HOW THE MEDIA LET HUMANITY DOWN
THE GENERAL KAMEL EPISODE AND OTHER DECEPTIONS THE PRESS IGNORED BEFORE THE WAR

The Great WMD Hunt
The media knew they were there--but where are they?
FAIR, July/August 2003

"One of the major weaknesses of journalism today is how easily some are seduced by power. The premier role of the journalist should be as a check on power, however, many seem to turn this dictum on its head and get greater job satisfaction as parrots of the official truth. Nowhere is this tendency more prevalent than amongst Parliamentary lobby correspondents in Westminster. It has been the supine nature of many of these individuals that has allowed the likes of Alastair Campbell and co to become so powerful in spinning their version of events to the wider world.... Hoggart and other comfortable journalists have some soul searching to do and repositioning regarding their relationships to the powerful. It is sad that people had to wait for Meacher to put together the strands of 9/11..."
Why isn't the truth out there?
Observer, 5 October 2003

"....where were all these newspapers and politicians in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq? You had to be willfully blind not to know at the time what they are now discovering in such breathless shock -- that the U.S. and British governments were telling brazen lies in order to manipulate their peoples into supporting the war...Why did most U.S. and British media, including serious newspapers like the Washington Post and the London Times, treat this farrago of transparent misrepresentations as serious news?"
U.S. news media should have been tougher before the war
Salt Lake Tribune, 21 July 2003

"Media organizations are now under tight control, Pilger said. Just five corporations rule the broadcasters in the United States. In Australia, Rupert Murdoch controls 70 percent of the media.... The three main dangers facing the world, he said, are silence, betrayal and power - and journalists can make silence dangerous."
The power of silence
Asia Times, 10 July 2003

War on Truth  By John Pilger  The New Statesman  Monday 04 August 2003

"Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them... Kamel told his Western interrogators that he hoped his revelations would trigger Saddam’s overthrow. But after six months in exile in Jordan, Kamel realized the United States would not support his dream of becoming Iraq’s ruler after Saddam’s demise. He chose to return to Iraq—where he was promptly killed... Kamel’s revelations about the destruction of Iraq’s WMD stocks were hushed up by the U.N. inspectors, sources say... the defector’s tale raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist....NEWSWEEK has obtained the notes of Kamel’s U.N. debrief, and verified that the document is authentic...Kamel was interrogated in separate sessions by the CIA, Britain’s M.I.6 and a trio from the United Nations, led by the inspection team’s head, Rolf Ekeus. NEWSWEEK has obtained the notes of Kamel’s U.N. debrief, and verified that the document is authentic. NEWSWEEK has also learned that Kamel told the same story to the CIA and M.I.6.... overall, Kamel’s information was 'almost embarrass-ing, it was so extensive,' Ekeus recalled—including the fact that Ekeus’s own Arabic translator, a Syrian, was, according to Kamel, an Iraqi agent who had been reporting to Kamel himself all along.   "
The defector's secrets
Newsweek Magazine, 3 March 2003 issue
(also reported on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, 28 February 2003)

Transcript of interview with Iraqi defector exposes White House lies on Iraqi weapons - click here

"On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that 'raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist,' the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims. ...Kamel's defection has been cited repeatedly by George W. Bush and leading administration officials as evidence that 1) Iraq has not disarmed; 2) inspections cannot disarm it; and 3) defectors such as Kamel are the most reliable source of information on Iraq's weapons... The Kamel story is a bombshell that necessitates a thorough reevaluation of U.S. media reporting on Iraq, much of which has taken for granted that the nation retains supplies of prohibited weapons. (See FAIR Media Advisory, 'Iraq's Hidden Weapons: From Allegation to Fact,' 2/4/03.) Kamel's testimony is not, of course, proof that Iraq does not have hidden stocks of chemical or biological weapons, but it does suggest a need for much more media skepticism about U.S. allegations than has previously been shown.... So far, according to a February 27 search of
the Nexis database, no major U.S. newspapers or national television news
shows have picked up the Newsweek story."
Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed
FAIR, 27 February 2003

