Exclusive: Famed War Reporter Rips the Media on Iraq

One of the most famous and respected war reporters of the past 40 years, Joseph L. Galloway -- co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, later a fine film -- wrote the foreword for my new book on Iraq and the media. A Bronze Star winner in Vietnam (he was played by Barry Pepper in the movie), Joe was also one of the first leading reporters/pundits to call for a U.S. pullout from Iraq several years ago.

"In war truth is too often the first casualty," Galloway writes, "and it is not just a president or a secretary of defense or assorted official spokesmen who do the killing. Our brothers and sisters in the media also participate in the execution."

Here is more from the foreword to So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.
***

Looking back to that fall of 2002 when war drums were beating loudly and the president and his closest advisers spoke with certainty - and deceit -- about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and the danger he ostensibly posed to our country and our friends and allies, most in the media either swallowed it whole or timidly refused to do their jobs and question the official rationale for war....

The great grey lady, The New York Times, and the voice inside the Beltway, The Washington Post, put dozens of unquestioning reports on the Bush administration's claims about Saddam's quest for a nuclear weapon on their front pages. The few reports that even suggested that some experts were questioning those claims were buried deep inside, among the Viagra ads. The Times' front-paged reporter Judith Miller's breathless stories about Iraq's quest for WMD came straight out of the mouths of a series of bogus Iraqi "defectors."

Did the national outburst of patriotism and an epidemic of American flag decals and flag lapel pins on the expensive suits of television anchors frighten those who had long believed that their newspapers set the nation's agenda? How could those agenda-setters and so many others in the media abandon their first duty to challenge and question the assertions of the politicians holding high office?

To his credit Greg Mitchell was writing columns and putting out a pre-war cover article in E&P that raised those and other important questions before the first American soldier ever planted a boot inside Iraq. Also doing critical reporting on the Administration's claims were a few good people working in the Washington D.C. bureau of Knight Ridder Newspapers -- bureau chief John Walcott and reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel. (I worked there with them and made my own contributions to some of the critical stories before the war began and after.) But it would be several years before the work of these Knight Ridder reporters was acknowledged.

During the early years of the war, I made two reporting trips to Iraq, in the fall of 2003 and again in 2005-2006. The soldiers and Marines I lived with and went on operations and convoys with were the same type of fine young Americans I wrote about in earlier wars. In fact, many of their commanders, from colonels to four-star generals, were officers I had marched or ridden with when they were captains and majors in an earlier war. All were doing their best with a bad hand dealt them by their civilian overlords--too few troops to do the job assigned, struggling against faulty decisions by people like Ambassador L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority that only fueled the insurgency, and laboring under the micro-management of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld whose ears were closed against any advice contrary to his thinking.

I was an early and harsh critic of the administration's conduct of the war. In the interest of full disclosure, because I had worked in 2001-2002 as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell, then secretary of state, I had sources very close to the debates and in-fighting over the conduct of the war at the highest levels. It was clear that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld were riding roughshod over anyone who urged caution and careful thought. By 2005 I was writing columns suggesting that Rumsfeld, and his deputies Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, be fired for their mistakes, along with the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Richard Meyer.

Not until the 2007 perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's hatchet man, would the overly cozy relationship too many Washington pundits and reporters maintained with the likes of Libby and George W. Bush's spinmeister Karl Rove be exposed to the open air.

Those of us old enough to remember the Vietnam War, and to carry visible and invisible scars from our work there, felt uneasy about Iraq and the stated reasons for pre-emptively invading that country. Those feelings only grew stronger in the months after March and April of 2003 when the President and his men were doing premature victory laps around the press rooms at the White House and the Pentagon.

Mitchell lays it all out in this book. Read it and weep. If you are a consumer of the news, I urge that you reserve judgment when reading reports quoting the calculated rhetoric of government officials. And, if you are a reporter, take a solemn vow to not believe everything you hear, and barely half of what you see.
**
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher magazine and has written eight previous books.

Comments

[SubparDude]

:

The newest danger is the "Let's not quibble about the past. . ." argument. Through it, the same experts posit new mistakes to make "going forward," which we are to accept without consideration of their prior 100% WRONG record.

Thanks for exposing in detail their past history of foolishness. IT IS the true measure of their present-day assertions. Those eho do not learn from the past are, after all, doomed to repeat it.

