 The
war of misinformation has begun
Weasel Words to watch for
Reprinted from the Independent on Sunday 16 March 2003
All across the Middle East, they are deploying
by the thousand. In the deserts of Kuwait, in Amman, in northern Iraq, in
Turkey, in Israel and in Baghdad itself There must be 7,000 journalists and
crews “in theatre”, as the more jingoistic of them like to say. In Qatar a
massive press centre has been erected for journalists who will not see the
war.
How many times General Tommy Franks will
spin his story to the press at the nine o'clock follies, no one knows. He
doesn't even like talking to journalists. But the journalistic resources
being laid down in the region are enormous. The BBC alone has 35 reporters
in the Middle East, 17 of them embedded - along with hundreds of reporters
from the American networks and other channels - in military units.
Once the invasion starts, they will lose
their freedom to write what they want There will be censorship. And, I'll
hazard a guess right now, we shall see many of the British and American
journalists back to their old trick of playing toy soldiers, dressing
themselves up in military costumes for their nightly theatrical performances
on television. Incredibly, several of the American networks have setup shop
in the Kurdish north of Iraq with orders not to file a single story until
war begins - in case this provokes the Iraqis to expel their network
reporters from Baghdad.
The orchestration will be everything, the
pictures often posed, the angles chosen by “minders”, much as the Iraqis
will try to do the same thing in Baghdad. Take yesterday's front-page
pictures of massed British troops in Kuwait, complete with arranged tanks
and perfectly formatted helicopters. This was the perfectly planned
photo-op. Of course, it won't last.
Here's a few guesses about our coverage of
the war to come. American and British forces use thousands of depleted
uranium (DU) shells - widely regarded by 1991 veterans as the
cause of gulf War syndrome as well as thousands of child cancers in
present day Iraq-to batter their way across the Kuwaiti-Iraqi frontier.
Within hours, they will enter the city of Basra, to be greeted by its Shin
Muslim inhabitants as liberators. US and British troops will be given roses
and pelted with rice - a traditional Arab greeting- as they drive
“victoriously” through the streets.
The first news pictures of the war will
warm the hearts of Messrs Bush and Blair There will be virtually no mention
by reporters of the use of DU munitions.
But in Baghdad, reporters will be covering
the bombing raids that are killing civilians by the score and then by the
hundred. These journalists, as usual, will be accused of giving “comfort to
the enemy while British troops are fighting for their lives”. By now, in
Basra and other “liberated” cities south of the capital, Iraqis are taking
their fearful revenge on Saddam Hussein's Baath party officials. Men are
hanged from lamp-posts. Much television footage of these scenes will have to
be cut to sanitize the extent of the violence.
Far better for the US and British
governments will be the macabre discovery of torture chambers and
“rape-rooms” and prisoners with personal accounts of the most terrible
suffering at the hands of Saddam's secret police. This will “prove” how
right “we” are to liberate these poor people. Then the US will have to find
the “weapons of mass destruction” that supposedly provoked this bloody war.
In the journalistic hunt for these weapons, any old rocket will do for the
moment.
Bunkers allegedly containing chemical
weapons will be cordoned off - too dangerous for any journalist to approach,
of course. Perhaps they actually do contain VX or anthrax. But for the
moment, the all-important thing for Washington and London is to convince the
world that the casus belli was true - and reporters, in or out of
military costume, will be on hand to say just that.
Baghdad is surrounded and its defenders
ordered to surrender. There will be fighting between Shias and Sunnis around
the slums of the city; the beginning of a ferocious civil conflict for which
the invading armies are totally unprepared. US forces will sweep past
Baghdad to his home city of Tikrit in their hunt for Saddam Hussein. Bush
and Blair will appear on television to speak of their great “victories” But
as they are boasting, the real story will begin to be told: the break-up of
Iraqi society; the return of thousands of Basra refugees from Iran, many of
them with guns, all refusing to live under western occupation.
In the north, Kurdish guerrillas will try
to enter Kirkuk, where they will kill or “ethnically cleanse” many of the
city's Arab inhabitants. Across Iraq, the invading armies will witness
terrible scenes of revenge which can no longer be kept off television
screens. The collapse of the Iraqi nation is now under way. Of course, the
Americans and British just might get into Baghdad in three days for their
roses and rice water. That's what the British did in 1917. And from there,
it was all downhill
Weasel words to watch for:
‘Stubborn' or
‘suicidal' - to be used when Iraqi forces fight rather than
retreat.
‘Allegedly'
- for all carnage caused by Western forces.
‘At last, the
damning evidence' - used when reporters enter old torture
chambers.
‘Officials
here are not giving us much access' - a clear sign that
reporters in Baghdad are confined to their hotels.
‘Life goes on'
- for any pictures of Iraq's poor making tea.
‘Remnants'
- allegedly ‘diehard' Iraqi troops still shooting at the Americans but
actually the first signs of a resistance movement dedicated to the
‘liberation' of Iraq from its new western occupiers.
‘Newly
liberated' - for territory and cities newly occupied by the
Americans or British.
‘What went
wrong?' - to accompany pictures illustrating the growing
anarchy in Iraq as if it were not predicted.
|
ATLANTA
- Profound changes have been taking place in American foreign policy,
reversing consistent bipartisan commitments that for more than two centuries
have earned our nation greatness. These commitments have been predicated on
basic religious principles, respect for international law, and alliances
that resulted in wise decisions and mutual restraint. Our apparent
determination to launch a war against Iraq, without international support,
is a violation of these premises.
