2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage

The 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

involved unprecedented media coverage. The coverage itself became a source of controversy, as media outlets were accused of bias, reporters were casualties of both Iraqi and American gunfire, and claims of censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

and propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

became widespread.

U.S. mainstream media coverage

The most popular cable network in the United States for news on the war was Fox News, some of whose commentators and anchors made pro-war comments or disparaged detractors of the war, such as calling them "the great unwashed". Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

, a strong supporter of the war. On-screen during all live war coverage by Fox News was a waving flag animation in the upper left corner and the headline "Operation Iraqi Freedom" along the bottom. The network has shown the American flag animation in the upper-left corner since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Fox News' pro-war commentary stood in contrast to many U.S. newspapers' editorial pages, which were much more hesitant about going to war.

Anti-war celebrities appearing frequently on news networks included actors Tim Robbins

Tim Robbins

Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...

, Mike Farrell

Mike Farrell

Michael Joseph "Mike" Farrell is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the television series M*A*S*H . He is an activist for politically liberal causes....

, Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...

, Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen

Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...

, Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...

and director Michael Moore

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

. Most of these celebrities were able to make anti-war comments in the media and receive little public criticism. However, in a widely publicized story, the country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

band Dixie Chicks

Dixie Chicks

The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...

ignited boycotts and record burnings in the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

for their negative remarks about President Bush in a concert in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

also brought the American flag back on screen and regularly ran a tribute called "America's Bravest" which showed photographs sent by family members of troops deployed in Iraq. MSNBC also fired liberal Phil Donahue

Phil Donahue

Phillip John "Phil" Donahue is an American media personality, writer, and film producer best known as the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, also known as Donahue, was the first to use a talk show format. The show had a 26-year run on U.S...

, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy, a month before the invasion began and replaced his show with Iraq war coverage hosted by Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann

Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...

. Shortly after Donahue's firing, MSNBC hired Michael Savage

Michael Savage (commentator)

Michael Savage is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network...

, a controversial conservative radio talk show host for a Saturday afternoon show. Although Donahue's show had lower ratings than several shows on other networks, and most reports on its cancellation blamed poor ratings, it was the highest-rated program on MSNBC's struggling primetime lineup at the time of its cancellation. During February "sweeps", Donahue's show averaged 446,000 viewers, compared to rival Connie Chung

Connie Chung

Connie Chung, full name: Constance Yu-Hwa Chung Povich is an American journalist who has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S...

's 985,000 on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

and Bill O'Reilly's

Bill O'Reilly (commentator)

William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...

2.7 million on Fox News, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Comparing viewership from prewar to post war, MSNBC saw a 357% jump in ratings, while CNN went up 305%, and Fox News climbed 239%, according to Nielsen numbers. In overall numbers, Fox News was number one, followed by CNN, and then MSNBC. It was a major success for Fox News, as many had believed CNN would reclaim the top spot, since it established itself with coverage from the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

In separate incidents, at least three different Western reporters were fired or disciplined due to their actions in covering the war. Peter Arnett

Peter Arnett

Peter Gregg Arnett, ONZM is a New Zealand-American journalist.Arnett worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably CNN. He is well known for his coverage of war, including the Vietnam War and the Gulf War...

, an NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

and National Geographic correspondent, was fired for giving an interview with Iraqi officials in which he questioned the United States' role and saying the "first war plan had failed." Brian Walski

Brian Walski

Brian Walski is a professional photographer who was accused in 2003 of altering a news photograph, which he later admitted to. Until the incident, he was a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times...

of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

was fired on March 31 for altering a photo of a U.S. soldier warning Iraqi civilians to take cover from an Iraqi aerial bombing. Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...

left Iraq after drawing a crude map in the sand during a live broadcast on Fox News, which raised concerns at the Pentagon that he was possibly revealing vital troop movements on air.

One study has compared the number of insurgent attacks in Iraq to the number of "anti-resolve" statements in the US media, the release of public opinion polls, and geographic variations in access to international media by Iraqis. The purpose was to determine if insurgents responded to information on "casualty sensitivity." The researchers found that insurgent attacks spiked by 5 to 10% after increases in the number of negative reports of the war in the media. The authors identified this as an "emboldenment effect" and concluded "insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal."

