McClellan’s Missile: Media Crimes As War Crimes

When Will US “Journalism” Be Held Accountable for Promoting War?

by Danny Schechter
Duh. The Bush Administration deployed a dishonest but very effective propaganda campaign to sell the Iraq War to the American people on virtually every media outfit. Their “Culture of Deception” is now acknowledged.

How do we know? Scotty McClellan told us so. It’s all in the former Press Secretary’s new book. And, happily, it’s all over the news.

It’s easy to put McClellan down. On the right he’s a traitor. The President dismissed him as “sad.” Karl Rove compared him to a left-wing blogger. Most of the real left-wing bloggers were equally contemptuous suggesting he’s just trying to sell books, some asking: Why did he wait so long? Wasn’t he part of the plot? Is this just the pot calling the kettle black?

Yes, but, at least, he had the courage, these many years later, to confirm what I and other have been saying for years. And he didn’t avoid taking a poke at the media which did the Administration’s job for them by carrying unverified claims as facts, while blocking out any other narrative. To his credit, McClellan called our media “deferential, complicit enablers.”

He’s not the first rat to jump ship and won’t be the last. Think of him like the informants who turn on the mafia. The fact that a high profile former propagandist blew a whistle matters in the same way that it was a former Vietnam strategist named Daniel Ellsberg, who with Anthony Russo, exposed the Pentagon Papers. We all knew the government had lied then, but the Pentagon Papers explained how they did it. (The Papers came out in 1971; the war had been underway since l945.)

Ellsberg was branded a rat too. But without rats, prosecutors can’t get convictions. In Ellsberg’s case, he was the one convicted. Let’s hope that in McClellan’s case, we can get to the real criminals in the dock along with the many who collaborated with them.

To be honest, what’s needed here are not more confessions by political insiders but an actual trial of the perpetrators. This government strategy, and the media coverage that served it, were not just mistakes or lapses in otherwise accurate coverage but crimes with real world consequences. Try a million dead in Iraq, and 4,000 Americans. And counting…

As I and others probed into the daily indifference to Iraqi suffering and the continuing orchestration of pro-war coverage, we came to see the problem not as continuously flawed reporting or even as a series of institutional failures, but in the same way as many whistleblowers tend to view the practices they expose — as a crime.

Given the number of lives lost and the amount of money wasted, these were the moral equivalents of serious felonies. When crimes take place in other settings, eventually government officials step in. As the scandals become public, there are exposés and then prosecutions. In this case, it is the government committing the crime, and the media, in essence, covering it up.

Yes, media crimes rationalize war crimes. Both are shameful and worthy of indictment.

Official scrutiny of media practices rarely happens, partly because of Constitutional protections afforded journalists and media outlets, and partly because wronged parties have little recourse.

It’s hard to fight back against media irresponsibility. Public shaming seems the only response, and its effectiveness depends on whether critics can be heard in the so-called public square. In the case of Iraq, there were 800 experts on all the channels in the run-up to the war. Only 6 opposed the war. No wonder judgments like this are left to historians.

After the Second World War at the Nuremberg Tribunal, American prosecutors wanted to put the German media on trial for promoting Hitler’s policies. State propagandists were condemned. More recently, hate radio was indicted by the Rwanda tribunal investigating the genocide there, while in the former Yugoslavia, Serbian and Croatian TV were criticized for inciting a war that divided that country, encouraging murderous ethnic cleansing.

The principle that media outlets can, for reasons of omission or commission, be held responsible for their role in inflaming conflicts and promoting jingoism, has been well established. Many remember William Randolf Hearst’s famous yellow journalism dictum: “You give me the pictures, I will give you the war.”

In February 2005, Italy hosted the citizens-initiated World Tribunal on Iraq, which put the media “on trial” for its role in selling of the Iraq War. It was of course not covered here. The Tribunal was modeled on an earlier initiative during the Vietnam War by the then-leading international intellectuals Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone du Bouvoir. As a young journalist, I covered their sessions in Stockholm in 1967. I saw it as an act of conscience.

