peaccenicked
8th November 2002, 15:00
BURYING UNCOMFORTABLE NEWS ON IRAQ
by Michael Griffin
Media Studies
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
POSTED OCTOBER 31, 2002 --
In early September, British newspapers, including the Sunday Herald of Glasgow, printed information from reports by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which oversees American exports policy, and from U.S. Department of Defense documents that confirmed U.S. and British sales of chemical and biological weapons agents to Iraq during the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. These U.S. Government records reveal that the U.S. sold materials, including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs, and botulism (among other biological agents) right up until March of 1992, after the end of the Gulf War.
According to the Sunday Herald, the Senate committee report states, "The United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." And this assistance, according to the report, included "chemical warfare-agent precursors, chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment."
Many of those who have seen these Senate committee reports believe that the information contained in them makes up much of the "compelling evidence" that the current Bush administration claims to have that Iraq is in possession of dangerous weapons of mass destruction. It also may explain why the Bush and Blair administrations claim to have such evidence but refuse to reveal the evidence to the American or British publics. Neither leader wants this embarrassing information to become widely known. Neither wants to admit that it was the Western powers, and especially the U.S., that armed Saddam with these weapons of mass destruction; and that is why he has them.
According to the Sunday Herald, Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that made the report, said, "UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs." He added, "the executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual -use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record."
Four weeks after this information (and more) was revealed in the British press, the Sunday, October 6, Minneapolis' Star Tribune carried five stories in the "A" news section on Iraq and U.S. moves toward war. On page A3 (with a prompt from the front page) two articles appear: "Bush steps up condemnation of Saddam," and "Saddam palaces cloaked in conflicting reports." These articles suggest that Saddam is hiding evidence of weapons in his eight palace compounds and that President Bush has stated U.S. resolve to overthrow "the cold-blooded killer" Saddam and then rebuild Iraq and its government.
Page A5 reports on the Bush-Gephardt deal to gain Democratic congressional support for U.S. military action. And a report by Star Tribune Washington Bureau Chief David Westphal on page A8 summarizes the arguments being made by such analysts as Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, that invading and overthrowing the Iraqi government could be the first step in making the entire Middle East region more reliable and positively inclined toward the West.
Finally, on page A28, stripped along the edge of a page mostly filled with advertisements (I missed it entirely my first time through the paper), was an Associated Press report entitled, "Iraq got early U.S. help on bioweapons program." This article reports information from the same 1994 Senate Banking Committee report, as well as a follow-up letter from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, verifying the U.S. transfer to Iraq of germs and bioagents such as anthrax, botulism toxin, gas gangrene, and other pathogens, including West Nile virus. The article notes that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.VA. has been questioning the administration on these issues. "The disclosures put the United States in the uncomfortable position of possibly having provided the key ingredients of the weapons America is considering waging war to destroy, said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.VA. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record last month."
The article further reports that Byrd questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the germ transfers and at a recent committee hearing and asked, "Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?" Rumsfeld was evasive in his answer.
How are we to explain the fact that U.S. involvement in transferring to Iraq the same weapons we accuse them of criminally possessing is not a story worthy of high visibility in the Star Tribune and other news media outlets? It would seem that such a story is not only worthy of front page treatment, if not front page headlines, but that U.S. involvement in helping to provide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction should be a central issue in the debate over going to war. It is understandable that the President would not want this to be part of the debate. But how do we explain the fact that mainstream news media do not seem to want it to be part of the debate, and are, in fact, effectively burying the story?
Previous controversies pertaining to story placement (often the subject of Reader Representative Lou Gelfand's columns) would seem to pale by comparison. It is the responsibility of journalists to raise questions for public debate, especially when it concerns issues of life, death, and destruction. Ignoring this story for weeks, and then inconspicuously inserting it on page A28 certainly doesn't fulfill this responsibility.