Criticisms of pro-invasion bias

A University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

study on American public opinion found that:

Fifty-seven percent of mainstream media viewers believed the falsity that Iraq gave substantial support to Al-Qaeda, or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (48% after invasion).
Sixty-nine percent believed the falsity that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks.
Twenty-two percent believed the falsity that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. (Twenty-one percent believed that chem/bio weapons had actually been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq during 2003)
In the composite analysis of the PIPA study, 80% of Fox News watchers had one or more of these misperceptions, in contrast to 71% for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

and 27% who tuned to NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

/PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

.

In 2003, a study released by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

stated the network news disproportionately focused on pro-war sources and left out many anti-war

Anti-war

An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...

sources. According to the study, 64% of total sources were in favor of the Iraq War while total anti-war sources made up 10% of the media (only 3% of US sources were anti-war). The study stated that "viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1."

FAIR also conducted a similar study in February 2004. According to the study, which took place during October 2003, current or former government or military officials accounted for 76 percent of all 319 sources for news stories about Iraq which aired on network news channels.

After the invasion, the editors of the New York Times apologized for its coverage of Hussein's alleged weapons programs, acknowledging that "we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims (related to Iraqi weapons programs) as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge."

During the invasion, critics argued that the mainstream media unduly focused on optimistic events, such as the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square

Firdos Square

Firdaus Square, or Firdos Square , is a public open space in Baghdad, Iraq. It is named after the Arabic word Firdows, which literally means "paradise". It is the location of two of the best-known hotels, the Palestine Hotel and the Sheraton Ishtar, which are the two tallest buildings in Baghdad...

, which was staged with the help of the U.S. military forces, thus downplaying more negative news developments.
In particular, the mainstream media has been criticized for underreporting news about Iraqi civilian casualties, which are estimated to be anywhere between 100,000 and 650,000.

As the security situation in Iraq has worsened since the invasion, many journalists have found it increasingly difficult to report from Iraq without jeopardizing their lives. Some media outlets, unable to afford the cost of additional security, have even abandoned their bureaus in Baghdad. This trend has forced journalists to depend even more heavily on U.S. military sources, which has led some critics to call into question the impartiality of their reports on events such as the Iraqi elections.

A post-2008 election poll by FactCheck.org found that 48% of Americans believe Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks; the group concluded that "voters, once deceived, tend to stay that way despite all evidence."

Allegations of Propaganda

Media critics such as Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

, have alleged that the media acted as propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

for not questioning the legality of the Iraq war

Legality of the Iraq War

The legality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been widely debated since the United States, United Kingdom, and a coalition of other countries launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq...

and thus, took on the fundamental assumptions given by the government. This is despite overwhelming public opinion in favor of only invading Iraq with UN authorization.

In a 2010 interview, Chomsky compared media coverage of the Afghan War Diaries released by Wikileaks

Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...

and lack of media coverage to a study of severe health problems in Fallujah. While there was ample coverage of Wikileaks there was no American coverage of the Fallujah study, in which the health situation in Fallujah was described by the British media as "worse than Hiroshima".

Chomsky also asserts that the media accurately covered events such as the Battle of Fallujah but because of an ideological bias, it acts as pro-government propaganda. In describing coverage of raid on Fallujah General Hospital he states that The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, "accurately recorded the battle of Fallujah but it was celebrated...it was celebration of ongoing war crimes". The article in question was "Early Target of Offensive Is a Hospital".

Pentagon military analyst group

An investigation by the New York Times discovered that top Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

officials met with news analysts where they gave the analysts 'special information' and then tried to convince them to speak favorably about the Iraq war. The discovery was based on 8000 pages of secret information that had been revealed to The New York Times through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The article states that top Pentagon officials would invite news analysts to secret meetings, and urge the analysts to speak positively of the war. Often, the US would give "classified information," trips, and contracts to the news analysts.

U.S. independent media coverage

The Media Workers Against the War and the Indymedia network, among many other independent networks including many journalists from the invading countries, provided reports in a way difficult to control by any government, corporation or political party. In the United States Democracy Now, hosted by
Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

has been critical of the reasons for the 2003 invasion
and the alleged crimes committed by the US authorities in Iraq.

Australian war artist

War artist

A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...

George Gittoes

- Subject matter :With global vision, George Gittoes has set up mobile studios for three decades, creating works in regions of conflict and upheaval around the world...

collected independent interviews with soldiers while producing his documentary Soundtrack To War

Soundtrack to War

Soundtrack to War is a 90 minute documentary by Australian war artist George Gittoes. Filmed throughout 2003-2004, Gittoes bypassed the U.S. military's media lockdown on the war in Iraq to capture an authentic account of the human experience of the war. Gittoes interviewed American soldiers...

.

