Lessons Not Learned: The Media Continues to be MIA on the Truth about Iraq War

A year after the President's "Mission Accomplished" Top Gun moment, the New York Times ran an apology to its readers for its failures in its pre-war Iraq coverage. Over the next four years many media outlets and personalities admitted to failing to give the public the vigilant reporting it deserved and assured us it would never happen again. The Fourth Estate was back on the job and our republic was safe once again -- or maybe not.

Last month, after former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book, "What Happened? Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," gave an insider's account of how the Bush administration used propaganda to lead us into an unnecessary war and chided the "liberal media" for not doing its job -- the media returned to defending its coverage.

A week later, the Senate Intelligence Committee offered the media another chance at redemption when it finally released Phase II of its assessment on the administration's use of pre-war intelligence on Iraq, revealing that the

administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent in making the case for war.

These findings were consistent with a prior study released by Congressman Waxman and a Center for Public Integrity report that President Bush and administration officials made 935 false statements about Iraq in the two years following September 11th. Nonetheless, the media largely buried the story or ignored it altogether.

Enter the New Republic's neo-con apprentice James Kirchick who claims that Bush never lied to us about Iraq and that to make such a claim is "cowardly and dishonest". Kirchick "rebuts" the Senate Intelligence report by noting a prior Intelligence Committee report found no evidence that the administration attempted to coerce intelligence analysts to change their judgment, but this merely begs the question since, as Senator Feinstein noted in the report, the "cauldron boiling below the surface" was the question of whether information received from "the intelligence community, whether right or wrong, good or bad, were fairly represented to the Congress and to the American people."

Kirchick's one feeble assault on the actual findings of the report, is to claim victory as a result of the finding that the administration overstated limited contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda to falsely link the two "as a single threat" and insinuate "that Iraq played a role in 9/11," since this confirms there were links between the two (regardless of whether they were grossly overstated). He then follows White House talking points by noting the number of Democrats who spoke of Iraq as a dire threat prior to the war, ignoring the fact that those that did were relying upon the information supplied by the Bush administration and that 147 Democrats actually voted against the war.

Kirchick not only ignores the other reports detailing the Bush administration's pre-war lies, but he fails to address the many lies that followed the invasion or to recognize that the pre-war statements were part of the administration's "culture of deception" that, according to Nixon counsel John Dean, has elevated mendacity to the level of public policy. Dean's view is supported by McClellan's book and sworn testimony which charges that Bush failed "to be open and forthright on Iraq" and instead relied on propaganda to sell the war.

I launched BushLies.net shortly before the start of the war because I was frustrated by the media's failure to address the administration's pattern of falsehoods and half-truths which only a few sources such as theNew Republic and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank dared report. Five years and nearly 45,000 casualties later, little has changed.

In 2004, a woman who had lost of nephew to an IED in Iraq sent me a copy of a note she sent to the President pointedly asking

I want to know why you lied . . . I want to know how you found a link between the 9-11 attacks and Iraq that no one else had uncovered. . . . You owe me and America answers.

She is right, we deserve answers. Kirchick, apparently, has no interest in any answers that do not fit neatly in his neo-con world view but yet he has the audacity to call those who dare expose neo-con fallacies and sophistry "cowardly and dishonest."

It has been said that the role of a journalist is to speak the truth for the voiceless and in this case the voiceless include over 4,000 families who have lost loved ones in this war. Sadly, the McClellan revelations and the Phase II report reveal that, despite their public penance, much of the media would rather ignore this whole matter and thereby avoid a confrontation with the administration while allowing their past mistakes and the truth to be buried by the dust of history.

Comments

[Tator]

Want some cheese with that whine??

[rmreddicks]

An old (yet true) truism - follow the money. Who owns the news? It's nothing new. The national press's willingness to expose Watergate and publish the Pentagon Papers was an aberration driven by class in-fighting. It is more Hearst than I.F.Stone.

[CaseyBabes]

MSM ain't hiding nuthin.' If there was another version of why the USA entered Iraq it would have come out long ago 'cause biased lefty writers keep their pencils razor sharp to nail the Bush Administration. The USA got snookered, that's it, that's all. They believed, like the rest of the world of Intelligence, Sadam had major weapons and would use them and was therefore a threat. Nothing hard about that, unless you're a hard core lefty, that is. So as long as we have airhead actors making box office duds about the Iraq war we'll always have 'he lied, Bush lied, impeach, Cheney's the boogeyman, war for oil, WTC was an inside job, (that freakin' lying ass Murtha- uh, my contribution), General Betrayus, cover up, Keith Doberman, ad nauseum, no wait -- Keith ad nauseum." Sheesh, demorats.

[bennet]

"They believed, like the rest of the world of Intelligence, Sadam (sic) had major weapons and would use them and was therefore a threat. Nothing hard about that, unless you're a hard core lefty, that is." Guess again.

