With Eye on E2k4 White House Manipulates Iraq News, Images

With Eye on E2k4 White House Manipulates Iraq News, Images

American leaders have a long history of influencing the images of war as propaganda to push war fever upon the masses-and the people of the United States have a history of rejecting war, or being less inclined to wage it, because of those same war images. The battle over images, pictures or words has long been an important part of the war on the battlefields, as the two are fought simultaneously. Since antiquity, every war in every country has had two fronts, of pens and spears. Images of war have been smothered in some cases by past administrations, and promoted by others. Bush is using both strategies: smothering and promotion, depending on the political wind. While the death of four civilians in Fallujah received almost no comment, President Bush was front and center in offering the Berg family his condolences.

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• iraq • scandal • whitehouse
• Blunt, Roy • Bush, George W. • Campbell, Ben Nighthorse • DeGette, Diana • DeLay, Tom • Gore, Al • Harman, Jane • Kerry, John • McClellan, Scott • Rumsfeld, Donald • Schumer, Charles • Udall, Mark
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A History of Manipulation
WWII publications claimed that military news was being "dry-cleaned" by the government, which had yet to release a single picture of an American military death. President Roosevelt feared such images would erode support for the war. This was the same policy in place during World War I during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, which also censored all such images throughout the war. In 1942 there were rumors that a nervous administration was planting informants in newsrooms and tapping reporter's telephones. War photographers often had to send their unexposed rolls of film to the Pentagon for processing. Towards the end of WWII the White House reversed its policy and encouraged the publication of American military dead to spur more war fever, self sacrifice at home and decrease absenteeism in factories.

 

Images From Vietnam, Somalia Harder to Suppress
During the Vietnam War, television for the first time played a significant role in turning Americans against a conflict, as they could then see it diurnally and often more graphically inside their homes. Opinion was swayed again with the image of Lt. William Calley as he was court-martialed for massacring 504 civilians on March 16, 1968 in the hamlet of My Lai. The new Clinton administration in 1993 virtually abandoned its Somalian peacekeeping initiatives soon after a filmed Mogadishu mob killed US soldiers and hauled the corpses through the streets, unnerving and dismaying the American public. President George Bush is continuing the long American tradition of militantly corrupting the images of this latest military conflict. Bush's concern is not just the American people's desire to engage in warfare, but his reelection too. The Iraqi occupation could easily be the deciding issue facing voters in November, with Bush's approval ratings dropping largely because of the guerilla war. Indeed, a recent poll by John Zogby predicted a 102-point Kerry electoral victory if the election was held the day the poll was taken. The Bush family dynasty is on the line in the Iraqi desert.

Two Iraq Tragedies, Two Different Bush Reactions
And with the race for the presidency now at a full gallop, Bush is determined to set the Iraqi war images to his advantage. Bush had two very different public reactions to two recent Iraqi abominations. The incidents demonstrate how the president uses the image of a tragedy to his advantage. One was the film of the beheading of American civilian Nicholas Berg; and the other was the four American civilians who worked for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C. and were ambushed and killed west of Baghdad in Fallujah. A cheering mob torched the contractors' vehicles, dragged their charred corpses through the streets and then strung two of them from an iron bridge over the Euphrates River.

 

Bush Plays Down Fallujah Deaths
On April 1 the Washington Post reported the president did not speak directly of the Fallujah killings, which occurred the day before and dominated that day's television news, despite his address before a fundraiser during the evening of the tragedy. Bush instead let his officials condemn the mutilations as "horrific," with his press secretary Scott McClellan saying, "The best way to honor those who have lost their lives is to continue to show resolve in the face of these cowardly, hateful acts." During the next few weeks Bush would say very little about the Fallujah atrocity. Political analysts said the new images of charred bodies being beaten, dragged by a donkey cart and hung from a bridge could increase public wariness about U.S. involvement in Iraq. "The (American) public has stood by their decisions on Iraq, more or less, although there has been some decline in support in the face of unexpected casualties," reportedly said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "The question is whether the power of these pictures and the view that we're so hated over there will change public opinion." In other words, Bush knew the burning of the bodies of four U.S. government contractors would anger America and lessen support for the war and his candidacy. So his response was as limited as possible with the hope the news would pass by, quickly forgotten.

 

Fox News Cooperates
Bush got help from the hawkish and pro-Republican Fox News Channel. Although other networks aired wide-angle shots of the attack, and pictures of crowds cheering and vehicles burning, Fox decided to not to show pictures of the bodies being dragged or burning or hung from a bridge tower. "We thought it might be too graphic," reportedly said Bill Shine, vice president of production at Fox News. "We're on all day, and at any moment, we know kids can be watching." Another consideration, he said, was that Fox was not sure the victims' relatives had been notified before the images were broadcast. The Berg Incident Played Up
But then came the horror of Nicholas Berg's assassination-except this time Bush played up the tragedy for the home town crowd during his weekly radio address a full week after Berg's headless body was found May 8. "We must confront the enemy and stay on the offensive until these killers are defeated," he said. A few days earlier Bush also reportedly said, "I want to express my condolences to the family and friends of Nicholas Berg. Nicholas Berg was an innocent civilian who was in Iraq to help build a free Iraq," Bush said. "There is no justification for the brutal execution of Nicholas Berg -- no justification whatsoever." "The actions of the terrorists who executed this man remind us of the nature of the few people who want to stop the advance of freedom in Iraq," said Bush. Bush did not personally express his condolences to the families of the four killed in Fallujah, or attend ANY soldier's funeral since the start of the war. Actually, we know why there is such a striking difference between Bush's two public responses for the two acts of enormity. It is all about image. It is all about winning the presidency.

