The failure of English-language media over Iraq
20 years after the invasion it's hard to see how such a tragic miscalculation could have happened. But the 'foreign' voices that urged caution were not listened to, when they were heard at all.
When I named this newsletter “News with a Foreign Accent” it was meant to be a play on words. In a way I meant it literally, and I’ve written several posts where I specifically deal with the difficulties of working in News when you have a foreign accent.
But that’s not all I meant. More importantly, I was referring to the need to look at global events through different eyes and by listening to different voices - voices that are truly international. The foreign accents go hand in hand with different outlooks, different experiences and different frames of reference. In a word, diversity.
I will post soon about how I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘International News’. I think there’s English-language media, which is predictably dominated by UK and US networks/publishers and by native English speakers. I’ll tell you what I was told the ‘special formula’ for international news anchors was (it’s pretty shocking). And why I believe this hidden lack of diversity has an impact on content and narrative.
I’ve been thinking about this lack of diversity over the past week, which marked the 20th anniversary of the war in Iraq. In my 16 years at Al Jazeera English I don’t think a week went by when we didn’t cover some story relating to Iraq. From the bloody aftermath of the invasion to the rampant corruption, the US troop ‘surge’, the rise of Islamic State and its reign of terror in Iraq and Syria leading to misery for millions of people displaced by the fighting and instability, there was, tragically, no shortage of news stories coming from Iraq.
Of course you don’t have to be a regular Al Jazeera viewer to know that the invasion of Iraq was ill-judged. I thoroughly recommend listening to the BBC’s Shock and War podcast by Gordon Corera, their Defence Correspondent who was covering developments at the time and who brilliantly explains the dynamics that led to the invasion and its long-term impact.
The blinkers have truly come off about the many mistakes and obfuscation. But it wasn’t always so. Apart from a few notable exceptions the American press did not question the reasons for going to war with enough rigour, with some becoming de facto cheerleaders for conflict.
“Lapdogs not watchdogs” is a phrase you’ll often hear about the media’s lack of scrutiny of the invasion of Iraq.
Public opinion was more hostile to war in the UK than the US, but parts of the British Press have also been criticised, especially over the issue of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Groupthink is insidious and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
It would be naive to think that more journalistic scrutiny would have changed the course of events. There was huge political pressure from the Bush administration. Perhaps nothing could have stopped the invasion. But if journalism has a purpose it’s to inform objectively and provide a platform for an exchange of ideas. Different opinions, sure, but opinions based on different experiences, backgrounds and knowledge. Nationality plays a a part here. As does language.
Voices from the Arab world weren’t really heard in the global (or should I say anglophone?) conversation in the run-up to war. That changed when Al Jazeera English launched in November 2006, 3 years after the invasion of Iraq.
The coverage of the war by the original Arabic-language Al Jazeera news channel, born in 1996, had not pleased the US administration. The channel’s narrative ran counter to what the US and most Western media organisations were showing.
"Vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable" is how US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld described Al Jazeera Arabic’s coverage in 2004.
Al Jazeera’s offices in Baghdad were struck in 2003 during a US bombing campaign, resulting in the death of reporter Tareq Ayyoub. The US said it had been a mistake. There were subsequent allegations that President Bush had contemplated bombing the channel’s headquarters in Doha.
I remember that when I joined Al Jazeera English at its launch in 2006 we were definitely seen in the West as ‘the enemy’. No channel is without controversy, and certainly not Al Jazeera, which operates in one of the most complicated regions in the world. The point I’m making is about the importance of listening to different voices outside the mainstream narrative. Especially when they tell you things you may not agree with or want to hear.
After the immediate invasion, it quickly became clear that the American and Western forces were unable to provide security to the country.
The US and UK invaded a country that they ultimately did not understand.
Iraq was, and is, a complicated place. You need true diversity within news networks, to get contrasting perspectives about the complexity of the Middle East, or indeed any issue. I know from experience that this is much easier said than done. We are all, to various degrees, resistant to having our preconceptions challenged.
Twenty years after the invasion, the damage wreaked by the Iraq war on the moral authority of the USA and the West is incalculable.
So many of my friends and colleagues from the so-called Global South often cite Iraq as a symbol of Western hypocrisy. It has hardened their stance against supporting the West against Russia in Ukraine. There are many factors at play here, but I can’t say I blame them.
Incalculable is also the correct word to describe the precise number of civilian Iraqi victims of the war and its extensive aftermath.
The picture I posted above is of a street in Mosul, a city in Northern Iraq, years after its capture by ISIS in 2014. The illegal and unjustified invasion of Iraq had wide-ranging repercussions that continue to this day, both in the Middle East and to the West’s standing in the world. But twenty years after the decision to go to war was made, there is at least more awareness of the need to listen to all the voices involved.
It’s a really interesting and complicated issue, isn’t it? I certainly agree that the West should never have gotten involved in Iraq (it wasn’t our war) - but at the same time I don’t think that justifies countries in the Global South refusing to support Ukraine (and I know ‘not supporting Ukraine’ is not necessarily the same as ‘supporting Russia/Putin’). Again, it’s incredibly nuanced and I know there are many, many factors at play as to why each country chooses the allies it does. I guess that’s realpolitik for you.
Hi Barbara, Heard the Correra show on R4: yes, good, but nothing new (for those of us long enough in the tooth).
AFAIR, the BBC was totally craven at the time, this is true. It's a great tradition that most Americans know F.A. about other parts of the world, so what would have been surprising would have been if even one of the US pure-junk media channels or outlets (ABC, NBC, Fox, Washington Times, NY Times, etc. etc.) had questioned the narrative from Bush and Blair.
But seemingly there were *some* strong enough alternative media sources in the UK: a million people, including me, marched in central London in February 2003 in protest. Correra also failed to mention the fact that Robin Cook resigned over the illegality and the pathetic nature of the WMD evidence.
But it's also important to stress that some voices even from Iraq at the time, *welcomed* the invasion, notably the Kurds, but also many Shi'ites. I remember seeing two Iraqis discussing the coming invasion in early 2003 on Channel 4 News: one was passionately against, the other passionately in favour. (Which is of course irrelevant to the question of legality).
A specific anti-Saddam agent at the heart of the Washington establishment, Ahmad Chalabi, was also instrumental in pulling the wool over the eyes of Bush and Blair's gullible military (in collusion therefore with Bush and Blair's already taken decision).