The IAEA found that Iraq"s nuclear capacity had been completely dismantled by 1998 and the current IAEA inspector reported to the UN Security Council in January 2003 "we have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990"s." The CIA concurred with this analysis since its January 2002 review of WMD proliferation warned of a threat from North Korea, but not Iraq.

A Carnegie Endowment report on WMD's in Iraq concluded that the evidence prior to the war indicated that Iraq"s nuclear program had been dismantled and its chemical weapons had lost most of their lethality. In addition, the report concluded that the administration "systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq"s WMD and ballistic missile programs". Which is precisely what the Senate Intelligence Committee found in its Phase II report that the "Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent".

The facts were there. Nothing hard about ignoring them, but nothing right in doing so.

[CaseyBabes]

No argument there, hindsight rules.

[rmreddicks]

CaseyBabes is back and as inane as ever.

[CaseyBabes]

Ah, a girl of impeccable judgement. So what's your point?

[Nonamnesiac]

Actually the media covers the incursion just enough to continue making the argument we must remain in Iraq. The same crew who cheerled us into Iraq despite knowing the Adminnistration was lying in the intelligence it was presenting in support of invading Iraq now cheerleads into opposing immediate, safe withdrawal. It would be amusing to watch all of them join in and argue that even though we went in for the wrong reasons and carried out an ineffective operation, we must remain there for years and must reject the "left" who is demanding immediate, safe withdrawal if young American kids and Iraqis weren't being killed and maimed. Then they have dishonest, paid apologists like Fareed write articles that we must stay and quote those stupid articles over and over on their broadcasts as if that load has any credibiility given how he's always been for staying in Iraq.

The warmongerers lie about everything and the media dishonestly swears to it -- McCain lying about the safety of the Iraq market to Fareed finding the Iraqi government (that wants us out) actually wants us in and says we should threaten them with leaving if they don't fix things. They don't fix things because they want us out and want to work with Iran, whose leader gets a hero's welcome in Baghdad while US leaders have to sneak in with heavily armed troops.

Immediate, safe withdrawal of all US troops. Don't let the lying media fool us again.

[Mojane]

It's called a Blackout, something only dictatorships offer. People in countries where they have a free press are astounded, even shocked at how little information we get from our press, printed and televised. What we do get in obscene abundance from our media is commercials, ads that seduce us into wanting more and more things. It's our drug. We've been wandering around in this new world of netherland, like pigs in a poke.

[Halsey]

My parents still believe Saddam had something to do with 9-11...even a some right wing zealot (say..Lush Rimbaugh to whom they listen every day!)..said...nope...the war was a mistake...I swear to gawd..they'd stop listening to him...no..REALLY!... they are comfortable living in fear and loathing in billings, montana..ain't nuthin gonna change their minds.

They don't stop to think that in the next election..they are NOT voting for how it will affect their lives..at 79 and 85...their lives have almost run their courses...it is MY future..and that of my nieces and nephews...and apparently...they dont' give a hoot about that..they burn through medicare like it's free..oopss.guess it IS for them...hmmmm...but universal health care for babies...forget it..that's just down right commie!

[demfriend]

MSM is owned by friends of this administration and the republicans so how will they step up and tell us what is really going on? Like they have not done since bush started the lies that is how. Now that we know Mission Accomplished meant to give no bids to all of the oil friends of Bush Cheney for the oil fields in Iraq AND the push by the republicans to drill off shore with also no bids when the oil companies are not using the oil fields they have already to drill in but they choose not to. Sure the old saying "over a barrel" meant something but I doubt it was what we have to suffer through right now with the republican mafia.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

Sadly, this continuing saga has more to do with the future than the past.

The media, lobbyists, and neoconservatives cannot admit anything about Iraq, because the coming War with Iran has not been launched yet.

[InternationalObserver]

Yeah, it's "funny" how the MSM went to such pains to exonerate themselves about how/what they reported ('we could only report what we were told' - really? forgotten what *Investigative Reporting* is then have we?) and yet when they get a chance to redeem themselves (with the Phase II report) they blow it. Again.

If the MSM were a guy we'd be saying "Girlfriend, he just isn't that into you". Which in this case is kinda scary when you think about it.

[Bluedog12]

Bennett, there is a war in Iraq? I thought I saw the President with a big sign that read "Mission Accomplished" years ago? You mean to tell me that hottie Lara Logan is right about the American media?

[larry278]

How can the MSM be missing in action, MIA, when reporting often is just rehashing W & Co's press releases which an intern delivers to your desk or is on your screen-if you use the right keys & search engine. That requires minimal action. The military analysts get coddled by the Pentagon when they make a fact finding trip to a military base. A catered lunch at the 19th hole or drinks at the officers club any time thirst hits isn't action. A day or so in the green zone isn't pleasant for many REMF military analysts but ever job has down sides.