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EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
“Mr. Blitzer asked, “But I don’t understand.
Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?
“Perle: Because he sets out to do damage and
he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion
he can – look, he hasn’t written a serious
piece since Maylie (sic)”. (DS: This may be reference
to the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam that
Hersh reported. He had to use a small news service
to distribute it because most newspapers
refused to print it. ●
THE MEDIA WAR
MIRRORS THE COMING WAR
THE juxtaposition of stories on the front page of
The New York Times captures a fault line in
American politics. On one side of the page, there
is a report on Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace prize
address with his call to avert war. Two columns
to the right, there’s the report that the Bush
Administration will “respond with all of our
options to any use of weapons of mass destruction
aimed at soldiers in the U.S.-organized coalition.”
That sentiment, downplayed for elite readers,
was translated for the masses by Rupert
Murdoch’s New York Post as “We’ll Nuke You.”
The conflict within the American media is mirroring
the larger conflict in the world as opinion
polarizes and positions harden. Anti-war organizers
have placed three full-page ads in The New
York Times to promote support for a multi-lateral
diplomatic solution, not pre-emptive strikes.
Over a hundred Hollywood celebrities have
signed on to one such call. The groups placing
the ads say that paying for pricey ads is the only
way to get heard in a media system filled with
64
programs structured around “showdowns” and
“countdowns” with Iraq. Many say the media is
preparing the public for war. Conservatives challenge
that, saying that President Bush is already
doing what they want, even if the tone of the
administration’s rhetoric seems extreme.
That may be because the U.N. Security Council
seems to be stage managed by the U.S. State
Department. Secretary General Annan, for one,
has just mildly criticized a U.S. decision to control
the distribution to council members of Iraq’s
weapons declaration document and only share it
with fellow big powers. At the same time, one of
the potentially juiciest disclosures in the document
dealing with which nations supplied Iraq
with weapons making material is not being
released – ostensibly because the weapons
inspectors may need the data.
Earlier reports naming names seems to have
disappeared down the media memory hole. For
example, last September’s report in Glasgow’s
Sunday Herald by Neil Mackay and Felicity
Arbuthnot asked, “How did Iraq get its weapons?”
Their answer “ We sold them.” Their conclusion:
“The U.S. and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the
technology and materials Iraq needed to develop
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of
mass destruction.
“Reports by the U.S. Senate’s committee on
banking, housing and urban affairs – which
oversees American exports policy – reveal that
the U.S., under the successive administrations of
Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., sold materials
including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile
fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until
March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis
and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold
included brucella melitensis, which damages