Page 68 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

58 Chapter 3

The division between Tony Blair and George W. Bush's public
pronouncements about the uncertainty of war, and their actual commitment to
war, was significant. Blair's promise that he had made "no decisions" over
invading Iraq and that he had "not got to the stage of military action7'-that "we
have not yet reached the point of decision"-were largely invalidated by his
behind the scenes commitment to war with Iraq, with or without international
legal support. Similarly, the Downing Street Memos reveal that Bush's
statement in early March 2003 that the administration had "not made up" its
mind about military action was also false.2

Downing Street at the Periphery

As with Tony Blair and his senior ministers and advisers, the American mass
media de-emphasized the importance of the memos. The media's coverage, or
more accurately the lack of coverage of the memos, is indicative of the
comfortable relations between the Bush administration and the mainstream
media. Many anti-war critics felt the memos represented a potentially massive
scandal for the Bush administration, although the mass media did not seem to
agree.
The memos were covered in mainstream news reporting, although not
typically on the front pages of major newspapers. This led many critics to attack
the press for downplaying or ignoring the memos because of their potentially
explosive content. The original memo, which was printed on May 1, 2005 in the
Sunday Times of London did not make an appearance in the Chicago Tribune
until May 17, 2005, over two weeks later. At that time, the Chicago Tribune
reported that, "the potentially explosive revelation has proven to be something
of a dud in the United States. The White House has denied the premise of the
memo, [and] the American media have reacted slowly to it."3 The Chicago
Tribune story was important in that it acknowledged that the memos were not
receiving the attention many critics thought they deserved in the mainstream
press. Subsequent attention was to be directed toward the memos, however, after
numerous media activists attacked the press for a lack of coverage.
The New York Times printed a story addressing the original memo on May
2, 2005 titled, "For Blair, Iraq Issue Just Won't Go Away-Integrity and
Credibility Questions Arise as British Voting Nears." This article, printed on
page A9, did mention the memo, but failed to even provide its name. The
memo's first reference, which appeared in the 10th paragraph, stated that it was
a document "recording a meeting. . . in which [Blair] seemed to swing behind
American arguments for 'regime change."' The contents of the memo included
an admission from former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who "described
the case for war as 'thin, "' because Saddam Hussein represented less of a threat
"than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran." Later the article stated that Blair
denied "that Britain had committed itself irrevocably to war by July 2002," as it
failed to hammer home the fact that the memos seemed to indicate the opposite.4