Selling the War on Iraq (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

This came my way and I think it is worth passing on to encourage critical
thinking - which is my responsibility as an educator whatever our opinions
on these highly charged matters).

*****************************
Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 19 Sep 2002 16:45:49 -0000
From: "Wes Boyd, MoveOn.org" <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
To: Clement Henry <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>
Subject: Selling the War on Iraq

SELLING THE WAR ON IRAQ

MoveOn Bulletin
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Edited by Susan Thompson (susan.thompson@moveon.org)

Subscribe online at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/


CONTENTS
--------
1.  Introduction: Buyer Beware
2.  One Link: Fighting Marketing With Facts
3.  The Marketing Campaign at Home and Abroad
4.  Lessons in PR from Previous Wars
5.  An Ongoing War That is Already Escalating
6.  The Costs of Regime-Change
7.  About the MoveOn bulletin and MoveOn.org


INTRODUCTION: BUYER BEWARE
---------------------------
The Bush administration is doing its best to sell the US and the
world on a new attack on Iraq. The promise is that this time, the
US will do what it couldn't or wouldn't the first time around, and
go all the way to Baghdad to take out Saddam Hussein himself.

The reasons for a new attack on Iraq have been presented in a
series of press-friendly promotional moments that have been long
on promises and short on facts. Timing has been a critical factor
-- it is no coincidence, for example, that the climax of the push
has come immediately after the anniversary of Sept. 11, despite
the fact that there is still no proven link between Iraq and the
terrorist attacks of last year.

Given the big-business origins of most of the Bush Administration,
it should come as no surprise that a new attack on Iraq is being
promoted much like toothpaste or a soft drink. The Bush
administration is planning on launching a $200 million dollar PR
blitz this week that will be aimed at convincing US and
international audiences to support a US-led attack on Iraq. The
campaign will be overseen by the Office of Global Communications,
and will "use advertising techniques to persuade crucial target
groups that the Iraqi leader must be ousted" (see link in section
1 below).

The problem with marketing campaigns is that they're not about
facts -- advertising usually centers around an emotional pitch
that can have little to do with the product itself. But given the
gravity of the situation, it's critical that we read the fine
print. After all, even though many people in the world will agree
that Saddam Hussein is a fearsome and despotic leader, there is
still slim evidence the explains why he is suddenly so much more
of a threat now than before. And the Bush Administration has
offered little solid evidence indicating a clear and present
danger to the US or the west.

A war on Iraq is not inevitable and, right now, there's no
evidence that it's necessary. It's time to cut through the
marketing and ask the President some hard questions about what the
real costs and aims of this war are. After all, if we buy Bush's
rhetoric, we're going to be stuck with the bill.


ONE LINK: FIGHTING MARKETING WITH FACTS
----------------------------------------
The US campaign to launch a major attack on Saddam Hussein has
been based on a few common justifications. These include:
* Saddam is a terrorist.
* Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
* Saddam poses a threat to his neighbors.
* Saddam is in breach of several UN resolutions.
But each of these common arguments can be persuasively rebutted,
and this article does just that. As its author notes, "It is
when the warrior class reaches this intemperate, logic-shredding
point in its discourse that those opposed to the war know they
can win." In other words, marketing can be overcome with facts,
and those facts are provided here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,770431,00.html


THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN AT HOME AND ABROAD
------------------------------------------
The prelude to the current aggressive marketing campaign on the
Iraq issue began almost immediately after the attacks on Sept. 11.
In this short timeline, the Guardian chronicles the strategic
positioning on Iraq that occurred between Sept. 14, 2001 and July
29 of this year, including a number of apparently baseless
insinuations that Iraq had something to do with the WTC attacks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,765552,00.html

The key issue upon which the entire Iraq campaign seems to hinge
is weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration insists
that either Hussein has them, or that he could create them quickly
enough to be a threat. But former weapons inspector Scott Ritter
makes the case that Iraq does not actually possess any weapons of
mass destruction. He explains his position in this article.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0721-02.htm

Despite his first-hand experience and military service fighting
Iraq, Ritter has been demonized in the US press. Meanwhile, as the
author of this article sardonically notes, "the Bush bunch,
including wife Laura, Powell, vice-president Dick Cheney, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security adviser Condoleeza
Rice, [have been] promoting an attack on Iraq as if they were
actors flogging their latest project on Leno and Letterman."
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=139

As Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan point out, although the
mainstream debate about Iraq is framed as a debate between hawks
and doves, it is in fact a debate between hawks and ultra-hawks.
Even those opposed to all-out regime change still support
"containment," which means continuing the punishing sanctions and
air strikes that have been ongoing for the past 11 years.
http://commondreams.org/views02/0830-04.htm

Bush's speech on Sept. 11 was a carefully orchestrated PR stunt,
engineered to help officially launch a campaign against Iraq. The
location was chosen for maximum visual impact. Nor could there
have been a better day than the anniversary of Sept. 11 to make a
public statement on Iraq.
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=140

Psychic and political numbing may be another important method that
the Bush administration has used to manufacture consent among the
American people, both for the war on terrorism and the impending
war on Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0812-03.htm

Many members of the international community have thus far been
unsupportive of the idea of a new war on Iraq. As this article
notes, it will be a "tough sell" to the rest of the world, because
such an attack has little to do with the war on terrorism, because
it is a preemptive attack, and because of a sense that the US
would be acting unilaterally. Still, that's not to say that the
international community can't be convinced to support the attack:
"In fact it would be relatively easy [for Washington] to make the
case and line up the necessary political support, though maybe not
military support, for a strike against the Iraqi regime," says
Klaus Becher, a transatlantic expert at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But the key is to use
the Security Council."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0905/p01s02-uspo.html

And President Bush has in fact presented his case at the UN,
asking for a security council resolution on Iraq, on the very
strategic date of Sept. 12. After his speech at the UN, he was
immediately praised for his new-found multilateralism. His
conversion to multilateralism may be superficial -- meant only to
get the international support that has been lacking -- but it's
still working.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14121

Weapons inspections are the cornerstone of Bush's new
"multilateral" approach. However, the mainstream media has
conveniently forgotten that weapons inspections were originally
discredited because it turned out the the US was using them to spy
on Iraq.
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=141

Since Bush's UN speech, the Secretary General of the UN has
announced that Iraq has sent the UN a letter agreeing to comply
with weapons inspections. Despite this, the US is pressing ahead
with trying to get a security council resolution against Iraq.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14123

In order to garner more support, the Bush administration is
planning a multimillion dollar PR blitz -- paid for by taxpayers
-- about Iraq. It will be aimed at US and international audiences
and will be launched this week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-418110,00.html


LESSONS IN PR FROM PREVIOUS WARS
---------------------------------
There are many historical reasons to be suspicious of the current
marketing campaign. In the past, the US government has used some
very flimsy evidence as justification for war. In fact, in a few
notorious cases this evidence has turned out to be completely
manufactured -- pure PR, meant to garner support.

Perhaps the most well-known example of this involves the first
Gulf War. At the time, it was widely publicized that Iraqi
soldiers had taken Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and left them
to die. A young woman testified that she had seen it happen. Many
members of the government specifically cited this story when
making speeches in support of the Gulf War. The only problem: it
wasn't true. The young woman was the daughter of an ambassador,
and the whole story had been created by a public relations firm.

This excellent article traces the genesis and collapse of the
story, and its probable impact on the first Gulf War.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0906-01.htm

Another major justification for the original Gulf War which was
later disproved was the supposed massive buildup of Iraqi troops
along the border of Saudi Arabia. The evidence for this buildup
was allegedly provided by top secret satellite photos. However,
commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area showed only
empty desert. Experts familiar with this incident and with the
baby incubator story are concerned that similar disinformation
could be used to justify another attack on Iraq.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html?t5

Interestingly, President Bush and Tony Blair both referred to a
set of satellite photos that allegedly showed construction on
nuclear sites at a meeting between the two leaders on September 7.
Bush also referred to a report by weapons inspectors in 1998 that
said that Iraq was six months away from developing nuclear
weapons, saying, "I don't know what more evidence we need." The
President then went on to note that "he would try to convince the
American public of the importance of pursuing Iraq by recalling
the Sept. 11 attacks."

However, the satellite photos that Blair and Bush were referring
to don't necessarily show construction related to a new weapons
program, and even the UN inspectors who raised concerns about them
made it clear that "We can't draw any conclusions from a new
building or a new road."
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=142

In response to a report by Robert Windrem of NBC, the White House
issued a retraction of the erroneous conclusions Bush drew from
both the satellite photos and the UN report, which it turned out
did not actually state that Hussein was six months away from
developing weapons -- rather, he was six to twenty-four months
away from developing weapons before the first Gulf War and the
subsequent weapons inspections.
http://truthout.com/docs_02/09.10B.msnbc.iraq.htm

What other compelling evidence is there that Iraq has the
capability to build nuclear weapons? Aluminum tubes. "The
administration says Iraq has tried several times to buy aluminum
tubes for use in centrifuge equipment to make bomb-grade uranium.
While the attempts were thwarted, the specialists note that such
materials have other uses." This and the other vague and erroneous
examples of "evidence" of Iraq's danger to the world are causing
experts and officials to ask for more specific evidence before
launching a preemptive strike.
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=143

Perhaps one of the most suspicious recent examples of journalism
related to Iraq involves the recent interviews given by a woman
who claims to be Saddam's former mistress. ABC reported on the
woman's claims that Hussein loves Frank Sinatra music and that he
met with bin Laden in the late 80's. Many other news agencies and
popular programs, including Entertainment Tonight (which placed
her in a section on celebrities), have featured her story.
http://www.salon.com/people/wire/2002/09/10/mistress/


AN ONGOING WAR THAT IS ALREADY ESCALATING
------------------------------------------
The most basic assumption repeated again and again in the media is
that an attack on Iraq would be a "new" war, a war that has not
yet started. But billing an attack on Iraq in this way is more
marketing than truth.

For one thing, in many ways the original Gulf War has never ended.
The devastating sanctions that have deprived the Iraqi civilian
population of essential items such as food continue to this day.
It is estimated that over a million people have died due to the
sanctions, roughly half of them children. The ultimate goal of the
sanctions was to weaken the Iraqi regime, but after over a decade,
it is his people who are weakened the most. When questioned about
the human cost of these sanctions, and specifically the death of a
half million children, Madeleine Albright said in a now infamous
television interview: "It’s a hard choice, but I think, we think,
it’s worth it."

This well-referenced article by Voices in the Wilderness exposes
the top lies and misunderstandings about sanctions.
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/mythsand%20realities3.html

This article calls the sanctions against Iraq the "Silent
Hiroshima".
http://www.commondreams.org/views/080600-105.htm

Along with the sanctions, air strikes have also been mounted
regularly in Iraq for years. Most of these have occurred in the
"no-fly zones" that were set up after the first Gulf War, but in
practice what this means is that the US military has never stopped
bombing Iraq. They've just stopped bombing in certain parts of it.
(For more on the continued bombing, see the bulletins on "The US
vs Iraq" at http://www.peace.moveon.org/bulletin8.php3 and "The
Gulf War Revisited" at
http://www.peace.moveon.org/bulletin42.php3.)

The Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace maintains a site that
lists every incident of US bombing of Iraq. There are over twenty
entries for this year alone. This page is highly recommended --
it's an eye opener.
http://www.ccmep.org/us_bombing_watch.html

Perhaps the most well-known example of the periodic attacks on
Iraq is Desert Fox, the code name for a series of US air strikes
on Iraq which occurred while President Clinton was caught up in
the Lewinsky scandal.
http://www.leyden.com/gulfwar/unscom.html

President Bush is not waiting for the approval of the US Congress
or American citizens before involving the US military in the
region. Even without the formal declaration of war, the US is
escalating the conflict with Hussein.

The Guardian reports a slow but significant build-up in the
region, which this article terms, "a series of low-key moves on
the Gulf chessboard designed to put all the pieces in place for a
rapid US assault should the UN route now being pursued by
Washington fail." According to this article there are 30,000
troops in the region, and based on this deployment, it is
estimated that "It would take 10 days to bring in the additional
equipment, 10 days to airlift the troops and 10 days to get to
Baghdad." Perhaps the most significant fact here is that the US
central command will move its headquarters to Qatar in November,
"perhaps indefinitely." It seems that members of the
administration are counting on a war, even though the issue has
not technically been decided.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,791384,00.html

Other reports indicate an even more aggressive approach to the
conflict. The Asia Times lists over 50,000 more troops that have
been moved to the region since the beginning of the year. That
means that somewhere around 100,000 troops are already posted in
and around Iraq. And at least according to this article, they are
already engaged in actions along the lines of those provided in
Bush's presidential speech on ousting Saddam Hussein. In other
words, by some reports, the war on Iraq has already begun in all
but name.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH17Ak03.html

Meanwhile, there are also indications that the air war against
Iraq is escalating. On September 5, over 100 jets reportedly took
part in a large bombing raid on Iraq, the largest in four years.
Both British and American jets took part in the raid, which seemed
designed to "destroy air defenses to allow easy access for special
forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to
hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few
months."
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=144

So not only is the Bush administration trying to make the war
appear inevitable through rhetoric, it is making it inevitable in
reality by quietly but steadily moving resources to the region and
escalating the attack. This despite the fact that debate continues
to rage about the issue at home and abroad.


THE COSTS OF REGIME-CHANGE
---------------------------
A discussion of how the Bush administration is selling war on Iraq
to the US public wouldn't be complete without a quick rundown of
the possible costs.

The President's economic advisor has said that a war with Iraq
would be good for the economy, and would drive down oil prices.
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=145

However, he also estimates that a new attack on Iraq will cost a
whopping $200 billion, which would only add to the budget deficit
that the Bush administration has incurred due to the economic
slowdown and the astronomical costs of the war on Afghanistan.
Other experts also worry that the last four recessions came after
oil prices jumped, which could conceivably happen again if Iraqi
oil is removed from the market or other oil supplies are
interrupted.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/808595.asp

Oil is, of course, a major factor in the coming war. According to
the Washington Post, "The importance of Iraq's oil has made it
potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips
in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and
Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international
action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security
Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China --
have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of
leadership in Baghdad." In other words, while regular people will
probably have to foot the bill for an attack on Iraq, anyone with
ties to the oil companies ( Bush and Cheney for example) will
probably profit immensely.
http://www.peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=146


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