War / Peace

Homefront Confidential

The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press has issued an updated report showing "how the war on terrorism affects access to information and the public's right to know." The report includes sections on "covering the war," "military tribunals," "domestic coverage," and "the USA PATRIOT Act." The World Press Institute has just issued a similar report.

No

Spinning the "Coalition of the Willing"

"The Bush administration has frequently compared the level and scope of international support for its military operations in Iraq to the coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf War," reports Glenn Kessler. "But the statements are exaggerations, according to independent experts and a review of figures from both conflicts." The so-called "coalition of the willing is almost entirely a U.S.-British campaign, with virtually no military contribution from other countries except Australia.

No

Making A Killing On War

"As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, CorpWatch has learned that thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, are working alongside United States troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. According to US Army sources, they are building tent cities and providing logistical support for the war in Iraq in addition to other hot spots in the 'war on terrorism,'" CorpWatch writes.

No

A Call For Independent Community Media

"The new US war on Iraq has begun: arguably the greatest moral tragedy of a generation, an unprecedented failure of diplomacy and international order, and a profound crime against the principles of democracy," the Independent Media Center wrote in a statement calling on citizens to seek out news from and create news stories for their nearest IMC.

No

Media Watchdogs Caught Napping

In the run up to war in Iraq, foreign news websites are seeing large
volumes of traffic from America, as U.S. citizens increasingly seek news
coverage about the coming war. "Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in challenging the White House position on Iraq, I'm not surprised if Americans are turning to foreign news services for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond freedom fries," said Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing editor, who keeps a weblog devoted to media issues.

No

Bush League Diplomacy: The Empire Strikes Out

As PR Watch reported last year, the Bush administration has always intended to attack Iraq no matter what the results of UN inspections. The US's expensive post-911 propaganda and PR campaign to win foreign friends and change minds about US policy has predictably failed given Bush's bullying insistence on going to war. The Washington Post notes that "Six months after President Bush first appeared before the United Nations
and urged a confrontation with Iraq, the United States appears to have lost

No

A New Definition of "Innocent"

The United States and France were the source in the 1980s for "all the foreign germ samples ... used to create the biological weapons that are still believed to be in Iraq's arsenal, according to American officials and foreign diplomats who have reviewed Iraq's latest weapons declaration to the United Nations. ... The bioweapons declaration was obtained by Gary B.

No

Pages

Subscribe to War / Peace