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MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media


December 17, 2009


MEDIA ALERT: CHILCOT INQUIRY - THE ESTABLISHMENT GOES TO WORK - PART 2


Buckling Under Bush

In an early leading article on the Chilcot inquiry, the Guardian observed:

“What is already clear from the first week alone is that the decisions, secret or otherwise, that led to war were the product of systemic failure. Intelligence analysts, diplomats, in fact the entire machinery of the British government, proved supine against Washington's will. Under that pressure, almost everyone buckled.” (Leading Article: Iraq inquiry: Dancing to American drums,’ The Guardian, November 28, 2009)

They certainly did. The Guardian’s Martin Woollacott wrote in January 24, 2003:

“Among those knowledgeable about Iraq there are few, if any, who believe he is not hiding such weapons. It is a given." (Woollacott, ‘This drive to war is one of the mysteries of our time - We know Saddam is hiding weapons. That isn't the argument,’ The Guardian, January 24, 2003)

This was close to being an exact reversal of the truth. Hans Blix, former head of UNMOVIC arms inspections in Iraq (November 2002-March 2003), said in June 2003:

“If anyone had cared... to study what UNSCOM [arms inspections in Iraq from 1991-1998] was saying for quite a number of years, and what we [UNMOVIC] were saying, they should not have assumed that they would stumble on weapons.” (Miles Pomper and Paul Kerr, ‘An Interview With Hans Blix,’ Arms Control Today, June 16 2003)

Unfortunately, almost no-one had cared to study anything. Former chief UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, put the issue in perspective last month:

“As of December 1998, both the U.S. and Britain knew there was no ‘smoking gun’ in Iraq that could prove that Saddam's government was retaining or reconstituting a WMD capability. Nothing transpired between that time and when the decision was made in 2002 to invade Iraq that fundamentally altered that basic picture.

“But having decided on war using WMD as the justification, both the US and Great Britain began the process of fabricating a case after the fact. Lacking new intelligence data on Iraqi WMD, both nations resorted to either recycling old charges that had been disproved by UN inspectors in the past, or fabricating new charges that would not withstand even the most cursory of investigations.”

He added:

“The evidence needed to undermine any WMD-based case for war, derived from the work of the UN weapons inspectors, was always available to those officials in a position to weigh in on this matter, but either never consulted or deliberately ignored...“ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/27/truth-uk-guilt-iraq-chilcot)

But "even the most cursory of investigations” was never attempted. We were amazed in 2002-2003 at the media’s complete lack of interest in testing US-UK government claims. Ritter’s comments above +were+ published in the Guardian, but in 2009, long after they had lost the power to make a difference. In 2003, the Guardian and Observer mentioned Iraq in a total of 12,356 articles. In these articles, Ritter was mentioned 17 times, mostly in passing. The Independent mentioned Ritter eight times in 5,648 articles on Iraq in 2003. Ritter’s claim that Iraq had been “fundamentally disarmed” by December 1998, received fewer than a dozen brief mentions in the Guardian in 2002. Ritter made the point:

“The president's task was made far easier given the role of useful idiot played by much of the mainstream media in the U.S. and Britain, where reporters and editors alike dutifully repeated both the hyped-up charges levied against Iraq and the false pretensions that a diplomatic solution was being sought.” (Ibid)

Lees verder: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/