Holding US media accountable for Iraq

The Iraq war is a growing mess, and it is appropriate to hold accountable those who got us into it. Fingers can rightly be pointed at the US Administration, of course. They used fabricated intelligence to make their case for the war. Relying on ideology and ignoring reality, they acted on the grossly misinformed conviction that by force and will alone they could reshape the Middle East.

In this effort, the US Administration was aided and abetted by the Congress, too many of whose members made the cowardly calculation to take the path of least resistance. They thus abdicated their constitutional responsibility and deserve criticism.

This much is clear, and has been the subject of significant debate among Democrats and Republicans who are asking tough questions of themselves and challenging their leaders for decisions that have placed the US in peril. But there are other culprits responsible for it. In particular, there are those in the media who behaved as mouthpieces and cheerleaders in making the Administration's case for the war. Here, however, there is no self-criticism, and no accountability.

The pundits and analysts who knew so little about Iraq, but became instant experts when the cameras rolled, hold themselves to a different standard than the elected officials they so frequently criticise. They, too, share blame - but who is there to accuse them? In the lead-up to the war and in the early days of the conflict, it was frustrating to listen to banal and uninformed pronouncements which, because they were delivered by media icons, took on the aura of being profound truths. Instead of informing the public, these personalities simply regurgitated the pronouncements ground out by the White House's or Pentagon's public relations shops. Operating as echo chambers for the US Administration's talking points, they validated those talking points. In doing so, they failed in their responsibility to their viewers and their professions.

National debate

Now that a national debate has begun in earnest, it is important that we demonstrate just how wrong these characters have been. Certainly, they won't remind us of their own failings, nor will they challenge each other. And so, I am thankful for the fine work done by the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Each month, FAIR examines the work of the major media and provides in-depth analysis of the media's failure to get the story right.

I was particularly pleased to see in this month's issue of FAIR's magazine Extra! an analysis by Peter Hart cataloguing some of the major media's most disturbing statements about the war, and a political cartoon by Tom Tomorrow that nicely complements Hart's piece.

Examples follow:

"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week," said FOX's Bill O'Reilly. Then-journalist and current White House Press Secretary Tony Snow observed on April 13, 2003 that "The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered sceptics' complaints."

Three days earlier, Fred Barnes had made the amazing statement: "The war was the hard part... And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war." The always "expert" Bill Kristol informed us that "there is a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shiite can't get along with the Sunni... There's almost no evidence of that at all."

And while the media today regularly derides Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, that was not the view at the time.

Given this, it is ironic that more members of the US Senate have publicly regretted their votes to authorise the war, than have journalists for their part in perpetuating the deception.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC.