigsaw picture of American virtue.

With many foreign-policy issues, major news outlets demonstrate a remarkable ability to downplay or totally jettison facts that Washington policymakers don't want to talk about. The spy story that broke in early 1999 is a case in point. But the brief flurry of critical analysis that occurred at the time should now be revisited. "That American spies have operations in Iraq should be no surprise," a Hartford Courant editorial said on January 10, 1999. "That the spies are using the United Nations as a cover is deplorable."

While noting "Saddam Hussein's numerous complaints that UN inspection teams included American spies were apparently not imaginary," the newspaper mentioned that the espionage operatives "planted eavesdropping devices in hopes of monitoring forces that guarded Mr. Hussein as well as searching for hidden arms stockpiles."

The US news media quickly lost interest in that story. We should ask why.

Fending off the Threat of Peace

To fend off the threat of peace, determination is necessary. Elected officials and high-level appointees must work effectively with reporters and pundits.

This is no time for the US government to risk taking "yes" for an answer from Iraq. Guarding against the danger of peace, the Bush administration has moved the goal posts, quickly pounding them into the ground. In early August, a State Department undersecretary swung a heavy mallet. "Let there be no mistake," said John Bolton. "While we also insist on the reintroduction of the weapons inspectors, our policy at the same time insists on regime change in Baghdad - and that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not." A sinister cloud briefly fell over the sunny skies for war. The US Congress got a public invitation. A letter from a top Iraqi official "said congressional visitors and weapons experts of their choice could visit any site in Iraq alleged to be used for development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons," USA Today reported.

Summing up the diplomatic overture, the front page of the New York Times informed readers that the letter "was apparently trying to pit legislators against the Bush administration" (a pithy phrase helping to quash a dastardly peace initiative). Later on, the article noted that "the letter said members of Congress could bring all the arms experts they wanted and should plan to stay three weeks."

There may have been a moment of panic in Washington. On the face of it, the August 5 invitation was unequivocally stating that members of the Senate and House -- plus some of the best and most experienced weapons inspectors in the world -- could go to Iraq and engage in a thorough inspection process. That's similar to what the White House has been demanding of Iraq for many years.

The news had ominous potential. It could derail the war train gaining so much momentum this summer. But US media coverage matched the bipartisan refusal by leaders in Congress to do anything but scorn the offer.

Even before describing the invitation from Iraq's government, the first words of the USA Today news story on Aug. 6 called it "the latest Iraqi bid to complicate US invasion plans." That's some reporting! When our most powerful politicians are hell-bent on starting a war, complete with human misery and death of unfathomable proportions, then the last thing they want is complications before the bloodshed gets underway.

Why should anyone in Washington try to defuse this crisis when we have such a clear opportunity to light such an enormous fuse in the Middle East?

Oh sure, here at home, there are always some people eager to unleash the dogs of peace. Not content to pray, they actually believe: Blessed be the peacemakers. They don't defer to the machinery of war that grinds human beings as if they were mere sausage. They don't make peace with how determined the Executive Branch must be -- and how sheepish and even cowardly the members of Congress must be -- so that the bombs can fall in all their glory.

One of the people who's trying to impede the war drive is Scott Ritter, a former chief weapons inspector for the UN in Iraq. "To date," Ritter says, "the Bush administration has been unable -- or unwilling -- to back up its rhetoric concerning the Iraqi threat with any substantive facts."

In Britain, the press is failing to welcome the next war. On August 4 in the Observer, foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont wrote: "The question now appears to be not whether there will be a war, but when. The answer is that in war, as other matters, timing is all. For President George W. Bush that timing will be dictated by the demands of a domestic political agenda."

A news story in the July 30 edition of the Financial Times began this way: "Rolf Ekeus, head of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq from 1991-97, has accused the US and other Security Council members of manipulating the UN inspections teams for their own political ends. The revelation by one of the most respected Swedish diplomats is certain to strengthen Iraq's argument against allowing UN inspectors back into the country."

Such reporting, if widely pursued on this side of the Atlantic, could seriously undermine the war planners. But don't worry. The threat of peace is up against good ol' professional news judgment here in the USA.

Norman Solomon's latest book is The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media..