:

[realpolitic]

Yes, before it was "let's not play the blame game." Now it's "let's not quibble about the past." The whole Bush presidency is a charade. It is a very modern mentality where no one takes blame. "Mistakes were made."

[Kenny2k]

Yes, we can blame the Bush Administation, the news media, and anybody else that comes to mind. but we realy need to blame ourselves for allowing this to happen. Worse than that, we sit and let them get away with it. Bush and Co. will ride off into the sunset, wealthy and happy with all the profit they made from this war and leave us citizens with a huge bill, dead or legless children and the hatred of other countries around the world. Why we are not in the streets protesting is beyond me. We certainly have the government and media we deserve.
So America. If you think our children are worth dying for Bush and his neo-con friends, then so be it. But, lets see if we really have the balls to, not impeach, but bring war crimes charges against
these war mongers. Our children and the world deserves that at the very least.

[realpolitic]

Fox News is one of our biggest threats to democracy! No kidding. Their mindless sycophancy and attacking all critics of the administration must end. Their ratings are only explained by the little interest Americans have in a complex world. They dumb down every subject to good vs. evil, as Bush does.

[Durango]

The other outlets CNN and MSNBC (with certain exceptions) are only marginally better than Fox. And the Corporate print media, NYT, Wash Post, Time, NewsWeek are not much further behind.

The problem is, not only that the Media take their marching orders from Corporate headquarters, but the reporters identify themselves with the power structure. They are fonder of their high wages and access to power than they are to the truth.

They are more than happy to go along to get along and the catastrofuck of modern America is the result.

As to FOX. It is interesting because unlike the rest of the Corporate media who parrot the party line FOX is an actual part of the Republican Party. That is odd. Most other media outlets don't have partisan political ideology. They go with whomever gives their Corporate Masters the best deal. But FOX is a wholly owneed subsidiary of the Republican Party. Odd that.

[realpolitic]

Yes, Fox is there to shill for Republicans. What is ironic is that they do not admit it openly. It is like having a pet elephant and pretending never to notice it is sitting on your sofa.

Reporters were better in the old days when they were not so well paid and many did not have even a higher education. Because most are from very middle class backgrounds, they do not seem in the habit of questioning authority. (My take!) They take for granted whatever the White House or Pentagon tells them as true and transcribe it for their stories. All the evidence of Bush's phony case for war was there if reporters would have just contacted sources at lower levels in the intelligence services and the White House. Reporters have forgotten how to do this legwork.

[angeranddespair]

The Fourth Estate has the blood of all our Murdered and Maimed soldiers on their hands, as well as all the blood of all the murdered and maimed uncounted Iraqis ...because they don't count. (by the way that blood ain't ever washing off.) The Media, main stream and otherwise stood lock step with this Lying administration repeated the lies, upon lies upon lies, until they became the truth, repeated and sanctioned at every turn by the media. Tell us again why did we invade a country that never attacked us? None of the 9/11 criminals were from Iraq. Hers is another question for the media to ask; Why are we not in prison as accomplices? If someone lies (lets say President Bush) to get permission to commit a crime are not all the auxiliary events that happen under the commission of that crime also criminal? The murder and theft of an innocent countries people - men, women, children, and theft of their culture, arts, natural resources and livelihood. Hey you all in the Media take a hard look at the Invasion and Occupation you allowed and fostered to happen. Don't forget your glorious march up the middle of Iraq bombing her to smithereens while you were embedded(in bed with) the most corrupt lying administration ever.

[hchriste]

That was then, now it is the same. We cannot afford college education for our childern, can't afford health care, the economy is in the dumps, bridges are falling down, roads are falling apart, but we are spending 4 billion dollars a week in Iraq. We have lost about 4,000 young people and had 30,000 wounded and rebuilding Iraq and paying for the Iraq army and police.The Government of Iraq has a very large oil revenue surplus they are not using to fund the war or rebuild their country and this is only a token of the oil revenues. Where are the rest of the revenues going, who should be in jail for graft and why are we allowing 35% of the money we spend in Iraq to support the insurgents and the terriorist. It appears that either the government is totally inept or they are paying for both sides to continue the war in order to invade Iran. The news media needs to dig and some people need to go to prison and we need to spend our money on our people not Exon or Haliburton. The news media spends a great deal of time covering a governor's hooker and not what is important. My two cents worth.