Most of the U.S. media saw it as an exercise in propaganda. Most of the charges they made then about U.S. war crimes are largely corroborated by the historical record even though only a few were reported when they occurred. I still remember watching CBS correspondent Morley Safer filming a stand-up in Stockholm, denouncing the Tribunal. Decades later, his “60 Minutes” returned to the scene of the My-Lai massacre interviewing former US soldiers who charged the U.S. military with the very war crimes Safer had dismissed when it mattered.

Critics today believe the media has covered up war crimes in Iraq, minimized civilian casualties, downplayed the destruction of cities like Fallujah, and misreported the reasons for going to war and how it was conducted. And they are right.

Will any of the “enablers” in TV news, or our leading newspapers, face consequences for their actions? I am not just talking about high profile journalists but their editors, producers, executives and proprietors.

Unlikely.

Many pro-war reports won awards; many of those who engineered the propagandistic “coverage” were promoted. Their patriotically-correct ‘all the war, all the time’ approach raised ratings and revenues. Some were hailed as heroes, critics dismissed as zeros. Dick Cheney even dropped into a post-invasion media dinner to thank them for their service.

Media companies were happily co-opted as embeds while naysayers like Peter Arnett were banished. Later, many reporters were killed and wounded while trying to tell a story that has now largely disappeared from view.

Has there been any outbreak of conscience in newsrooms over the last five years or, more importantly, any commitment to cover Iraq in a less jingoistic manner? Not that I can see, even though there is occasionally some “good” reporting. The title of the book by Editor & Publisher’s Greg Mitchell sums it up: “So Wrong for So Long.”

No wonder many of the outlets abandoning journalism for “mili-tainment” lost viewers and credibility.

So thank you Scotty, whatever your motives, for reopening the debate. (And thank the indy media and a few gutsy websites and mainstreamers for telling the truth.)

Now it’s time to consider potential remedies even if we lack the power to enforce them. Our main media outlets have already been convicted in the global court of public opinion.

News Dissector Danny Schechter made WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception in 2004, a film shown in 40 countries.(Wmdthefilm.com). He wrote two books on media complicity, Embedded (2003) and When News Lies (2006). His latest, PLUNDER is about the financial crisis. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Fuel suppliers demand airlines pay cash in advance

From The TimesMay 26, 2008

Carl Mortished and Amanda Andrews
Airlines are being forced to pay cash in advance for jet fuel as the major oil companies tighten the screws on an industry that is being crushed by an extraordinary surge in the price of crude oil.

Sources within the airline industry indicate that credit is being denied to most of the leading American carriers and the practice is moving to Europe and Asia. So uncertain is the cash solvency of the industry that jet fuel suppliers insist on prepayments into special bank accounts.

A credit controller at a leading European multinational oil company told The Times that the oil industry was moving to jet fuel prepayment. “It’s common in the US and it is moving to Europe. We have been moving to prepayment since Swissair went bust.”

The need to put up money before delivery of fuel is a huge financial burden that has been shifted from the oil companies to the airlines. According to John Armbrust, a US jet fuel consultant, the oil industry had $5 billion (£2.5 billion) of jet fuel credit outstanding to airlines before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now they are demanding that airlines leave cash on deposit.

“The airlines can’t afford it. Traditionally, oil companies extended credit for 14 or 21 days and some as long as 30 days. Now, most American airlines are on prepay. South West is one of a few likely to still get credit.”

The extent of the cash squeeze was highlighted last week when American Airlines said that it would charge $15 per bag checked even as it revealed plans to shed 75 aircraft, shrinking the airline’s capacity by 12 per cent.

The price of jet fuel has risen by 60 per cent since January and American Airlines paid $665 million more for fuel in the first quarter of this year than in the same period of 2007.

The credit crunch is likely to worsen and a number of financial institutions will fail, according to research from Atradius, the credit insurance group which conducted a global survey of its customers’ views of the financial outlook. Although Atradius said that companies expect the number of failures to be small, about 65 per cent expect there to be failures.

