War / Peace

Some Spies Saw Through the Lies & Blew the Whistle

Submitted by John Stauber on

"When David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced earlier this year that his team had found no stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he touched off an explosion of blame, finger-pointing, denial, and hasty 'clarifications' about the extent and accuracy of the intelligence that the Bush Administration used to buttress its decision to invade Iraq. Kay's startling conclusion, though, came as no surprise to many analysts in the U.S.

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Main Source: 
Mother Jones, March 10, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Propaganda
U.S. Government

Another WMD Post-mortem

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has published a new study on "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction," and the picture isn't pretty. "Most media outlets represented WMD as a monolithic menace, failing to adequately distinguish between weapons programs and actual weapons or to address the real differences among chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological weapons," the report states.

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Main Source: 
Editor and Publisher, March 9, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Journalism
Propaganda
U.S. Government

Halliburton Subcontractor Talks Turkey

Submitted by Laura Miller on

"Halliburton, which according to its just-released 10-K report has earned $85 million on $3.6 billion in Iraqi work last year, has not yet paid the subcontractor that prepared the Thanksgiving Day photo-op of President George Bush serving the troops dinner in Baghdad International Airport," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports.

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Main Source: 
O'Dwyer's PR, March 9, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq

Blair's 45-minute Gap

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Britons continue to debate the Blair government's now-discredited claim that Iraq was 45 minutes away from launching chemical or biological weapons. Glenn Frankel and Rajiv Chandrasekaran British review in detail the history of the 45-minute claim and Blair's failure to "disclose that the claim had come secondhand from a single, uncorroborated source, and that some of the government's own experts believed it was questionable."

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Main Source: 
Washington Post, February 29, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
International
Propaganda

Disappearing the Dead

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

When planning war, one of the most important targets for military officials is public opinion. "This holds true especially in a democracy, when one is fighting a war of choice - as in invading another country - instead of fighting a war of national survival," observes David Isenberg. "In such wars, issues like human rights and civilian casualties loom larger. Since such casualties are inevitable, special pains must be taken to explain them away. But how to do so?

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Main Source: 
Asia Times, February 27, 2004
Topics: 
War / Peace

The Campaigns Behind the Campaigns

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

In a sign of "close tactical coordination with the White House" and "at a time when Sen John Kerry has surged ahead of Bush in the presidential popularity polls," Republican Senators planned a surprise debate on Iraq today. Majority Leader Bill Frist and Jon Kyl are leading the estimated six-hour rebuttal of Democratic criticisms.

No
Main Source: 
The Hill, February 26, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Politics

The Propaganda of William Safire

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"Found: A Smoking Gun," declared the headline by New York Times columnist William Safire, which claimed that a "clear link" had recently been found between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But what did Safire base his case-closed pronouncement upon? A New York Times story that had appeared a day earlier. But the original Times story reached the opposite conclusion from Safire, stating that the recent discover not evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam.

No
Main Source: 
The Nation, February 24, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Journalism
Propaganda

Halliburton's 'Bizarre Media Strategy'

Submitted by John Stauber on

"The chief executive of the Halliburton Company, Dave Lesar,
never imagined that he would be the star of his own
television commercial. But there he is, on the airwaves in
Washington and Houston, assuring viewers that his company
has billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Iraq and
feed American troops 'because of what we know, not who we
know.' The unnamed 'who' is, of course, Vice President Dick
Cheney, Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 to 2000. ... The advertising, Mr. Lesar added, will continue until the

No
Main Source: 
New York Times,. Febuary 23, 2004
Topics: 
Crisis Management
Iraq
Corporations

"Weapons of Mass Deception" A New Phrase of 2003

Submitted by John Stauber on

"If you are a 'metrosexual,' you might also be into 'manscaping.' If you're a 'flexitarian,' no doubt you've tried 'tofurkey. These are among the top words of 2003, so named by the American Dialect Society at its annual conference in Boston recently. To translate: 'metrosexual,' the winner of 'the word or phrase which most colored the nation's language,' is a fashion-conscious heterosexual male, preoccupied with money, clothes and style, and 'manscaping' is male body-shaving.

No
Main Source: 
Detroit News via Seattle Times, February 23, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Rhetoric

Thanks, Suckers

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"We are heroes in error," says Ahmed Chalabi, whose Iraqi National Congress was the source for much of the now-discredited information that served as the Bush administration's justification for war. "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful," Chalabi said. "That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad.

No
Main Source: 
Telegraph (UK), February 19, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Front Groups

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