Page 217 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

and reporting what they liked. Consequently, George Bush’s first
military crisis as president, the invasion of Panama, was characterised
by the same approach to information management.
When US troops entered Panama in search of the fugitive dictator
Manuel Noriega, they too were free of the constraining influence of
the independent media. Martha Gellhorn’s account of the events in
Panama reveals the extent of civilian casualties in the effort to
apprehend Noriega, and suggests that many of them were unnecessary
(1990). At the time, American and international public opinion was
simply not told of these facts, and encouraged to believe that the
operation had been relatively bloodless. When the true nature of the
invasion began to emerge, media and public attention had moved on
to other matters.
Like the Falklands War for Britain, the invasions of Grenada
and Panama were, from the US military’s point of view, relatively
minor conflicts. Although important events in shaping the fortunes
of domestic political actors (hence the attention devoted by the
authorities to media management) they were in no sense wars of
national survival. The Gulf War of 1990–1, on the other hand,
while still far short of ‘total war’, was a major conflict, involving
several countries, hundreds of thousands of troops, and some of
the largest military manoeuvres in history. Its pursuit and outcome
were matters of intense international concern, with consequences
for the global economy and the delicate balance of power existing
in the Middle East. The decline and changed ideological nature of
the Soviet Union meant that the Gulf conflict was unlikely ever to
have become a ‘world war’ as that term is commonly understood,
but there is no doubt that it represented an extremely dangerous
moment for the Middle East, and the international community as a
whole.
The major protagonists in the conflict—the United States, Britain,
Iraq, and Kuwait—all pursued vigorous media management
campaigns. For Britain and the US, military public relations policy
was strongly influenced by the experiences of the smaller 1980s
conflicts discussed above. This resulted in a policy of minimising
journalistic access to the fighting, while maximising official control
of those images which did emerge.
The objectives of the policy were, firstly, military, in so far as ‘the
news media can be a useful tool, or even a weapon, in prosecuting a
war psychologically, so that the operators don’t have to use their
more severe weapons’ (Arthur Humphries, quoted in Macarthur,
1992, p.145). They were also political, in that the populations of the

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