Alan Knight

The media war over Iraq began with an ominous warning. US President, George W. Bush told journalists to leave Baghdad, because he could not guarantee their safety. ¹ Events in Iraq had reached the "final days of decision", he said. Saddam Hussein and his sons, like a gang of Hollywood rustlers, were given forty eight hours to get out of town.

Three days later the invasion of Iraq began.

This article considers the propaganda techniques deployed by both sides in the 2003 Iraq war as they sought to manipulate global coverage of events. It draws extensively on internet sources, in part because the fragmented reports from the field became in the end less important than the globalised whole which consisted of text, audio and television converging on the world wide web.

Free speech comes at a cost. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported as Baghdad fell, that nine journalists had been killed during the Iraq invasion. ⁱ Some died in the heat of battle. Others may have been intentionally hit. Tareq Ayyoub, a Jordanian journalist with the Qatar-based satellite network Al-Jazeera, was killed when a U.S. missile struck the station’s Baghdad headquarters. His editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Hilal, said that the U.S. military had been previously advised of the bombed office’s co-ordinates. Witnesses saw the plane fly low over the building twice before the attack began. Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television station Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, from Reuters, died after a U.S. tank fired a shell at Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel; the source of international press reports from Iraq. (Committee to protect Journalists, 2003)

Individual journalists are greatly disadvantaged in the struggle to find information, which may be in the public interest. They can be hemmed and hindered by vacillating employers, defamation and contempt laws, and hedged by opaque bureaucracies, unreliable communications, bribes, and threats. CNN’s Chief News Executive Eason Jordon wrote that CNN suppressed stories of Iraqi tortures, assassinations and even the abductions of their own Iraqi staff; because to do so would have jeopardised Iraqi lives. (Jordon, 2003)

In Western democracies meanwhile, journalists must contend with clever and pervasive manipulation by public relations operations, which try to turn major public events into infotainment. Six years ago I co-wrote a book about the Hong Kong handover, which examined how the British constructed a live television spectacle, which frequently overwhelmed issues resulting from turning an embryonic democracy to a totalitarian state. (Knight/Nakano, 1999) Viewers might have found the Iraqi war coverage bore a striking resemblance to live entertainment, with close ups of our team in action, running scores, retired players giving informed sideline commentaries, and even tank cam. But is war as entertainment, a result of unethical and partisan journalists reporting, or should it be seen as a result of wider manipulations, which recognise and exploit the weaknesses of journalism methodologies?

Both the Coalition and the Iraqis sought to influence and control reporting of the conflict.

The Bush administration recognised the need for its own world-wide propaganda² with the establishment of the Office of Global Communications (OGC). (Bush: 2003) Described as "public diplomacy," the Washington Post reported the OGC attempted to address the question President Bush posed in his speech to Congress the week after the terrorist attacks: "Why do they hate us?" (Washington Post 30.7.2002) The OGC was to advise US government agencies on reaching foreign audiences with simple pro-US messages:

In doing so, the OGC recognised the ability of globalised television networks and news agencies to rapidly juxtapose apparently divergent statements by US spokespeople located across different continents. Conventional journalism routinely seeks such contradictions, as a way of exposing untruths. To negate this journalism methodology, the OGC advised US officials to deliver similar, OGC scripted sound bites to questioning journalists.

To meet journalists’ demand for regular updates, delivering content for current stories, the OGC distributed a daily "facts sheet", The Global Messenger, and co-ordinated "rapid response to allegations and rumors [sic] in the war on terror".

This study examined thirty-nine "Iraqi Freedom" global messages placed on the web by the OGC in March and April 2003. This period spanned the most intense period of the fighting, including March 20 when the bombing of Bagdhad began and April 9 when American troops entered the capital in force.

Most consisted of eight to ten paragraphs contained on a single page. The messages were constructed with simple if emotive language, and delivered in script style with few quotations. They were intended to directly represent the unified voice of the US government. The material was systematically created around tendentious themes, aimed at securing support for the coalition war effort. The conflict was intentionally reduced to a contest between good and evil.

