[pjnews] Dazzled by the Pinstripes: Powell at the United Nations
Dazzled by the Pinstripes: Powell at the United Nations By Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung February 10, 2003 There was no Adlai Stevenson confrontation. There was no smoking gun revelation. Secretary of State Colin Powell's performance before the United Nations was more of a pinstripe performance. In the movie Catch Me if You Can, grifter Frank Abagnale asks, why do the Yankees always win? Its not because they have Mickey Mantle like everyone thinks, but because people can't take their eyes off the pinstripes. Powell's presentation, complete with satellite images, enlarged photographs and audiotapes, and delivered with his trademark self-assurance, was a perfect pinstripe performance. He looked and sounded so confident and credible that questioning or contradicting him was almost not an option. And it would be hard to refute much of what he presented. Most of it is not new- like the assertion that Saddam Hussein is a dictatorial human rights abuser who used chemical weapons in the 1980s. Some of it sounds credible -- like the notion that Saddam Hussein would try to elude inspectors. Other elements of Powell's brief were less persuasive, like his efforts to prove a definitive link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda or his claims about mobile Iraqi bioweapons laboratories Despite the substantive limitations of Powell's case, he clearly won wide acclaim due to the forcefulness with which he made his case. Scores of editorialists, columnists, and TV commentators have embraced Powell's statement as the last word on why the United States must go to war with Iraq. Even Mary McGrory, the veteran liberal columnist at the Washington Post, was moved to write a column entitled I'm Persuaded. But try not to get distracted by the pinstripes. The central questions, despite what Powell presented, are the same as they has always been. Is Iraq an imminent threat to the United States or its allies? And will military action against him eliminate or inflame that threat? To answer this question one need look no further than the Central Intelligence Agency, which says that Saddam Hussein is not a threat, and will not become one unless he is attacked. In an October 7th letter to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) CIA director George Tenet wrote, Baghdad for now appears to be drawing the line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW (chemical and biological weapons) against the United States. Tenet continues with the big butÂ… Should Saddam conclude that a U.S. led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions. A threatened and cornered Saddam Hussein could even take the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack against the United States. But only if he is attacked. A well-documented new report by the Fourth Freedom Forum concludes that despite Secretary of State Powell's histrionics, independently verifiable evidence is lacking on the most essential security concerns - Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, and its [alleged] operational links to Al Qaeda. The report notes that Powell's allegations regarding mobile biological weapons labs were based entirely on the testimony of prisoners and defectors, while UN weapons inspectors and experts on biological weapons continue to question the existence and even the practicality of such mobile facilities. As former CIA official Vincent Cannistraro has noted, Iraqi defectors are notoriously unreliable, and their main motivation is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear. If Iraq is hiding chemical and biological weapons; Saddam Hussein may be hiding his country's relative weakness, not its growing military strength. According to a 1999 UN experts panel report, the inspections of the 1990s eliminated the bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons programs. Former chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq Rolf Ekeus has suggested that the task for current inspectors involves tracking down the pathetic remnants of what Iraq had in 1998. Continued inspections and monitoring will be more than adequate to contain Saddam Hussein's regime and eliminate his ability to use chemical or biological weapons against his own people or other nations. And inspections won't cost $100 to $200 billion or result in thousands of casualties, as a war is likely to do. The Bush administration should help the inspectors finish their work, not pull the rug out from under them by launching an ill-advised military intervention. War should be the tool of last resort. That used to be Colin Powell's position. He had it right the first time around. Links: Contested Case: Do the Facts Justify the Case for War in Iraq? Fourth Freedom Forum, February 2003. http://www.fourthfreedom.org/php/t-si-index.php?hinc=dossier_report.hinc Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World
[pjnews] Media's Failure of Skepticism in Powell Coverage
Fairness Accuracy In Reporting Media analysis, critiques and activism MEDIA ADVISORY: A Failure of Skepticism in Powell Coverage Disproof of previous claims underlines need for scrutiny February 10, 2003 In reporting on Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5 presentation to the United Nations Security Council, many journalists treated allegations made by Powell as though they were facts. Reporters at several major outlets neglected to observe the journalistic rule of prefacing unverified assertions with words like claimed or alleged. This is of particular concern given that over the last several months, many Bush administration claims about alleged Iraqi weapons facilities have failed to hold up to inspection. In many cases, the failed claims-- like Powell's claims at the U.N.-- have cited U.S. and British intelligence sources and have included satellite photos as evidence. --- In its report on Powell's presentation, the New York Daily News (2/6/03) accepted his evidence at face value: To buttress his arguments, Powell showed satellite photos of Iraqi weapons sites and played several audiotapes intercepted by U.S. electronic eavesdroppers. The most dramatic featured an Iraqi Army colonel in the 2nd Republican Guards Corps ordering a captain to sanitize communications. The Daily News gave no indication that it had independent confirmation that the photos were indeed of weapons sites, or that individuals on the tapes were in fact who Powell said they were. In Andrea Mitchell's report on NBC Nightly News (2/5/03), Powell's allegations became actual capabilities of the Iraqi military: Powell played a tape of a Mirage jet retrofitted to spray simulated anthrax, and a model of Iraq's unmanned drones, capable of spraying chemical or germ weapons within a radius of at least 550 miles. Dan Rather, introducing an interview with Powell (60 Minutes II, 2/5/03), shifted from reporting allegations to describing allegations as facts: Holding a vial of anthrax-like powder, Powell said Saddam might have tens of thousands of liters of anthrax. He showed how Iraqi jets could spray that anthrax and how mobile laboratories are being used to concoct new weapons. The anthrax supply is appropriately attributed as a claim by Powell, but the mobile laboratories were something that Powell showed to be actually operating. Commentator William Schneider on CNN Live Today (2/6/03) dismissed the possibility that Powell could be doubted: No one disputes the findings Powell presented at the U.N. that Iraq is essentially guilty of failing to disarm. When CNN's Paula Zahn (2/5/03) interviewed Jamie Rubin, former State Department spokesperson, she prefaced a discussion of Iraq's response to Powell's speech thusly: You've got to understand that most Americans watching this were either probably laughing out loud or got sick to their stomach. Which was it for you? -- Journalists should always be wary of implying unquestioning faith in official assertions; recent history is full of official claims based on satellite and other intelligence data that later turned out to be false or dubious. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first Bush administration rallied support for sending troops to Saudi Arabia by asserting that classified satellite photos showed the Iraqi army mobilizing on the Saudi border. This claim was later discredited when the St. Petersburg Times obtained commercial satellite photos showing no such build-up (Second Front, John R. MacArthur). The Clinton administration justified a cruise missile attack on the Sudan by saying that intelligence showed that the target was a chemical weapons factory; later investigation showed it to be a pharmaceutical factory (London Independent, 5/4/99). In the present instance, journalists have a responsibility to put U.S. intelligence claims in context by pointing out that a number of allegations recently made by the current administration have already been debunked. Among them: * Following a CIA warning in October that commercial satellite photos showed Iraq was reconstituting its clandestine nuclear weapons program at Al Tuwaitha, a former nuclear weapons complex, George W. Bush told a Cincinnati audience on October 7 (New York Times, 10/8/02): Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of his nuclear program in the past. When inspectors returned to Iraq, however, they visited the Al Tuwaitha site and found no evidence to support Bush's claim. Since December 4 inspectors from [Mohamed] ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have scrutinized that vast complex almost a dozen times, and reported no violations, according to an Associated Press report (1/18/03). * In September and October U.S. officials charged that conclusive evidence existed that Iraq was preparing to resume manufacturing banned ballistic missiles at several sites. In one such report the CIA said the only plausible explanation for a
