Those who supported unity in action leading up to January 19 and 26 will certainly continue to make their voices heard. And given the tremendous upsurge in antiwar sentiment and activity that we have seen during the past few weeks, they are also certain to get a good hearing from rank-and-file activists. A real and growing US movement against Bush's war seems inevitable, whatever solution is ultimately worked out in terms of political program and leadership structure. * ed lies, and military b THE Gulf conflict has seen a further tightening of the apparatus of media censorship developed in the 1980s In the course of such Imperialist adventures as the assaults on the Malvinas, Grenada and Panama. In the following article, the national organizer of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (a British organization with substantial labour movement sponsorship), writing in a personal capacity, examines some of the methods used to keep the truth about the war riefings reigned back. There could be no quick victory against Iraq's mighty military machine.
Television audiences which had been encouraged to view this war as some kind of hi-tech video game, to marvel at the weapons of death rather than see their deadly consequences, had to be disabused. Hence the astonishing spectacle of a military briefing where the top brass tell journalists..."this is not a video game" ". Who suggested it was?
Finally one week and 10,000 bombing missions later, the circle is completed. We are told out of the British media.
MICK GOSLING that Iraq's military forces are largely intact. The air force is buried underground in hardened bunkers. Runways can be Kun ways repaired in 24 hours. Even that spectacularly exploding air ministry in Baghdad had a command
A S ALLIED PLANES dropped the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb on Iraq in the early hours of Thursday January 17, the British media scrambled to establish hot air supremacy.
"100% success", screamed the banner headline of the London Evening Standard, out-blitzing its tabloid rivals. At first the men from the Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon let this line run. After all, to win a real war you have to win the propaganda war. Nothing beefs up domestic support like early success and promise of a quick, bloodless (for our boys) victory.
Operation Desert Fog continued with public opinion being acclimatized to desert reality. The gung-ho journalists, whose knowledge of combat is limited to fighting their way to the bar at El Vino's in London's Fleet Street, had to be bunker underneath built to withstand a bomb blast.
And now the military confesses that 80% of missions "effective" does not mean 80% of targets destroyed. It is simply a claim that 80% of planes have reached their targets and dropped their bombs. One wonders about the other 20%. While B-52s can apparently rain bombs with an accuracy never demonstrated in Vietnam, the world is asked to believe that cloud cover has hampered reconnaissance which would show just what has been flattened on the ground.
According to the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, there were three kinds of lies — lies, damned lies and statistics. But even he would have paled in the face of military briefings. The only real images of war we have seen have been on the streets of Tel Aviv and 7 on the faces of captured air crews.
GULF WAR
JOURNALISTS AS
DURING THE ALERT
In the middle of the night of January 24, an ITN correspondent in Saudi Arabia let slip the truth: "The hard information available to the press is so slight that it is impossible to make any judgement on the progress of the war."
All we knew was that we were one week into a war where all sides are promising carnage — and one week into the propaganda war aimed at getting public opinion to accept it. Having been carpet bombed with non-news, the cycle started again. President Bush announced operation Desert Storm was "right on schedule".
The second week has seen similar claims of military success. Our "surgical" strikes are contrasted with the indiscriminate Scud missiles of Saddam. Whereas Scuds have killed a handful of civilians no comment has been made on the fact that just one civilian death for each allied bombing raid would mean 20,000 Iraqis dead. Instead there is talk of "collateral damage."
Compare the acres of print coverage and airtime devoted to the flooding of the Gulf with oil, all those heartrending pictures of dying birds, with the absence of coverage of Iraqi civilian deaths. Indeed, peace campaigners who were derided for warning that war would bring environmental disaster, now find their arguments hijacked as justification for continuing the war.
### Blanket degradation
The carpet bombing of Iraqi ground forces is termed "degradation". The comment of a retired US paratroop commander that Iraqi troops would "melt like butter off toast" was reported one night and then suppressed. By contrast Saddam Hussein is demonized for all his works. The war is becoming a crusade and allied aims are changing. The mendacity of ministers on both sides of the Atlantic, who imply the UN resolution calling for stability in the Middle East encompasses the overthrow of Saddam, has not been subject to serious scrutiny in news bulletins and most of the press. The media machine has slid along behind the war machine. 8 Why has saturation news coverage produced so few hard facts and so little International Viewpoint #200 • February 18,
THE ALLES LIKE THEM
AFTER THE ALERT LOTA informed analysis? When journalists and broadcasters speak portentously of the "fog of war" they present tautology as explanation. There is nothing foggy about the grip the military exercises over the media in the Gulf. It is total and backed by sanctions. And it began the moment allied forces set foot in the Gulf.