The war in Iraq provided the first time in history that military on the front lines were able to provide direct, uncensored reportage themselves, thanks to blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

ging software and the reach of the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. Dozens of such reporting sites, known as soldier blogs

Warblog

A warblog or milblog is a weblog devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war. Sometimes the use of the term "warblog" implies that the blog concerned has a pro-war slant. The use of the term "milblog" implies that the author is with the military.-Description and...

or milblogs, were started during the war.

Non-U.S. media coverage

Non-U.S. coverage sometimes differed strongly in tone and content from U.S. media coverage.

In some countries television journalists' behavior differed significantly during the conflict compared to Gulf War conflicts. Jean-Marie Charon said most journalists were more cautious, often using the conditional form and rigorously citing sources.

The crew of the HMS Ark Royal

HMS Ark Royal (R07)

HMS Ark Royal is a decommissioned light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Royal Navy. She was the third and final vessel of Invincible-class...

, Britain's flagship naval vessel, demanded that the BBC be turned off on the ship because of what they saw as a clear anti-Coalition or "pro-Iraq" bias. One BBC correspondent had been embedded on the ship, but the crew said they had no complaints of his reporting specifically. The sailors on board the ship claimed that the BBC gave more credit to Iraqi reports than information coming from British or Allied sources, often questioning and refusing to believe reports coming from Coalition sources while reporting Iraqi claims of civilian casualties without independent verification. The ship's news feed was replaced with Sky News

Sky News

Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...

. Ironically, it later emerged from a study conducted by Professor Justin Lewis of the School of Journalism at Cardiff University that the BBC was the most pro-war of British networks, a finding confirmed in a separate study by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Arab media outfit Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...

broadcast many scenes of civilian casualties, usually referring to them as "martyrs", press conferences with Iraqi officials claiming to be winning the war, and of American and British POWs which U.S. media refused to run. Most Arab networks also downplayed the scenes of Iraqi citizens cheering coalition forces entering their towns. Arab networks consistently referred to U.S. and British forces as "invading forces," while Western media referred to them as "coalition forces."

The war in Iraq saw Abu Dhabi TV

Abu Dhabi TV

Abu Dhabi Al Oula is an Arabic television station that originally launched in 1969 but was re-launched in 2000 and again in 2008. It broadcasts from Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates and is owned by Abu Dhabi Media Company...

mature into a credible Al-Jazeera rival. However, the war did not benefit Al-Arabiya, the newest of Arabic news networks. Created by the audio-visual group saoudien MBC

Middle East Broadcasting Center

The Middle East Broadcasting Center Group is the first private free-to-air satellite broadcasting company in the Arab World which was launched in London in 1991 and later moved to its headquarters in Dubai in 2002. MBC Group provides multiple channels of information, interaction and entertainment...

to compete with Al-Jazeera (whose tone often displeases Arab leaders), Al-Arabiya was launched on February 19, 2003.

Iraqi media coverage

According to reports from three separate media watchdog groups, the Iraqi media was under tight state control prior to the invasion. Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, oversaw as many as a dozen newspapers, sat on several important editorial boards, and ran the most popular television station, Youth TV. In a 2001 report, the French-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote that Saddam Hussein's government maintained a "stranglehold" on Iraqi media outlets, and that "insulting the president or other government authorities is punishable by death."

In the wake of the invasion, the Iraqi media establishment changed drastically. Hundreds of newspapers, television stations, and radio stations sprouted both inside and outside of the country. Many of these new media outlets were closely linked with religious or political organizations, and closely reflected the interests of their backers. Some observers have suggested that this has contributed to increased sectarianism in the country.

The burgeoning Iraqi media market has also proven subject to manipulation by the United States government. In November 2005, the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

reported on a secret Pentagon program to pay Iraqi media outlets to publish articles favorable of the U.S. invasion and occupation. This initiative relied on U.S.-based subcontractors such as the Lincoln Group

Lincoln Group

The Lincoln Group is a Washington, D.C. contractor with operations in Iraq hired by the United States military to perform public relations. They operate from the Green Zone at Sector 222, 34th St, Bldg 5...

to write and place stories with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism" and "More Money Goes to Iraq's Development." According to anonymous sources within the U.S. government, Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines oversees the program. In March 2006, General George Casey, the Army's second in command, indicated that this practice, which did not "violate U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines," would continue.

"Embedded" reporters

Around 600 journalists were "embedded

Embedded journalist

Embedded journalism refers to news reporters being attached to military units involved in armed conflicts. While the term could be applied to many historical interactions between journalists and military personnel, it first came to be used in the media coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq...