Coalition forces were characterised as freedom loving, working hard to avoid civilian casualties and seeking to protect religious diversity:

The Iraqi military were meanwhile depicted as brutal, tyrannical, corrupt, unethical and deploying "weapons of mass murder":

Some messages were written in first person, designed to directly address Iraqis who were promised freedom. "We're coming with a mighty force to end the reign of your oppressors. We are coming to bring you food and medicine and a better life, and we will not relent until your country is free," one message said as coalition forces closed in on Baghdad. (G.M. 2.4.03)

While none of the messages expressed other than fulsome support for the coalition’s invasion, one message did concede that support for the US was not universal among the Iraqi civilian population. Demonstrations against the coalition occupation were however given a positive spin:

The OGC represented the Iraqi resistance as "from remnants of Saddam’s death squads and foreign fighters". It meanwhile accused the Iraqi regime of engaging in propaganda aimed at unfairly influencing world media. The OGC coordinated themes and events to support President Bush's drive for Congressional and U.N. support for the war on the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. It created the document, Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda, 1990-2003. This paper claimed that false messages and images created by the Iraqis, reverberated around the world media:

The OGC cited eleven "Main Tools of Iraqi Disinformation" :

• Staged suffering and grief

• Co-location of military assets and

• Restricting journalists’ movements

• False claims or disclosures

• False man-in-the-street interviews

• Self-inflicted damage

• On-the-record lies

• Covert dissemination of false stories

• Censorship

• Bogus, edited, or old footage and images

• Fabricated documents

The International Federation of Journalists condemned both sides in the Iraq invasion for "crimes of war" against journalists, which must be punished. "It is cruelly ironic that after the Iraqi regime plays cat-and-mouse with Al Jazeera, first banning them, then allowing them to stay, it appears they have been attacked by American forces," said Aidan White, the IFJ’s General Secretary. The IFJ said that this attack was a shocking mirror of the destruction of the Kabul offices of Al Jazeera by American forces during the war in Afghanistan. "It is impossible not to detect a sinister pattern of targeting," said White. (IFJ Media Release 8.04.2003)

Several hundred war correspondents saw out the campaign in the relative safety of Qatar, where the US Central Command (CENTCOM) established its headquarters. The portable CDHQ complex was self-contained and included everything required for sustained military operations. The portable military base had its own power distribution, office automation, computer networks, and communications connectivity-all housed within a comfortable, biological and chemical hardened work environment. (Raytheon, 3.02.2003)

Correspondent, Michael Massing, claimed that many of his fellow journalists were culturally and intellectually isolated in Qatar, getting most of their information from "TV, the Internet and their colleagues in the field":

Hundreds of kilometres from the action, these CDHQ based journalists attended daily briefings staged by crisp and articulate American and British commanders. Sustained critical questioning was almost impossible in the competitive yet strictly controlled news conferences created to sustain an illusion of openness. The conferences were held within a military base with access restricted to accredited (security cleared) journalists. The presenter would appear with a prepared script on a stage designed to accentuate authority. Journalists competed with each other to ask questions. The presenter was able to terminate the process at any time. Australian Broadcasting Corporation Reporter, Johnathan Harley, said later that fact checking under these circumstances was impossible. Reporters became players on a stage set for global television:

Meanwhile, the process of embedding journalists with coalition military units gave journalists unprecedented if qualified access to the frontline. This however, may have been intended to produce the action sequences in the unfolding narratives the networks wove around the Doha briefing supplied plot.

CENTCOM’s Public Affairs Guidance on Embedding Media recognised that media coverage of the war would "shape public perception of the national security environment now and in the years ahead". (Public Affairs Guidance, 2003) More than five hundred journalists who lived, worked and travelled with selected units, were promised minimum restrictions and maximum access to combat information. ³

The embedding process generated hundreds of visually exciting yet disparate keyhole views of the war. Stitching these vignettes to create credible analyses took time, which was in short supply in a blitzkrieg. Embedded journalists were required to rely on military transport; a critical restriction in rapidly moving desert war. News organisations rejected claims that this reliance on the military would encourage familiarity and establish a confluence of interests. The Arizona Republic’s editorial wrote that embedded reporters were neither in bed with the military nor were they anti Bush:

Embedding exploited television journalism practices, by allowing TV reporters to introduce themselves into the action, so they might be seen in the familiar role of news actors reporting from where the action was perceived to be taking place. In a recommendation which recognised television’s preference for good pictures over journalists’ analysis, Centcom’s guidelines encouraged reporters to attach "lipstick" cameras to their helmets; so that the audience might see the war through the eyes of a grunt or squaddy. In this instance, the perspectives of reporters who still might see the stories as their own could become irrelevant, as the audience entered the immediate reality of the soldier. ABC Correspondent, Geoff Thompson, who reported from an embedded front line, admitted to having a narrow view of the warfare:

The military reserved its right to control "sensitive" information.ⁱⁱ Freelance journalists, who might have more opportunities to seek bigger pictures were discouraged. The International Federation of Journalists protested against "unacceptable discrimination" and restrictions being imposed on journalists covering the war in Iraq when they were not travelling with army units of the United States or Britain. Reports from journalists in Southern Iraq said that media staff who were not part of the "embedded" group of reporters travelling under the official protection of the military were being forcibly removed. (IFJ Media Release, 3.04.2003) ITN Journalist, Terry Lloyd died near Basra in southern Iraq when "the ITN team came under fire, apparently from Coalition forces". (ITN 2003) The jeep in which they had been travelling had been clearly marked "TV".