 

Diversion from Abu Ghraib
Bush talked at length about Nicholas Berg because he was trying to do everything he could do to divert the American people's attention away from the media aftermath of the G.I. Monsters Ball at the Abu Ghraib prison that was occurring simultaneously. He needed to magnify Berg's tragedy to stop the prison scandal from becoming the Daisy Cutter of Bush's legacy, as credible allegations surfaced that the guards were using criminal means to extract information on orders from the Pentagon or White House. Reaction from Congress Keeps Abu Ghraib in the News
After viewing photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib that included forced sex, brutality, sodomy with foreign objects (yet to be shown publicly), Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) reportedly said, "I saw cruel, sadistic torture." Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican who served as a military policeman with the Air Force during the Korean War, called the guards "degenerates." The photographs have added to a highly charged atmosphere on Capitol Hill where many Democrats - including Al Gore and Colorado Reps. Diana DeGette and Mark Udall, called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign or be fired over the scandal. John Kerry said Rumsfeld should resign months before the prison scandal became well known. Not everyone reacted the same way to the additional photos of humiliation and abuse of Iraqi prisoners. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), said he thought "some people are overreacting. The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends."

Berg Incident Provides Jolt, GOP Notices
Berg's media attention helped the White House with damage control from the prison abuse scandal. The beheading restored the link in the public's mind between al-Qaeda and Iraq that was part of the justification for the war in the first place, even though that link is more thematic than concrete. (Michael Higgins, an Irish Labour Member of Parliament representing Galway West, says "al-Qaeda tried to kill (the publicly secular) Saddam Hussein three times." Republican Congressman Roy Blunt reportedly said regarding Berg, "it jolted everybody's memory about why we were there in Iraq and who we're dealing with." Republicans all over the country played up the Berg killing to the president's advantage. Newt Gingrich, the erstwhile Republican Speaker of the House, on ABC television went out of his way to juxtapose the degree of immoral difference between Berg and the prisoner abuse scandal. He did it for Bush's advantage. Democrats Climb on the Berg Bandwagon
And the Berg beheading did have an effect on the American people's reaction to the prisoner abuse scandal, as Democrats soon began singing the same tune as the Republicans. "If they think this (Berg) is going to make us cut and run," said Charles Schumer, the liberal New York senator, "they are dead wrong." John Kerry described Berg's killers as "people who have no values system", and softened his condemnation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Campaigning in Florida, he repudiated a description of the prisons as "torture chambers" by his close adviser, Ted Kennedy.

 

Arab Groups Recognize PR Issues in Berg Incident
Some groups opposed to America in the Middle East knew Berg's murder would have negative propaganda implications for the Arab world. One of the few Arab groups to offer immediate condemnation of Berg's murder was the Lebanese-based Hezbollah, a guerilla group to Arabs and a terrorist group to the West. It reportedly condemned "this horrible act that has done very great harm to Islam and Muslims," but also was upset at the public relations implications. "The timing of this act that overshadowed the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in occupation forces prisons is suspect timing that aims to serve the American administration and occupation forces in Iraq," the statement said. "(It) presents excuses and pretexts for their inhumane practices against Iraqi detainees." Berg Used for Al-Qaida PR, Too
But the al-Qaida elements that apparently murdered Berg may have targeted their actions and video, not at the United States, but at potential recruits in Muslim countries, increasing the anguish over American policy and further embroiling Iraq in chaos. "I think that video, like others before it, was aimed at a Muslim rather than an American audience," reportedly said Jim Phillips, an expert in terrorism and the Middle East at the Heritage Foundation. "They want to trumpet their strength to Muslims, especially their core audience of 15-to-25-year-old male Muslims. They want to show them they are doing something to resist the Americans or to punish the Americans, also to avenge the humiliations Iraqis have suffered under Americans. It's kind of a recruiting video."

Turnover of Power Offers Bush an Out
Bush knows he needs to control the perception of Iraq in order to be successful in November, but in the short term the Bush Administration appears to have lost control of images and reactions to Iraq. While a series of speeches planned to address Iraq issues, Bush will hand hold American voters through the turnover of power on June 30. It's not a real turnover, but the plan is already working to Bush's advantage. News reports almost always include the credo that "the U.S. and the U.N" are working towards the June 30th date. Surely Bush is looking forward to having another entity to hold responsible for any bad press on Iraq: the U.N. and Iraq's fledgling government.



[John Pike is a veteran journalist based in Boston. He has been a guest commentator on many radio stations and his articles have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and web sites, including the Boston Globe, Reason Magazine, Insight Magazine, Access Magazine and the Associated Press. He is hoping this article gives him the best image as possible. He can be reached at pike@evote.com.]