" with military units, 80% being British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

or American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The Pentagon

The Pentagon

established the policy of "embedding" reporters with military units.

Robert Entman, professor of communication at the George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

and critic of mainstream media for decades, indicated it was a very wise tactic from the Pentagon. He mentioned there were more chances for the journalists to make favorable reports whilst in Iraq with British and American soldiers than if they had been asking questions in Washington. Entman indicated there is a natural cultural bias of American journalists in favor of military troops of their own country and that journalists do like to satisfy the government upon which they rely for information, as well as the public on whom they depend commercially. Entman also mentioned the high number of retired generals making comments on TV, pointing out these could not be considered independent experts as they were still paid by the government. He claims the British Broadcasting Corporation was much more neutral and informative on cultural and historical background than most American television reports.

The Ministry of Defense explained "maintaining morale as well as information dominance will rank as important as physical protection". An MoD-commissioned commercial analysis of the print output produced by embeds shows that 90% of their reporting was either "positive or neutral."

Firdos Square Controversy

On April 9, 2003, a large statue of Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

in Baghdad's Firdos Square

Firdos Square

, directly in front of the Palestine Hotel

Palestine Hotel

The Palestine Hotel , often referred to simply as The Palestine, is an 18-story hotel in Baghdad, Iraq located on Firdos Square, across from the Sheraton Ishtar. It has long been favored by journalists and media personnel...

where the world's journalists had been quartered, was toppled by a U.S. M88 tank recovery vehicle surrounded by dozens of celebrating Iraqis, who had been attempting to pull down the statue earlier with little success. One such futile attempt by sledgehammer wielding weightlifter Kadhem Sharif

Kadhem Sharif

Kadhem Sharif also known as al-Yabani is an Iraqi world-class wrestler and weightlifter. He is most famous for attempting to use a sledgehammer to bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein at the Firdos Square in Baghdad.-Biography:...

particularly caught media attention. Eventually the M88 was able to topple the statue which was jumped upon by Iraqi citizens who then decapitated the head of the statue and dragged it through the streets of the city hitting it with their shoes. The destruction of the statue was shown live on cable news networks as it happened and made the front pages of newspapers and covers of magazines all over the world - symbolizing the fall of the Hussein government. The images of the statue falling came as a shock to many Arab viewers, who had thought that Iraq was winning the war.

Before the statue was toppled, Marine Corporal Edward Chin of the 3rd battalion 4th Marines regiment climbed the ladder and placed an American flag over the statue's face. An Iraqi flag was then placed over the statue. The event was widely publicized, but allegations that it had been staged were soon published. One picture from the event, published in the London Evening Standard, was allegedly doctored to make the crowd appear larger. A report by the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

stated it was an unnamed Marine colonel, not Iraqi civilians who had decided to topple the statue; and that a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team then used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist and made it all appear spontaneous and Iraqi-inspired. According to Tim Brown at Globalsecurity.org: "It was not completely stage-managed from Washington, DC but it was not exactly a spontaneous Iraqi operation."

The 2004 film Control Room deals with the incident in depth and indicated that the overall impression of Al Jazeera reporters was that it was staged. The Marines present at the time, 3rd Battalion 4th Marines

3rd Battalion 4th Marines

3rd Battalion, 4th Marines is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps. Nicknamed "Thundering Third" it is known within the battalion as "Darkside" and the radio callsigns of the command and staff reflect this moniker. They are based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center...

, maintain that the scene was not staged other than the assistance they provided.

Coverage of U.S. casualties

Media coverage of U.S. military casualties has been met by Bush administration efforts to downplay reports about soldiers' deaths throughout the invasion. Unlike the Vietnam War, when the media regularly published photographs of flag-draped coffins of American military personnel killed in action, the Bush administration prohibited the release of such photographs during the Iraq invasion. This ban was instituted in 2000 by the Clinton administration, and mirrors a similar ban put in place during the Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, though it appears to have been enforced less tightly during previous military operations.

According to Senator Patrick Leahy

Patrick Leahy

Patrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,...

, the administration also scheduled the return of wounded soldiers to Dover Air Force Base

Dover Air Force Base

Dover Air Force Base or Dover AFB is a United States Air Force base located two miles southeast of the city of Dover, Delaware.-Units:...

for after midnight so that the press would not see them. This practice was documented by both the Drudge Report

Drudge Report

The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...

and Salon.com

Salon.com

Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

. A number of Dover photographs were eventually released in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by blogger Russ Kick

Russ Kick

Russ Kick is an American editor and publisher. He is editor of the website The Memory Hole which published and archived U.S. government documents, including scientific studies and reports, civil rights-related reports, intelligence and covert action reports, consumer safety reports, and images...