Michael Griffin teaches Media Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is the author of several studies on international news flows and representations of war. He also is on the board of Cursor, Inc.,
by Michael Griffin
Media Studies
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
POSTED OCTOBER 31, 2002 --
In early September, British newspapers, including the Sunday Herald of Glasgow, printed information from reports by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which oversees American exports policy, and from U.S. Department of Defense documents that confirmed U.S. and British sales of chemical and biological weapons agents to Iraq during the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. These U.S. Government records reveal that the U.S. sold materials, including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs, and botulism (among other biological agents) right up until March of 1992, after the end of the Gulf War.
According to the Sunday Herald, the Senate committee report states, "The United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." And this assistance, according to the report, included "chemical warfare-agent precursors, chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment."
Many of those who have seen these Senate committee reports believe that the information contained in them makes up much of the "compelling evidence" that the current Bush administration claims to have that Iraq is in possession of dangerous weapons of mass destruction. It also may explain why the Bush and Blair administrations claim to have such evidence but refuse to reveal the evidence to the American or British publics. Neither leader wants this embarrassing information to become widely known. Neither wants to admit that it was the Western powers, and especially the U.S., that armed Saddam with these weapons of mass destruction; and that is why he has them.
According to the Sunday Herald, Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that made the report, said, "UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs." He added, "the executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual -use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record."
Four weeks after this information (and more) was revealed in the British press, the Sunday, October 6, Minneapolis' Star Tribune carried five stories in the "A" news section on Iraq and U.S. moves toward war. On page A3 (with a prompt from the front page) two articles appear: "Bush steps up condemnation of Saddam," and "Saddam palaces cloaked in conflicting reports." These articles suggest that Saddam is hiding evidence of weapons in his eight palace compounds and that President Bush has stated U.S. resolve to overthrow "the cold-blooded killer" Saddam and then rebuild Iraq and its government.
Page A5 reports on the Bush-Gephardt deal to gain Democratic congressional support for U.S. military action. And a report by Star Tribune Washington Bureau Chief David Westphal on page A8 summarizes the arguments being made by such analysts as Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, that invading and overthrowing the Iraqi government could be the first step in making the entire Middle East region more reliable and positively inclined toward the West.
Finally, on page A28, stripped along the edge of a page mostly filled with advertisements (I missed it entirely my first time through the paper), was an Associated Press report entitled, "Iraq got early U.S. help on bioweapons program." This article reports information from the same 1994 Senate Banking Committee report, as well as a follow-up letter from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, verifying the U.S. transfer to Iraq of germs and bioagents such as anthrax, botulism toxin, gas gangrene, and other pathogens, including West Nile virus. The article notes that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.VA. has been questioning the administration on these issues. "The disclosures put the United States in the uncomfortable position of possibly having provided the key ingredients of the weapons America is considering waging war to destroy, said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.VA. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record last month."
The article further reports that Byrd questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the germ transfers and at a recent committee hearing and asked, "Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?" Rumsfeld was evasive in his answer.
How are we to explain the fact that U.S. involvement in transferring to Iraq the same weapons we accuse them of criminally possessing is not a story worthy of high visibility in the Star Tribune and other news media outlets? It would seem that such a story is not only worthy of front page treatment, if not front page headlines, but that U.S. involvement in helping to provide Iraq's weapons of mass destruction should be a central issue in the debate over going to war. It is understandable that the President would not want this to be part of the debate. But how do we explain the fact that mainstream news media do not seem to want it to be part of the debate, and are, in fact, effectively burying the story?
Previous controversies pertaining to story placement (often the subject of Reader Representative Lou Gelfand's columns) would seem to pale by comparison. It is the responsibility of journalists to raise questions for public debate, especially when it concerns issues of life, death, and destruction. Ignoring this story for weeks, and then inconspicuously inserting it on page A28 certainly doesn't fulfill this responsibility.
Michael Griffin teaches Media Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is the author of several studies on international news flows and representations of war. He also is on the board of Cursor, Inc.,