[jbatch]

Great post, and I look forward to your book. One quibble -- this post makes it seem as if only a few brave reporters got the pre-invasion story right -- remember, more than 100 million people marched in the fall of 2002. I can't speak for all of them, of course, but I beleive most of us were there because we knew the president was lying.

My point is that is was easily knowable that Bush was lying -- the Guardian, the New Yorker, the Knight Ridder papers, the Post's Walter Pincus, the CBC, the NIE released by Bob Graham's insistence, and finally, an open letter to Bush by retired intelligence officers all made it obvious.

If papers and broadcasters failed to report the truth about Iraq, it was not because they were fooled, it was because they were cowards.

[realpolitic]

Unfortunately, far more people marched in Europe than America.

[Durango]

You left out Scott Ritter, who knew and would tell anyone who listened, the truth about Iraq.

He is the only "hero" in this whole sad enterprise. He did everything in his power to prevent this catastrofuck and failed. But because the Corporate Media failed to listen to this individual, who knew better than almost anyone, the true situation regarding Wmd's.

[realpolitic]

Bob Woodward's coverage of the war in his books were certainly not hard-hitting journalism, either. He made Bush out a decisive hero in his first book and by the third Bush lived in a state of denial. Why could not Woodward see the disorganization and ideology that characterizes the Bush administration? Reporters too easily trade favorable coverage for acces. I now consider Woodward, and others, little more than sycophants. Judith Miller, on the other hand, was an outright liar and propagandist. Some reporters at McClatchy newspapers were among the few actually doing their jobs of reporting facts outside those spoonfed them by the administration.

[ljsfolly]

at first we had all of the embeded MSM and it was like watchin some weird war game on film. Then the real dying started and the reporters got scared. The terrorists came after them. But it was less terrorists than people pissed at being ivaded and the Saddam army being disbanded. real smart move as it brought all of those trained to kill out of money/.work/.respect and bored army guys pissed off about being invaded was just the start. The reporters that stayed ot hurt and some killed but it was never really being told the truth about anything and knowin the war was not good because too many people inother countries said a whole different story than bushes crowd. I have only seen one reporter who actually said the truth and was honest about many things including the reason for war and he's not american, Michael Ware on CNN. He went away for a long time and never heard why. I saw him One time last week but not since. The MSM decided that even with over 4000 of our own dead and many thousands more wounded not even counting the thousands of Iraqis also dead and wounded, well we really didn't need to see or read too much about the war. We had important shit like whos bump is gas or is she pregnant, Britney and now the elction nightmare. If the MSM had done it's job maybe Barack would be the nominee and Hillary back to work at the Senate or in a mental hospital.

[glesslib]

Media coverage of this debacle has been a joke. I sat through the news during the Vietnam War, saw caskets, mained soldiers and civilians, and politicians being called out for their lies. This war....nada.

So many reasons, including the false patriotism that overwhelms this country.....corporate media that's afraid of the government, lazy journalists, and most obviously a concerted effort by this administration to sanitize this war for public consumption so that is can continue indefinitely....all have paralyzed media and politicians who know better.

Hope they do better on Iran, McCain's plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years, and whatever new disaster Bush & Co. has in store for us before the end of his term.

[realpolitic]

Now the administration will not even permit the taking pictures of the caskets that return from Iraq. It is all a brilliantly orchestrated coverup.

[grn1]

The other reason the press gets it wrong is their involvement in transitioning the middle-east. Look into who the press really are and you'll find the lie is deliberate.

[grn1]

The other reason the press gets it wrong is their involvement in transitioning the middle-east. Look into who the press are and you will find the lie is deliberate.

[LiberalMathProfessor]