.

Media coverage related to casualty milestones, such as the 1000th, 2000th, and 3000th U.S. soldier killed, have consistently sparked controversy among supporters and defenders of the invasion. On September 7, 2004 the US recorded its 1,000th casualty of the war, when four servicemen died that day (three in one incident, one in another). Presidential candidate John Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

called it a "tragic milestone." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...

argued the 1000th milestone was passed long ago in the War on Terrorism

War on Terrorism

The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

, with the loss of life on September 11, 2001 being in the thousands, and going on the offensive against terrorism "has its cost."
On October 25, 2005 the Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

announced the 2,000th U.S. death from the war as Staff Sergeant George T. Alexander Jr.

George Alexander (US Army soldier)

Staff Sergeant George T. Alexander Jr. was the 2,000th American soldier killed in combat in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, according to the Associated Press....

, who was killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his M2 Bradley

M2 Bradley

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is an American fighting vehicle platform manufactured by BAE Systems Land and Armaments, formerly United Defense.As with other infantry fighting vehicles, the Bradley is designed to transport infantry with armor protection while providing covering fire to suppress enemy...

in the city of Samarra

Samarra

Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....

. In response, Senators including Dick Durbin made statements opposing the war, and activists held six hundred anti-war protests and candlelight vigil

Vigil

A vigil is a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance...

s across the United States.
In contrast, the Pentagon

The Pentagon

downplayed the death — Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, told the Associated Press that "the 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

The U.S. death toll reached 3,000 on December 31, 2006 when Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

soldier Spc. Dustin R. Donica

Dustin R. Donica

Dustin R. Donica was an American soldier who is believed to have been the 3,000th U.S. soldier to die in the Iraq War. He was killed on December 28, 2006 in Baghdad. As a teenager, he attended Klein High School in Klein, Texas, near Houston.-See also:*Casualty Milestones in the Iraq War-References:...

was killed in Baghdad, near the office of Saleh al-Mutlaq

Saleh al-Mutlaq

Saleh Muhammed al-Mutlaq is an Iraqi politician who is the head of Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, the fifth largest political list in Iraq's parliament. Since 21 December 2010, he has been one of the three deputy prime ministers of Iraq....

, a Sunni Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

politician and leader of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front. The milestone came just one day after the execution of Saddam Hussein

Execution of Saddam Hussein

The execution of Saddam Hussein took place on December 30, 2006 . Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being found guilty and convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the murder of 148 Iraqi Shi'ite in the town of Dujail in 1982, in retaliation for an...

and just as the Bush Administration

George W. Bush administration

The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...

was revising its wartime strategy.

Ban lifted

Soon after taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Robert Gates

Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W....

to review the ban on media coverage of coffins. In February Gates announced that the ban would be lifted, and permission for coverage of individual soldiers would be at the discretion of their next of kin. On 5 April the return of Phillip Myers, an Air Force Staff Sergeant killed in Afghanistan the day before, became the first return of a US serviceman's remains to receive media coverage since the instatement of the original ban in 1991.

Attack on Al Jazeera

On April 8, 2003, U.S. aircraft bombed the Baghdad bureau of Qatar satellite TV station Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...

killing a journalist and wounding another despite the U.S. being informed of the office's precise coordinates prior to the incident. An Al Jazeera correspondent said that very clear, yellow signs reading "Press" covered the building from all sides and on the roof. A U.S. Central Command spokesman said that the station "was not and never had been a target." The U.S. government had repeatedly criticized Al Jazeera as "endangering the lives of American troops."

The attack had drawn particular criticism because the Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

office of Al Jazeera had been bombed in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...

.

On 2 April 2003, in a speech given in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, British Home Secretary David Blunkett

David Blunkett

David Blunkett is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010...

commented on what he believed to be sympathetic and corrupt reporting of Iraq by Arab news sources. He told the audience that "It's hard to get the true facts if the reporters of Al Jazeera are actually linked into, and are only there because they are provided with facilities and support from, the régime." His speech came only hours before Al Jazeera was ejected from Baghdad by the US occupation.

