“Whatever hit the al-Rashid Hotel, it wasn’t a US missile,” declared CBS’s Randall Pinkston (1/17/93). The Pentagon later acknowledged that the hotel had been hit by a US missile.
As US planes resumed the bombing of Iraq, ABC’s Jim Laurie (1/13/93) cautioned viewers:
Bear in mind that most Iraqis, because of the incredibly tightly controlled media here, never understood why it was this attack was carried out. There is nothing really in the media to help them explain all this.
But were Americans much better off? The US press was full of explanations for the attack, many of them misleading or wrong. Leading news outlets frequently conveyed the impression that the US was acting on behalf of the UN in establishing “no-fly zones” over Iraq. In fact, the restriction of Iraqi flights was decided unilaterally by the US and a small group of European allies. As the Center for Constitutional Rights pointed out, “None of the U.N. Security Council resolutions call for the establishment of the current ‘no-fly zone.’”
That didn’t stop New York Newsday (1/7/93) from using the headline “UN Foot’s Down” over an article about a US ultimatum regarding the “no-fly zone.” Or the New York Times (1/14/93) from referring to an “Iraqi jet flying over southern Iraq in violation of the United Nations ban.” Or CBS’s Dan Rather (1/17/93) from announcing that the US attack was “on behalf of the United Nations.”
There were some UN resolutions that Iraq may have been violating, but as the Bush administration acknowledged, they were not the primary reason for the bombing. When Ted Koppel (Nightline, 1/13/93) asked if the US would have called off the raids if Iraq promised to abide by UN resolutions, the National Security Council’s Richard Haass replied, “Probably not,” explaining that “the most important issue on the proximate cause of today’s action” was “the placement of missiles and so forth in the no-fly zone.” But most media reports blurred the difference between US and UN restrictions, in effect giving an international cover to what was essentially a unilateral action.
Rerun Reporting
As the US government replayed the Gulf War, the press seemed to have learned precious little from Desert Storm. The same government and military experts dominated the coverage, and voices that would lend an independent perspective were once again virtually ignored.
The same propagandistic use of language was evident: While Baghdad’s attempts to fly aircraft over its own territory were “threatening,” “provocative” and “defiant,” the US attacks were “restrained.”
Journalists again spoke as if they were part of the US government, using the words “we” and “us” when talking about military action. “Are we going to retaliate?” David Brinkley asked military analyst Anthony Cordesman (This Week With David Brinkley, 1/17/93). “I think we have to retaliate,” Cordesman replied.
Just as in the Gulf War, journalists trivialized the human impact of military action, treating war as a kind of game. In an interview with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Jim Lehrer (MacNeil/ Lehrer NewsHour, 1/13/93) remarked of Saddam Hussein, “It must give you some sense of satisfaction to pop him one before you go.”
To Jim Stewart of CBS (1/18/93), “The problem with bombing is you don’t always know if you destroyed everything you aimed at.” A similar neglect of human costs was evident in Torn Aspell’s report from Baghdad (NBC, 1/20/93) that “the sanctions are only now taking effect.” In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine (9/24/92) estimated that more than 46,000 Iraqi children died from the combined effects of war and trade sanctions in the first part of 1991 alone.
Despite overwhelming evidence of the inaccuracy of much of the US weaponry used in the Gulf War, news outlets still relied on analysts who uncritically accepted Pentagon claims. When a hotel full of civilians—including foreign journalists—was bombed (1/17/93), CBS’s Randall Pinkston insisted from his base in Washington, “Whatever hit the al-Rashid Hotel, it wasn’t a US missile.” If journalists (including Bob Simon of CBS) had not been on site to contradict the official story, the Pentagon might never have acknowledged that a US cruise missile had in fact hit the al-Rashid.
When journalists did raise questions about the bombing of Iraq, it was usually from a position more hawkish than the administration’s. ABC’s John McWethy (1/17/93) reported, “There are questions about why the raid was not bigger to send an even stronger message to Baghdad.” Dan Rather began one broadcast (CBS, 1/14/93) by asking, “Was President Bush’s parting shot at Saddam a sock on the jaw or a slap on the wrist?”
Morton Kondracke, a major foreign policy analyst on PBS, took this convoluted position in favor of Bush’s raid on the McLaughlin Group (1/17/93):
It’s good that Bush hit Saddam as lightly as he did, because if that sort of encourages Saddam to make another big blunder and test the United States, this will give Clinton the opportunity to hit him hard, and to show at the outset of his administration that he’s a tough guy.