Liberal media are honest media. Liberal media offer arguments and evidence in addition to philosophy/rhetoric. Contrary to the non-liberal media lie, that liberals are bleeding heart emotionalists, it is the liberal who commands logic, reason and access to evidence. Contrary to the non-liberal media lie, that liberals hate the USA, we love the Constitution and oppose the non-liberal traitors who despise our holy document. The non-liberal media have only lying, distorting, and alarming as their Chicken Little, irrational methods aimed at hot emotional bases in the American heart (such as sexism, racism, or "patriotism," whatever the latter is supposed to mean). Eric Alterman and the entire group of The Nation writers make for a liberal medium. Such a medium has to beg for dollars in order to continue, literally worry about the price of postage. Big-time non-liberal media are in it for the ad revenues, nothing more. So, read The Nation for a chance at the truth,or read the WSJ or NYT and get lied to. How is it that The Nation has published critical analyses and sought the truth all throughout the BushCheney, Inc. years, while WSJ and NYT have been trash bins? The few, the brave, the journalists are still among us, but not at WSJ or NYT (or pick your favorite newspaper, TV or radio show.) With bigotry aimed at maintaining White Men at the helm, the non-liberal right-wing traitors-to-the-Constitution media had better lie and lie all the time, so that the poor victim populace stays stupid and compliant. So, seek liberal media or be content with hatefulness, stupidity, gullibility, and self-destructive compliance with those who seek to use you up for their own ends, not yours, not ever. (It doesn't help that we Americans are poorly educated--yes, face it, we are poorly educated and overly entertained, though not well entertained. So we are ultra-vulnerable to the lying non-liberal media who seek your compliance, your money, your life, in service of their own ends. Thus, we are not able to detect fraud no matter how smelly and obvious the fraud, such as the Iraq war fraud. You follow?)

[Baronet]

You forgot one key fact: the liberal media are a myth. Concentration of ownership has ensured that no matter how liberal individual reporters and editors may be, the ultimate message is controlled by a few corporate giants, and they are best served by an ignorant, servile populace. Thus, Elliot Spitzer's zipper problem is given a hundred times the coverage of the latest deaths in Iraq. And candid photos of some starlet's "baby bump" trump a flag-draped casket every time.

[Durango]

The Liberal Media is Mother Jones and Amy Goodman and Pacifica.

There may be a few magazines out there as well. But I am afraid the New Yorker isn't one of them.

[Puller58]

One reason the press gets it wrong is that they don't have the nerve to challenge anyone who supports the war. On the News Hour on PBS, Jim Lehrer had Frederick Kagan and a journalist who has spent time in Iraq actually talking to Iraqis. Kagan is a professor who helped concoct the "surge". He was repeatedly referring to the journalist's examples as "myths". Now Kagan is considered one of the chief neocons and therefore should be asked forceful questions. Lehrer was as tame as a kitten. Kagan was allowed to pontificate without fear of being challenged or contradicted. The journalist was from the middle east although I don't remember where. His points were hard to ignore, but Kagan took the attitude that anything he said was either a myth or unimportant. The MSM is terrified of being considered disloyal, anti-semetic, or biased. Of course bloggers and zines can write anything they want. The question is who wants what and are they willing to have an open mind?

[OzDanJoaquin]

The journalist's name was Nir Rosen. He's based in the US and writes for Rolling Stone, among many other outlets. Jim Lehrer, IMO, was appropriately neutral and asked similar or identical questions of both Kagan & Rosen. Rosen was fantastic and he very politely dismantled every argument Kagan put forward about the alleged "success" of the surge. Kagan was made to look precisely like the blindly ideological administration shill that he is. He was completely unable to counter Rosen's enormous on-the-ground experience & knowledge of Iraq, the Iraqi people & most notably, the strategic claims of the Iraqi insurgency, both Shiite & Sunni. The fact that Kagan had only been to Iraq briefly in the company of the DoD, and, unlike Rosen, didn't speak Arabic, completely undermined his blustering, triumphalist rhetoric. He clearly had no understanding of the people or situation in Iraq, beyond his self-serving sycophancy. I thought Jim Lehrer's neutrality enhanced, rather than undermined, the obvious fact that Kagan was and is an idiot.

[NotMyPrez]

Line up al the War hawks on a troop trans port, give em piss poor body armor, a wide stance and shove em out the gangway door over Iraq. If they come back alive, then we'll talk.

[newpantaloons]

I'm sorry, but, even though true that main stream reporters did not report the real facts in the news as in past generations, I believe it is the corporate ownership of news media, put forth by the Reagan administration, the first Bush Administration, the Clinton administration (yes, true), and the current Bush Administration, that has castrated and is still castrating, the main stream news in this country. Every newspaper and every TV news program has an editor that sits at the helm of every broadcast or news article. That editor decides what is printed or broadcast. Why do you think the talking points put out by the Bush cabal were instantly repeated endlessly by the print and talking news? By talking news, I am also including 'talk radio', their favorite weapon in the killing of reporting facts and truth to the citizens. This corporate ownership of the news media must end if we are ever to have a real national debate in this country ever again.