The Gulf War: Trimming the Truth

By Parker L. Payson

It takes less than three seconds for a live television broadcast from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to reach the living rooms of most Americans. But the technology that has extended near-instantaneous media coverage to the corners of the globe has done little to expand the breadth of media coverage. Reporters sometimes miss the scoop, even if it's right next door. For example, while ABC "Nightline" anchorman Ted Koppel reported on Jan. 21 that "All is quiet tonight in the Middle East; only one Scud missile landed in Tel Aviv," US-led forces dramatically increased their bombing raids over Kuwait and Iraq, launching some 2,000 missions in 24 hours. The bombing nearly equaled the total number of sorties launched by Allied forces over Dresden, Germany, in 1945.

To Western reporters that night was "quiet" because Israel, the US and its Arab allies suffered no casualties. The antiseptic notion of "surgical strike" bombing, heard repeatedly from military analysts since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, left little room for consideration of Iraqi casualties: "We're targeting the Republican Guards with about 300 sorties a day, " US Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf told reporters on Jan. 30. "We're using very accurate bombing, and, even in bad weather ... we're inflicting continuous damage on them... On Jan. 26, 27 B-52s dropped 455 tons of explosives on the Republican Guards. Yesterday, 21 B-52s dropped 470 tons-excuse me-315 tons of bombs on them, and today 28 B-52s dropped 470 tons on them. That's not to mention the other strikes we're doing with F- 16s, F- 15Es, A-6s, etc. " Schwarzkopf continued with a laundry list of Iraqi targets-tanks, planes, artillery pieces, ammo dumps, bridges and buildings that had been destroyed. Casualty estimates, however, were absent.

The first "full-time" television war, which has provided hours of live military briefings, has been noticeably void of human drama, alternative angles, and any other information gathered outside of the briefing room. Instead, "We have seen a disembodied bloodless war, made real only by the networks' expensive graphics," former White House Communications Director Hodding Carter wrote.

"Rather than roaming the battlefield, zapping back instant, uninhibited reports, journalists have for the most part been transmitting only what governments allow them to gather and transmit, " he added.

Severe press restrictions in Iraq have made it difficult for reporters to provide more than what Saddam Hussain wants the world to see. Similarly, US military restrictions on reporters in Saudi Arabia are stricter than any imposed since World War II or the Korean War. Reports on the Gulf war have to be cleared by US military censors, who also control reporters' access to information.

A language barrier makes it even more difficult to accumulate reliable information. ABC could only "assume" that several of its 19 reporters in the Middle East knew Arabic, and none of the 41 television reporters in the region from CBS, CNN or NBC spoke Arabic at all. The networks' decision to dispatch reporters who do not speak the language "dramatically affects [media] coverage" and "says a lot about our perspective on the crisis and on the region's culture," a CBS News correspondent told the Washington Report.

Filling the Void with Stereotypes

In lieu of valuable information, the media has relied periodically on commentators who do little to bring the Gulf crisis into focus. Rather than hearing from the "natives" themselves, we hear "specialists" discuss things like "the Arab mentality," with cliches like "rising Islamic fundamentalism" and "Islam's penchant for martyrdom."

They're Not Like Us

Descriptions of Arabs as violent and ruthless has made an objective and balanced view of the situation nearly impossible.

According to syndicated columnist and former US ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, who has been a regular commentator on the Gulf war, Saddam invaded Kuwait because he is an Arab, and Arabs have a "deeply rooted habit of violent politics. " Saudis and Kuwaitis are of the same mold, Kirkpatrick argues, although, "at the conclusion of this war, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will presumably have a new appreciation of the importance of peace and of non-violence."

Leon Katzen, writing in the Rochester Gannett Papers, argues that "Peace in the Middle East ... cannot be achieved until the people of the West (including the Israelis) understand the Muslim mind," which, according to Katzen, is manipulated by clerics calling for all Muslims to kill non-Muslims.

Such sweeping generalities, which lump together all 900 million Muslims of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, not to mention Christian Arabs, create a convenient us versus-them attitude.

Americans and others unfamiliar with the Middle East can conclude from these reports that Arabs do not share the ethical values, patriotic sentiments, family attachments, and personal hopes and dreams of Westerners.

The Demonization of Saddam

For many commentators, Saddam Hussain, who epitomized these differences, became an easy target to villainize.

Shortly after Iraq made peace with the antiUS government in Iran, Saddam Hussain began to be viewed in the US press, with some justification, as a "bully" and a "barbarian. " Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Saddam, at least in caricature, had sprouted horns. With the help of columnists such as Charles Krauthammer and William Safire, and later, US President George Bush, Saddam by September had developed into the arch-enemy of all time: Adolf Hitler.

The Iraqi president, unknown to most Americans, had to be associated " instantly [with] someone villainous enough to be dealt with by the most massive concentration of American military power in years, columnist Calvin Trillin explained. "What was Bush supposed to say—that Saddam Hussain was worse than Noriega?"

A Photo's Worth a Thousand Words

Four months before the Spanish-American War, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst reportedly told an illustrator in Cuba who could not find Spanish atrocities, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Following in Hearst's footsteps, the editors of The New Republic magazine furnished their own pictures, by creating a moustache on a photograph of Saddam Hussain for the cover of their Sept. 3 issue.

When challenged by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), New Republic editor Hendrik Hertzberg defended the action as a "joke."

"There wasn't anything subtle about it, a New Republic reporter told the Washington Report. "This is a journal of opinion where we try to cast someone in a positive light or a negative light ... and we've been trying to vilify Saddam since day one, even before he invaded Kuwait."

Marcell Saba, who, as the photographer's agent, claims partial rights to the photograph, told FAIR, "I'll have to talk to my lawyer ... It's something for us to consider if we want to work with people like this. It is very unethical."

According to Saba, though, The New Republic is not alone. "Look what they're doing to [Saddam] in Time and Newsweek. They're making him look green, yellow and red, " he told the Washington Report. "In the last 10 weeks ... you can see 20 different Saddam Hussains."

According to the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, Rep. Lee Hamilton (DIN), such demonization does little to prevent future conflict. The US has a soft spot for villains, he told CNN, "and we can find a lot of villains in the Middle East. We had one a few months ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and we focused all of our attention on getting rid of him, supporting Saddam Hussain in the process. And now the Ayatollah is gone, and we've got another villain to go after."

The only way to bring long-term peace to the region, Hamilton contends, is not to just remove villains, but to take steps to resolve the "underlying problems of the Middle East."

Addressing these problems surely would be easier with a media that offers readers and viewers more than just Hitler moustaches, scorecards, and the party line.

Parker L. Payson is news editor for the Washington Report.