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screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
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major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Iraq's Hidden Weapons: From Allegation to Fact
February 4, 2003
While teams of U.N. experts scouring Iraq have yet to find any hidden
caches of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, some U.S. journalists
seem to have already turned up their own smoking guns. Whether out of
excess zeal or simple carelessness, the media's intensive coverage of the
U.N. inspections has repeatedly glided from reporting the allegation that
Iraq is hiding banned weapons materials to repeating it as a statement of
fact.
"The Bush administration is seeking to derail plans by the chief U.N.
weapons inspector to issue another report," wrote the Washington Post's
Colum Lynch (1/16/03), "fearing it could delay the U.S. timetable for an
early confrontation over Iraq's banned weapons programs."
"Today Mr. Bush left it to his spokesman to answer critics who asked what
precise threat Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction pose to America,"
reported NBC White House correspondent David Gregory (NBC Nightly News,
1/27/03).
Tony Blair, wrote Time's Michael Elliot (2/3/03), has declared that
"Britain's troops will fight alongside their American counterparts if
Washington judges that Saddam Hussein is not making a good-faith effort to
disarm Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
Clearly, however, it has not been demonstrated that Iraq continues to hold
unconventional weapons, such as the chemical munitions it used in its war
against Iran. (Iraq is barred from possessing or developing such weapons
under the ceasefire agreement that ended the 1991 Gulf War.) On the
contrary, the 1999 U.N. report that led to the establishment of UNMOVIC
summarized the state of Iraq's disarmament this way: "Although important
elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons
programmes has been eliminated." (The report was issued by the U.N.
Security Council's disarmament panel, whose members included senior UNSCOM
officials, such as its American deputy executive director, Charles
Duelfer.)
Rolf Ekeus, who led UNSCOM from 1991 to 1997, agrees with that assessment:
"I would say that we felt that in all areas we have eliminated Iraq's
capabilities fundamentally," he told a May 2000 Harvard seminar (AP,
8/16/00), adding that "there are some question marks left."
Iraq's failure to document its answers to those remaining "question marks"
formed the basis of Hans Blix's critical January 27 progress report to the
U.N.
But while Blix said he could not certify that all of the proscribed
materials Iraq once possessed had been destroyed, neither did he find
evidence that any remain. In private, some inspectors do not rule out the
possibility that Iraq truly is free of banned weapons: "We haven't found
an iota of concealed material yet," one unnamed UNMOVIC official told Los
Angeles Times Baghdad correspondent Sergei Loiko (12/31/02), who added:
"The inspector said his colleagues think it possible that Iraq really has
eliminated its banned materials."
Yet some major news outlets seem to have made up their minds to the
contrary. The Bush administration, according to CBS's John Roberts (CBS
Evening News, 12/29/02), is "threatening war against Iraq and its weapons
of mass destruction," while Dan Rather (CBS Evening News, 1/6/03)
announced that "the CIA is being urged to make public more of its
intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
In a piece about how the United States is winning the debate at the U.N.
over Iraq, the New York Times (2/2/03) claimed that "nobody seriously
expected Mr. Hussein to lead inspectors to his stash of illegal poisons or
rockets, or to let his scientists tell all." On January 27, CNN host
Paula Zahn teased the network's upcoming live coverage of the inspectors'
"highly anticipated progress report on the search for Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction."
Through constant repetition of phrases like "the search for Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction," the media convey to the public the impression that
the alleged banned weapons on which the Bush administration rests its case
for war are known to exist and that the question is simply whether
inspectors are skillful enough to find them. In fact, whether or not Iraq
possesses banned weapons is very much an open question, one which no
publicly available evidence can answer one way or the other. As they
routinely do in other cases, journalists should make a habit of using the
modifier "alleged" when referring to Iraq's alleged hidden weapons.
----------
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information, go to: http://www.fair.org/extra/subscribe.html . Or call 1-800-847-3993.
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<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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