Where was the reality? Manipulation and misinformation in Iraq

Will the war reduce the prospects of anti-western terrorism? The answer to this will partly be found in how Muslim and Arab people have been informed by their media about the war. Has their media painted a different picture to ours? For terrorism awareness reasons, if no other, it is essential that we know.

According to Middle East observers, Al Jazeera has became the most respected news station in the Arab world, frequently presenting views which offend Arab governments. In the first weeks of the invasion, Al-Jazeera was criticised by US representatives for being biased because it allegedly showed too much of the captives, the killed and injured. But was this bias? Or were the Australian and US media biased in showing so many rockets and bombs lighting the sky, tanks in action and jets screaming off the decks of aircraft carriers?

The US administration's efforts to prevent the airing of film footage of US POWs should have been seen for what it was -- not a concern over the Geneva convention (The US administration showed no concern when Iraqi captives were shown shackled on TV) but an attempt to stop the US media showing images which might have had the effect of making the US population less keen on the war.

Al-Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub paid the ultimate price for his organisation offending the US. He was killed, and a cameraman injured, when two US missiles hit the Al Jazeera office, virtually destroying it on April 8. The BBC reported US military officials saying that the building was struck by mistake. But in November 2001 in Kabul, Afghanistan, American warplanes also mistakenly bombed the Al- Jazeera offices during the US-led campaign to oust the Taliban.

Not only has Al Jazeera offended the US administration but Saddam Hussein's regime also saw fit to expel its correspondents. Nevertheless, writing in defence of the US military's attack on Al Jazeera's Baghdad office Paddy McGuinness commented that if the attack was deliberate it was relevant whether Al Jazeera "could be considered an enemy propagandist, and therefore undeserving of non combat status".

McGuinness also thought the attack on the well known journalists refuge, the Palestine Hotel, could be justified because a cameraman went against US military instructions and filmed from a balcony. McGuinness thought the shoulder held camera could look "very like an anti tank grenade launcher" In saying this McGuinness made up a new excuse for the tank crew who say themselves that they were responding to gunfire from the building. This claim was refuted by journalist on the spot who said they heard no such gunfire.

In one broadcast an embedded journalist stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and unself-consciously remarked "And may we wish them all a safe return." No thought here of Iraqi safety from the bombs and rockets of the attacking warplane. Where was the editorial intervention to eliminate bias here?

For every rocket fired there was an end result. A "full" report would include the destruction, the killing and the injured. But it is impossible to capture all end results. Nevertheless, Australian televisions showed a strong bias towards footage of the war games, as opposed to footage of the casualties. More than 5,000 people have died in this war; many thousands have been injured; families have been ruined; irreplaceable artifacts have been stolen; infrastructure - hospitals, schools and bridges - damaged or destroyed; businesses and homes left in ruins. Some 14 journalists - both from the east and west -died reporting the war. But no weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered. And yet overall the war was reported as if it were a success.

In the lead-up to the military campaign and during the campaign itself the predominant topic in current affairs programs was military tactics. The ABC 7.30 Report had daily discussion with three experts who provided little or no valuable insights. These analysts speculated in program after program about the number of days it required to take Baghdad, or that the Iraqis would use chemical weapons once the US troops crossed some imaginary line around the city. So too did the SBS military expert.

But the Iraqi forces did not use chemical weapons. The speculation promulgated by the commentators can now be seen clearly for what it was - the trotting out of US propaganda, dressed up as independent analysis. (One might speculate that when threatened with the destruction of his regime, and the near certain death of his family, Saddam Hussein would have been prepared to use these weapons if he had had them.) So much for the military analysts critical "analysis"!

Other US feeds led to speculation that Saddam Hussein had been killed on the first day of the war, providing us with a host of discussion on whether videos of Saddam Hussein depicted the real Hussein, or a stand-in. There were also mythical US fed stories that an entire Iraqi division of 8,000 soldiers had surrendered during the first few days of the war, and a series of premature claims that Basra or Umm Qasr or other towns had been taken. Journalists of course have to report such claims but they should have been reported clearly as "claims".

No-one (except perhaps the Iraqi Information Minister) doubted that there would be a US military victory. But valuable time was wasted discussing this prospect, time which could have been better used discussing the important issues:- how long will the occupation last? What cost, both in terms of lives and resources? Can the various tribal groups achieve a workable democracy? What of Turkey's reaction?