Reporting Iraq - problems and solutions

The invasion and since

Reporting the World gatherings before and after the invasion of Iraq concentrated on discussing how journalists could best carry out their public service role - summed up in the BBC’s War Guidelines, issued to its news staff in January 2003: 

‘We must allow the arguments to be heard and tested’. 

Were they? What were the arguments for war? Take five:

1. The crisis - later, the war is really ‘about’ Iraq’s WMD 
2. These represent an authentic and current threat to both regional and world security
3. The only way to rid the world of this threat is regime change
4. Regime change is also the only way to improve humanitarian situation in Iraq
5. The only way to bring about regime change is war

Before the war, proposition number three was fairly exhaustively tested, in the sense of being juxtaposed with, and measured against, an alternative - the ‘coalition of the unwilling’ at the UN with their call for the inspection process to be given more time. 

Journalists at RtW discussions after the invasion were concerned mainly about the second on this list, as it turned out that Iraq had no weapons after all. They regretted not scrutinising it more closely before the invasion. Numbers 1, 4 and 5 remained largely untested - not a good record overall. 

Read the edited transcript of Reporting the World discussion, Reporting Iraq - what went right? What went wrong?

Coverage would have been much improved had more media heeded RtW’s call, originally made at Iraq - Broadening the Agenda, in February 2003, for the net to be cast much wider, in search of sources for countervailing propositions to test these arguments.

Read the transcript of Reporting the World discussion, Iraq - Broadening the Agenda 

There was plenty of evidence that the war could be much better understood as being, in the words of a magazine cartoon shown at that event, ‘all about oil’ - not, or only partly, about WMD. 



(Observer magazine, February 16, 2003)

There were plenty of authoritative analyses of the known evidence on Iraq’s weapons to suggest there couldn’t possibly be a threat - available at the time, but ignored, or only briefly mentioned, by most media. 

It was this shortcoming, essentially, for which the New York Times later apologised.

And plenty of suggestions were circulating for ways of bringing about ‘regime change’ without war and fostering a transition to democracy - drawing on the lessons of successful precedents in India, South Africa and eastern Europe. 

The original discussion

The 2001 RtW discussion on coverage of Iraq took place when, we now know, certain highly-placed members of the newly appointed Bush Administration were already plotting to overthrow Saddam Hussein by force; the attacks of ‘9/11’, some months afterwards, gave a pretext. 

Read the illustrated transcript  

At the time, journalists were preoccupied with the mismatch between the importance of what was happening in the country - the continuing, indeed, apparently intensifying bombardment by US and British planes, and the deadly effect of sanctions - and the sporadic and inadequate coverage reaching readers and audiences. 

Many commented on the intensive propaganda strategies in play, to cloud the issue of civilian casualties - something others later complained about in reflecting on coverage of the invasion and occupation phases, as well.