Iraq

Right Wing Radio Host Axed for Criticizing Bush on Iraq

by Sheldon Rampton — February 1, 2004 - 11:00pm

Leftists aren't the only dissenters from the war in Iraq to feel the consequences of the Clear Channel's pro-war tilt. Radio talk show host Charles Goyette, a Goldwater Reaganite, has been bumped from his slot and expects to lose his job because he criticized the Bush administration's shape-shifting case for war. "Management didn't like my being out of step with the president's parade of national hysteria, and the war-fevered spectators didn't care to be told they were suffering illusions," he writes.

Main Source:

American Conservative Magazine, February 2, 2004

Hutton Inquiry: A Bright Future for War Propaganda

by John Stauber — January 27, 2004 - 11:00pm

Greg Palast writes that "the future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed. ... So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC. Should the reporter Gilligan have used more cautious terms? Some criticism is fair. But the extraordinary import of his and Watts' story is forgotten: our two governments bent the information then hunted down the questioners. And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds: the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Main Source:

GregPalast.com, January 28, 2004

Mass Deception on Iraq Weapons Continues

by Diane Farsetta — January 27, 2004 - 11:00pm

For the first time yesterday, George Bush publicly "appeared to back away from his once-emphatic claim that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq." In response to questions about former chief Iraq weapons inspector David Kay's assertions that Iraq destroyed its WMDs years before the U.S.

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Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Bush Targetted Saddam Pre-9/11

by Laura Miller — January 10, 2004 - 11:00pm

Almost as soon as George W. Bush took office in January 2001, he and his top advisors were plotting a regime change in Iraq, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS' "60 Minutes." At Bush's first National Security Council meeting 10 days after the inauguration, O'Neill said going after Saddam Hussein was topic "A."
"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it.

Main Source:

CBS "60 Minutes," January 11, 2004

Al Iraqiya Fails To Be 'Independent' News Source

by Laura Miller — January 5, 2004 - 11:00pm

Iraq
Media

The U.S. funded Iraqi Media Network was supposed to bring "independent" journalism to a "liberated" Iraq. The reality, however, is that IMN's Al Iraqiya radio and television station are failing, according to CorpWatch's Pratap Chatterjee. The stations, run by top CIA contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), seem almost irrelevant given the more popular satellite news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya and the common criticism that "Al Iraqiya has no news.

Main Source:

CorpWatch, January 6, 2004

2003 Spin of the Year: WMDs

by John Stauber — December 30, 2003 - 11:00pm

The Guerrilla New Network has "picked the administration's packaging and sale of the case for war based on Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as our Spin of the Year. The case has turned out to be so flimsy that the administration has been forced to backtrack and deflect questions about the still missing weapons. Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair this summer that it was a 'bureaucratic' decision to focus on the WMD, and even Rumsfeld has repeatedly contradicted specific claims he made to reporters in the run-up to the invasion."

Main Source:

Guerrilla News Network, December 31, 2003

Their Photos Tell the Story

by Sheldon Rampton — December 29, 2003 - 11:00pm

Iraq

As the U.S. casualty rate accelerates in Iraq, the Army Times, a civilian newspaper that is sold mainly on military bases, has used eight pages of its year-end review to run photos of almost all of the more than 500 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Newsday, December 30, 2003

White House Web Scrubbing

by Sheldon Rampton — December 17, 2003 - 11:00pm

"It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history," writes Dana Milbank. "White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S.

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Washington Post, December 18, 2003

No WMDs? No Big Deal, Says Bush

by John Stauber — December 17, 2003 - 11:00pm

"The man leading the US hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction [David Kay] will leave his post prematurely in the next few months amid dwindling expectations that there is anything to be found. ... 'This is a big blow to the administration and it will signal the effective end of the search for weapons of mass destruction,' said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment Institute for Peace in Washington. 'Some will continue looking but very, very few expect there to be any significant finds at this point.' ...

Main Source:

The Guardian, December 18, 2003

Dissent in the Bunker

by Sheldon Rampton — December 14, 2003 - 11:00pm

Newt Gingrich, who has been advising the Bush Administration as a member of the Defense Policy Board, has gone public with his worries about the shortcomings of administration policy in Iraq, arguing that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element. "The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow," he said.

Main Source:

Newsweek, December 15, 2003