The group added that direct exposure to sub-prime lending is higher in Europe than in the United States even though the bulk of the sub-prime mortgage defaults are in the US and many of the securities these loans are packaged into would have originated from US-based mortgage companies.

“Some explanation for this may be investments by European companies in US securities offering higher returns and more frequent use of secondary financial markets to securitise receivables by European countries,” it said.

Atradius added that only 12 per cent of companies across the world do not expect an economic slowdown in the next year. In Britain, more than 90 per cent of companies surveyed expect a slowdown, the highest percentage. About one in six companies expects a slowdown of only the national economy; a quarter expect a slowdown of the global economy and half expect a slowdown of both. The expectation of a slowdown is also high in Mexico, the United States, Spain, Italy, France and Belgium and lowest in Sweden and the Netherlands.

Atradius found that larger companies are more likely to have been affected by the credit crisis. Although fewer than 30 per cent of small companies reported an impact, almost half of all large companies (with more than €1 billion annual gross sales) said that they had felt the credit-crisis pinch.

Companies operating within the energy industry have been especially affected, but those in the healthcare and services industries reported a relatively low frequency of impact.

IAEA: No N-weaponization found in Iran

Tue, 27 May 2008


IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei
The IAEA has not detected the use of nuclear material linked to Iran's "alleged studies" of weaponization, the agency's latest report says.

The findings are part of a restricted International Atomic Energy Agency report forwarded to the UN Security Council and to the 35 board members of the agency on Monday, May 26.

“The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by Press TV.

The IAEA holds the view that clarification of the alleged studies "on the green salt project, high explosives testing and missile re-entry vehicle project" is critical "to an assessment of the nature of Iran's past and present nuclear program."

"Iran has agreed to address the alleged studies," it said.

According to the report, Iran's response to a May 9 request by the UN nuclear watchdog to provide "additional clarifications" on the nuclear drive is currently being assessed by the agency.

Director General of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei called on Iran to "implement all measures required to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program," the report added.

The West has been at loggerheads with Iran over the country's nuclear drive. Washington and its allies accuse Tehran of pursuing nuclear weaponry; claiming that Iran's uranium enrichment program is aimed at producing fuel for a nuclear weapons progmra - such substance could also be used to produce electricity in nuclear power plants.

IAEA's latest report came a week after ElBaradei said that there is no 'concrete evidence' that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb.

"We haven't seen indications or any concrete evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and I've been saying that consistently for the last five years," ElBaradei said speaking at a May 20 session of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East.

The IAEA boss referred to a Dec 3 joint assessment by 16 US spy agencies, which conceded with 'high confidence' that Tehran is not running a nuclear weapons program, and said that the US intelligence report confirmed his agency's assessment on Iran.

McBush

S&P: US home prices tumble a record 14.1 pct in 1Q

By J.W. ELPHINSTONE, AP Business Writer

U.S. home prices dropped at the sharpest rate in two decades during the first quarter, a closely watched index showed Tuesday, a somber indication that the housing slump continues to deepen.

Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller said its national home price index fell 14.1 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the lowest since its inception in 1988. The quarterly index covers all nine U.S. Census divisions.

Prices nationwide are at levels not seen since the third quarter of 2004, according to Maureen Maitland, a S&P vice president. However, the index is still up 60 percent versus 2000.

The narrower indices also set record declines in the first quarter. The 20-city index tumbled 14.4 percent, the lowest since that index was started in 2001. The 10-city index plunged 15.3 percent, a record in its 20-year history.

"There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee.

Nineteen of the 20 metro areas reported annual declines, with 15 of them posting record lows. Six metro areas lost more than 20 percent.

Las Vegas had the worst quarterly performance, falling 25.9 percent, followed by Miami and Phoenix. Only Charlotte, N.C., stayed above water, gaining less than 1 percent over the previous year.

Last week, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said home prices fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter, the largest drop in its 17-year history and only the second quarter of price declines recorded.

The OFHEO index is narrower in scope and is calculated using mortgages of $417,000 or less that are bought or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That excludes properties bought with some of the riskier types of home loans.




Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

Israel has 150 nuclear weapons: Former U.S. president

Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, according to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He made the statement while arguing that the U.S. should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

Carter cited Israel's nuclear arsenal and those of the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France as proof that Iran would find it almost impossible to develop weapons and the missiles to deliver them in secret.

Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, although the world assumes their existence. Nor do U.S. officials deviate in public from Israel's line.

Meantime, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei is slated to release his latest report on Tehran's uranium enrichment activities. The report is expected to be put before the IAEA Board of Governors' members on Monday.

Spending On Iraq Poorly Tracked

Audit Faults Accounting for $15 Billion in Work

Dang, that $15 billion was around here a few minutes ago.
Tom

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008; D01



The inspector general for the Defense Department said yesterday that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $15 billion worth of goods and services ranging from trucks, bottled water and mattresses to rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that were bought from contractors in the Iraq reconstruction effort.

The Pentagon did not have the proper documentation, including receipts, vouchers, signatures, invoices or other paperwork, for $7.8 billion that American and Iraqi contractors were paid for phones, folders, paint, blankets, Nissan trucks, laundry services and other items, according to a 69-page audit released to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

An earlier audit by the inspector general found deficiencies in accounting for $5.2 billion of U.S. payments to buy weapons, trucks, generators and other equipment for Iraq's security forces. In addition, the Defense Department spent $1.8 billion of seized Iraqi assets with "absolutely no accountability," according to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who chairs the oversight committee. The Pentagon also kept poor records on $135 million that it paid to its partners in the multinational military force in Iraq, auditors said.

The Army disagreed with some of the auditors' findings, saying that it is difficult to maintain an adequate paper trail in a war zone and that it has improved its record-keeping and accountability efforts. Robert L. Wilkie, assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, declined an invitation to testify before from Waxman's committee.

Of the $7.8 billion in payments detailed in the audit released yesterday, about $1.4 billion did not meet the most minimal requirements for documentation, making it highly possible that waste, fraud or abuse had occurred, according to auditors. In one case, there is a copy of a $5.6 million check from the U.S. Treasury paid to an Iraqi contractor but no documents saying what was purchased. In another, a South Carolina contractor was paid $11 million, according to a voucher, but auditors said they could not tell what goods or services were received.

"Without a receiving report and invoice, we don't know what we paid for," said Mary Ugone, the Defense Department's deputy inspector general for auditing. She said internal controls and paper trails were inadequate and that the Army's "finance personnel were not adequately trained" in overseeing the billions of dollars paid.

Auditors referred more than two dozen vouchers, totaling $35 million, to criminal investigators at the Pentagon.

Waxman said the poorly documented expenditures of seized Iraqi assets included a $320 million cash payment for employing 1,000 people that was handed over to the Iraqi Finance Ministry with "little more than a signature in exchange."

"Investigators looked at 53 payment vouchers and couldn't find even one that adequately explained where the money went," Waxman said.

The money paid to military coalition partners, including Britain, Poland and South Korea, was intended to help local reconstruction and humanitarian projects. Auditors said that none of the files reviewed "contained sufficient supporting documentation to provide reasonable assurance that these funds were used for their intended purpose." In one case, the Defense Department made an $8 million payment to Polish forces with minimal documentation, according to the audit.

An audit report issued in November found that $5.2 billion of U.S. payments to buy weapons, trucks, generators and other equipment to support Iraqi security forces had major deficiencies in how items were accounted for, saying that the Defense Department did not know "what equipment is due in, due out, issued and on hand." The inspector general found that the Defense Department could not account for 12,712 of 13,508 weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers for Iraqi forces.

"When we turned them over to the Iraqis, they weren't properly accounted for," said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Defense Department's inspector general, saying serial numbers were not consistently recorded. "The paper trail is not complete."

The November audit also described how the Pentagon paid $32 million for the construction of an Iraqi military facility in Anbar province that was never built. Defense Department officials told staff members of the oversight committee that "this is embarrassing" because "not a spade of dirt was turned."