Journalists who chose to stay in Baghdad during the invasion were subjected to crude controls by the Baathist regime. Reporters without Borders reported that foreign journalists were subjected to of the obligatory presence of Iraqi official minders, of deliberate translation errors, e-mail surveillance and the theft of money, film and equipment by Iraqi frontier guards and soldiers. Those who sought to leave the Palestine Hotel to see what was going on beyond the organised bus tours were liable to arrest, imprisonment or expulsion. Christoph Maria Froeder, a German Investigative journalist was set upon by a crowd of angry Iraqi civilians. Iraqi information ministry officials then twice seized his equipment, videotapes and press cards. (Reporters without Borders, 9.04.2003)

This harassment of foreign journalists, whilst unacceptable, was mild compared to the torture and imprisonment previously inflicted by Baathists on domestic Iraqi journalists and critics. Even the Journalists Union acted as an arm of a state particularly intolerant of criticism. Saddam’s son, Uday Hussein was in 1992 "unanimously" elected as head of a union, used by the regime to issue editorial instructions:

Reporters without Borders’ Index of Press Freedoms rated Iraq as number 130 in a field of 139, in 2003. Iraq was not perceived as media friendly by most the journalists drawn there as war drew closer. The Sydney Morning Herald’s correspondent, Paul McGeough said the relationships between the foreign press and the Iraqi Information Ministry, was both vexed and tense:

It seemed that Iraqi media handlers were accustomed to journalists who were required to print whatever officials said. The lack of sophistication in Iraqi propaganda could be seen in the press relations pursued by the regime’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi Information Minister. Quoting "authoritative sources", he told incredulous foreign journalists attending his news conferences that the Americans were being crushed even as their tanks rolled into Baghdad.

In contrast, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network news was accused by CNN founder, Ted Turner of being so partisan in its broadcasts that it actually campaigned for an invasion of Iraq. "He [Murdoch] promoted the war because it's good for his newspapers and good for his television and because he's a warmonger," Turner told the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. (Turner 2003)

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Director General, Greg Dyke claimed that U.S. broadcasters' coverage of the Iraq war was so unquestioningly patriotic and lacking in impartiality that it threatened the credibility of America's electronic media. Mr. Dyke said he was shocked by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war". He accused Fox News of "cheerleading" for the war. "If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism,"" he said. (ABC News 25.4.2003)

Even before the Iraq war began, veteran American CBS’s iconic news presenter, Dan Rather, claimed that he, like many other American journalists had been cowed by the "hyper-patriotism" which followed the September 11 terrorist attacks. Rather confessed during a BBC interview, that patriotism had held him back from asking tough questions. He said that he found himself telling himself, 'I know the right question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it’ Rather described the syndrome as the intellectual equivalent of neck-lacing:

The sheer quantity and diversity of international coverage of the Iraq war almost defied conventional content analyses of work by individual reporters. A more comprehensive, international research project might follow created stories or digitally enhanced images from creator to consumer, to examine the penetration of propaganda into mainstream media.

However, a number of media handling practices have already become apparent.

Regular news conferences provided a steady diet of sanitized pictures and approved texts, establishing themes around which stories might be structured in sympathetic media. Accredited journalists were cosseted, while independent ones met with varying levels of interference, depending on the sophistication of the PR handlers.

The embedding process, a new technique presented as enhancing open coverage, helped make individual reporters’ views irrelevant, as military PRs recognised what every commercial television journalist already knew; pictures were more important than words.

In this war, as in the first Gulf war, television remained the major medium of information. Yet the electronic media’s technology driven desire for action and immediacy was a key weakness its ability to interrogate international events. Spin controllers were aware that the international news spotlight would linger on Iraq for only a short time, before it moved on to new crises. If viewers could be distracted by created and controlled events staged during the period of intense global scrutiny, they might just later neglect to read the newspapers back pages where truths about the war should eventually unfold.

Endnotes

BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/  

De Uriarte, Richard, editorial writer, Arizona Republic, "'Embedded' journalists losing context" 3.04.2003, http://www.azcentral.com/news/opinions/columns/articles/0403quickhitjournalists.html 

Knight/Nakano: Reporting Hong Kong. Curzon. London 1999 Massing, Michael "The Unseen War" The New York Review of Books. New York. 29.5.2003. pp 16/19

Meade, Geoff as cited by Massing, Michael "The Unseen War" The New York Review of Books. New York. 29.5.2003. p 16

Office of Government Communications, Apparatus of Lies, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus