With the sequel to their 2003 book Weapons of Mass Deception, Rampton and Stauber have continued to expose the US government propaganda about the war/occupation of Iraq. Equally important, this book also looks at how the major media in the US failed to seriously investigate the claims made by government officials, but at times played a significant role in perpetuating the propaganda thrust upon the American Public.
Beginning with the now acknowledged military staged operation to bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein in April of 2003 (a US Army Assessment Report), the authors follow the evolving statements from the Bush White House as the deception began to unravel. The US military even acknowledges that the propaganda used abroad will eventually reach the US public. Rampton & Stauber cite a 2003 Defense Department report entitled Information Operations Roadmap that says "information intended for foreign audiences, including public policy diplomacy and psychological operations, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audiences and vice-versa. PSYOP messages disseminated to any audience....will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public." The DOD report goes on to say "actions to convey and (or) deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover, and deception, and psyops." It is within the doctrinal approach the embedded reports became the norm, but many more techniques were employed.
The Pentagon continues to use private PR firms to not only attempt to "improve" its image abroad, but also to work the domestic front. In 2004 the Lincoln Group was awarded a $5.4 million dollar contract to do perception management. It was discovered in 2005 that part of the PR plan was to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by US troops and even starting a US Army newspaper called Baghdad Now.
The bulk of the book however, is devoted to a methodical assessment of the US justifications for going to war in Iraq and the media response. It is quite amazing how much the major news outlets in the country failed to critique the government on claims about WMDs. One example after Colin Powell gave his speech at the UN in February of 2003, the New York Times editorial said "a sobering factual case," and a separate new article described it as "a nearly encyclopedic catalog that reached further than many had expected." The Los Angeles Times referred to the speech as "solid evidence." The list of claims made by Powell were never even checked in the US until four months later by US News & World Report. Rampton and Stauber also look at the Plame case and the role of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who perhaps more than any other US reporter, embraced the propagandist role.
As the war/occupation continued and the Bush administration could no longer stand behind the WMD position, they began to craft new messages that again the major media has failed to challenge. The author identify three main arguments for maintaining the occupation: "We were wrong, but so was everybody else"; "We can't leave now, or the terrorists will win"; and "If we leave now, all the lives and money we've spent will have been wasted." These positions have been repeated over and over by the administration and the news media continues to buy it. In fact, these statements have even been adopted by the general public and mainstream peace groups.
The last two chapters of the book deal with the issue of body counts and what the authors call a "mirage of victory." The body count issues is looked at on two fronts, the number of US troop deaths and Iraqi civilian deaths. The issue of troop deaths first "became news" after a couple who worked for a private cargo company took photos of US soldier coffins and sent them to the Seattle Times. The couple lost their jobs, but it led to Russ Kick starting a website that gathered US government documents relating to the war called The Memory Hole.
The mirage of victory chapter has some samples from a variety of Iraqi bloggers that represent a wide range of perspectives, but even those that began as pro-invasion have now begun to condemn the occupation. All in all, The Best War Ever is an important read into the use of government propaganda and lapdog role that the US media plays. Further evidence that a truly independent media is vital for the future.
Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq, (Penguin Books, 2006)