".... Kamel's information has been cited as central evidence and a key reason for attacking Iraq. In his February 5 presentation to the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell [used it]... Newsweek chose to run a short, 500-word item in its 'Periscope' section rather than put the story on the cover or make it the focal point of a longer article showing that the Bush Administration is rushing to war for no reason at all.... Instead, that issue of Newsweek featured a cover story on the African-American gender gap in jobs, education and other areas -- a worthy story, but nothing that could not have waited a week.... other media failed to pick up on the Kamel story ... [instead] they smothered the audience in inconsequential material about the most consequential of topics.... Cumulatively, [NEWSEEK'S] item on Kamel, the revelation that Colin Powell was citing a graduate student's thesis as British 'intelligence' and a new revelation that more British 'evidence' of Iraqi nuclear arms development cited by the Administration was (according to weapons inspectors themselves) fabricated suggest that a monstrous Big Lie is in process -- an effort to construct falsified evidence and to trick this country and the world."
The Big Lie
The Nation, 7 April 2003

BBC reports on orignial Kamel defection - click here

"A new study based on a series of seven nationwide polls conducted from January through September of this year reveals that before and after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war with Iraq.  The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks, also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals' primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely...Such misperceptions are highly related to support for the war.... Variations in misperceptions according to news source cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographics of each audience, because these variations can also be found when comparing the rate of misperceptions within demographic subgroups of each audience... While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, in fact, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention".
  Study Finds Direct Link Between Misinformation and Public Misconception
Program on International Policy Attitudes, 2 October 2003

"Political donations by US television and radio stations have almost doubled in the last year, research has shown. And the Bush family's association with many media organisations runs deep and is reflected by the hefty handouts from the likes of NBC network owner General Electric and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, both trenchant supporters of the war. The amount of money ploughed into party coffers by Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV, NBC and radio giant Clear Channel among others has gone up to £7.56m in 2001/2002, compared with just £4.6m in 2000, the latest figures reveal. Media companies have shown that they have deep pockets when it comes to politics, with the level of contributions made over the last decade growing ninefold, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a US research group that tracks money and politics. The support President Bush has received from the corporate sector is evidenced by the unprecedented $100m he raised when he decided to run for president... Figures show that NBC network owner General Electric and News Corporation, owner of the Fox and Sky television networks and the New York Post, tipped the bulk of their soft money funds into Republican coffers in 2001-02. The two media giants are among the most prolific donors, according the data reported to the US federal electoral commission... Murdoch's media empire still has close ties with the Bush family. The relationship was recently put under the spotlight when it was revealed that Fox News Channel chairman Roger Ailes, a former Republican party strategist, secretly acted as an advisor to the president in the days after the September 11 terrorist strikes."
US media dig deep for politicians
Guardian 7 April 2003

POST WAR

Bush 9/11 Admission Gets Little Play

"The Bush administration's deliberately deceptive rhetoric formed the lie, and major corporate news organizations served as shameless hucksters for the political propaganda. So now, when the president finally fesses up and says sheepishly that there was "no evidence that Hussein was involved" with the Sept. 11 attacks, that ought to be a major news story. Instead, it was buried and got little play, when it should have made headlines and been the lead story on every American news broadcast.....Seth Porges, in the newspaper trade magazine "Editor & Publisher," did some telling research and wrote, "Of America's 12 highest circulation daily papers, only the LA Times, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News ran anything about it on the front page. In The New York Times, the story was relegated to page 22. USA Today: page 16. The Houston Chronicle: page 3. The San Francisco Chronicle: page 14. The Washington Post: page 18. Newsday: page 41. The New York Daily News: page 14.  The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't even mention it at all."
Media Ignores Bush Admission That Saddam Not Involved In Sept. 11
Niagara Falls Reporter, 23 September 2003

"President Bush, asked about the Niger issue at a news conference during his visit to South Africa, did not answer directly but said that he was 'certain that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction programme'. Like Mr Blair, he has dropped the assertion that Iraq actually had weapons. Both now say that it had a 'programme.' "
Did Iraq try to get African uranium?
BBC Online 9 July

"There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious....  even people who aren't partisan Republicans shy away from confronting the administration's dishonest case for war, because they don't want to face the implications."
Denial and Deception
New York Times, 24 June 2003

  NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex