Page 73 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Weapons of Mass Diversion 63

After months of continuous political pressure from the U.S., a Security
Council resolution was passed to implement a new weapons inspection program
in Iraq. On November 25,2002, the U.N. weapons inspection team led by Hans
Blix entered Iraq to search for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. After
weapons inspectors entered and found no evidence of WMD, the Bush
administration continued to argue that Iraq posed a threat, and that the failure to
find weapons was an indication that saddam Hussein was effective in deceiving
the inspectors. At the time of the invasion, establishment media sources were
still reporting claims that Iraq posed a national security threat to the U.S.,
despite the failure to find any weapons.
In the 2003 State of the Union Address, the Iraqi "threat" became more
perilous as the President testified based on intelligence from Britain's MI6 that
Iraq had sought to purchase "significant quantities of uranium from ~frica."~~
The uranium charge was compounded with the Iraqi government's alleged
attempt to purchase aluminum tubes for use in developing the enriched uranium
needed for nuclear weapons.27 Allied forces found no traces of any reconstituted
nuclear weapons before or after the invasion, and no indication of an
Iraqi long-range ballistic program. The International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), along with numerous British and American newspapers exposed the
Niger-uranium charges as fraudulent soon after its declaration. Most newspapers
described the Niger documents as forgeries, signed by a minister that had been
out of ofice for over ten years. The most ostensible of the forgeries was the
second dossier supplied by MI6 British Intelligence, which was based off of a
twelve year-old PhD thesis.''
Continuing to question the claims that Iraq possessed WMD, Hans Blix
reported (in February 2003) to the U.N. Security Council: "Since we amved in
Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300
sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost
always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the
Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming." Regarding Iraq's
supposed possession of WMD, Blix stated that, "UNMOVIC [United Nations
Monitorin , Verification and Inspection Commission] had not found any such
2F
weapons.
The President and mass media characterizations of Iraq as a security threat
to the U.S were questioned by a number of critics throughout the
press who felt that the plan to attack Iraq was motivated by reasons other than
the threat of WMD. In an interview in December of 2002, media critic and
scholar Noam Chomsky argued that the administration was hlly aware that Iraq
had disarmed and did not pose a threat. This, according to Chomsky, was the
main reason why the administration chose to target Iraq: "It was known in
advance that Iraq was virtually defenseless"; the Bush administration, Chomsky
argued, was "desperately eager to win an easy victory over a defenseless enemy,
so they can strut around as heroes and liberators, to the rousing cheers of the
educated classes."30 This view, while reflected in the independent media, was
absent from mainstream reporting before the war, as reporters and editors