David Feingold, London bureau chief of Cable News Network, put it bluntly at a Royal Television Society symposium session on "The propaganda war" back in November: "the rules are there and the military runs the operation. We are used as conduits of information and disinformation."
An insight into how effective this has been was given by Nik Gowing, diplomatic editor of Britain's Channel 4 News. In a filmed commentary he explained the reality behind the "TV images of a highly geared, efficient US military machine moving into position" following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It was bluff. The reality was near chaos with planes arriving half full and a computerized logistics system unable to locate military spares.
Lies by the busload
In return for propaganda pictures of military training exercises a media circus was created with the "fourth estate travelling from site to site in convoys of buses." Satellite technology transmitted these pictures throughout the world, generating expectations that war was both inevitable and winnable.
Even before war started strict media Ground Rules, covering fourteen categories of "not releasable information" , were laid down by the Allied Joint Information Bureau and policed by military minders. Journalists could only report on what the military allowed them to see.
Point 3 of the rules stated: "You MUST remain with your military escort at all times, until released, and follow your instructions regarding your activities." This is followed by the classic newspeak that "these instructions are not intended to hinder your reporting," a fig-leaf dispensed with since war started. Journalists' subservience to the military was underlined in Point 6: "If you are not sure 1991 whether an action you will take will violate a ground rule, consult your escort officer PRIOR TO TAKING THAT ACTION."
The weapon of control is access. Any reporters or crews freelancing or wandering away from their military escorts are warned. Do it again and they might as well pack their bags as their military escorts will be withdrawn.
Many journalists have been more than willing to participate in this charade. But an even greater shame is that of the newspaper and television editors who have perpetuated it. Until the eve of war they give little or no publicity to the censorship operating, let alone challenged it.
The representatives of our "free" media loyally trooped off to carefully vetted meetings with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on January 3 and 7, to be briefed on how the MoD/Allied forces would organize media coverage in the event of war. The prospect of triple vetting by British, American and Saudi censors hardly raised an eyebrow.
### Guidance for editors
On the ground in the Gulf only two British "media response teams" have been allowed forward with the 4th and 7th armoured divisions, comprising one television crew, one radio reporter, two print journalists and one photographer. Their material is pooled through a forward transmission unit where it is censored by the military before it is transmitted to London. The other source of information is military briefings. To ensure the home front stays firm, the MoD has issued "guidance" to editors on the release of information.
When the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) bridled, not against the ground rules, but against this guidance, the MoD promptly deployed its access weapon. A Ministry spokesperson was quoted in the Evening Standard (January 14) saying: "We would have to think hard about allowing any reporters to accompany our troops if their editor was carrying reports which jeopardized security." The BBC promptly issued its own guidance which is equally restrictive.
The consequence is that we are witnessing the most censored war in recent British history. There are 32 areas on which information cannot be published without the approval of the MoD. These include the progress of battles, munitions supplies and equipment shortcomings, specific ship or aircraft losses and rules of engagement — of particular use as the allied commanders have been careful to avoid ruling out the use of nuclear weapons. Even the consequences of terrorists attacks in the UK would be censored.
These restrictions have little to do with the security of allied forces in the Gulf and everything to do with reassuring pub-
lic opinion. For the same reason the virus of secrecy and disinformation is spreading to other government departments. Hence the Department of Health's guidelines for National Health Service (NHS) press officers, exposed this week, who have been told to flatly contradict the secret advice being given to senior clinicians about the ability of the NHS to cope with Gulf War casualties, especially those with burns and chemical warfare injuries.
To maintain public morale our newspaEconomic co of the war WHILST uncertainty about the duration and ultimate result of the Gulf conflict makes any exact prognosis impossible, it is clear that the war will have severe effects on a world capitalist economy already beginning to suffer the effects of recession. ERNEST MANDEL T HE direct costs: Wars are expensive and wars conducted at a distance are even more expensive. The cost for the USA of the military presence in Saudi Arabia can be estimated at between $2 and $3 bn per month. This is the net cost, after deduction of the $30 bn contribution from the Allies.