A top secret memo leaked by a British civil servant and a parliamentary researcher detailed a lengthy conversation on April 16, 2004 between Prime Minister Blair and President Bush, in which Bush according to British media allegedly proposed bombing the Qatar central office of Al Jazeera. House press secretary, Scott McClellan, describing it as "outlandish" said, "Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd." A UK government official suggested that the Bush threat had been "humorous, not serious." Another source said Bush was "deadly serious." The UK government refuses to publish the memo and two civil servants have been charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly disclosing the document. For a fuller discussion, see Al Jazeera bombing memo

Al Jazeera bombing memo

The Al Jazeera bombing memo is an unpublished memorandum made within the British government which purports to be the minutes of a discussion between United States President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Daily Mirror published a story on its front page on 22 November 2005...

Attack on Palestine Hotel

On the same day as the destruction of the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...

, a U.S. tank fired a HEAT

High explosive anti-tank

High explosive anti-tank warheads are made of an explosive shaped charge that uses the Munroe effect to create a very high-velocity partial stream of metal in a state of superplasticity that can punch through solid armor....

round at what the U.S. military later claimed was a suspected Iraqi forward artillery observer. Due to what the U.S. states was a communications error, the tank mistakenly fired at the Palestine Hotel, where approximately 100 international reporters in Baghdad were based, instead of the correct building, killing two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Cousa of the Spanish network Telecinco and wounding three other correspondents.

After interviewing "about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred" the Committee to Protect Journalists

Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...

said the facts suggested "that attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable." The Committee to Protect Journalists went on to say that "Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it". It is not clear that orders not to fire upon the hotel had actually made it to the tank level. Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...

demanded proof from Donald Rumsfeld that incidents "were not deliberate attempts to dissuade the media from reporting." Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

demanded independent investigation.

see April 8, 2003 journalist deaths by U.S. fire
April 8, 2003 journalist deaths by U.S. fire
On April 8, 2003, three locations in Baghdad housing journalists were fired upon by U.S. armed forces during 2003 invasion of Iraq, killing three journalists and wounding four.- Al Jazeera's office :...

for more detail.

Journalist casualties

There have been a number of journalist casualties during the invasion, including fourteen deaths (some not directly war-related). Michael Kelly

Michael Kelly (editor)

Michael Thomas Kelly was an American journalist, a columnist for The Washington Post, and an editor at The New Republic, National Journal, and The Atlantic. He came to prominence via his reporting on the first Gulf War, but suffered professional embarrassment for his role in the Stephen Glass...

, an influential neoconservative reporter, columnist, and editor died in a Humvee accident on April 3. NBC's David Bloom

David Bloom

David Bloom was an NBC journalist until his sudden death in 2003 at the age of 39 from deep vein thrombosis...

died of a blood clot on April 6. Both Kelly and Bloom were embedded with the U.S. Army's

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

3rd Infantry Division

U.S. 3d Infantry Division

The 3rd Infantry Division is a United States Army infantry division based at Fort Stewart, Georgia. It is a direct subordinate unit of the XVIII Airborne Corps and U.S. Army Forces Command...

. ITN reporter Terry Lloyd

Terry Lloyd

Terence Ellis Lloyd was a British television journalist well-known for his reporting from the Middle East. He was killed by U.S. troops while covering the 2003 invasion of Iraq for ITN...

was killed by US forces near Basra

Basra

Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

on March 22, 2003.

Critical Journalists

Journalist Peter Arnett

Peter Arnett

was fired by MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

and National Geographic after he declared in an interview with the Iraqi information ministry that he believed the U.S. strategy of "shock and awe" had failed. He also went on to tell Iraqi State TV that he had told "Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country," and that reports from Baghdad about civilian deaths had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration's strategy. The interview was given 10 days before the fall of Baghdad.

External links

Cable's War Coverage Suggests a New 'Fox Effect' on Television, The New York Times, April 16, 2003
MSNBC's Banfield: Media filtered realities of war, Topeka Capitol-Journal, Matt Moline, April 24, 2003
The independence of CNN; the legacy of NBC's Bloom, Howard Rosenberg, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2003
Why Phil Got Killed, TAPPED, February 27, 2003
Archive of well-documented media criticism of Iraqi war coverage, Provided by the national media watch group, FAIR.
Selection of links and resources on media coverage of the war in Iraq, Provided by The Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.
Independent Media in a Time of War, Documentary on the media coverage of the invasion.
Faulk, Kent. "Soldier fought to make difference", The Birmingham News. October 27, 2005. Retrieved October 30, 2005.
Salles, Andre. "Vigil notes 2000 U.S. war dead", The Beacon News. October 27, 2005. Retrieved October 27, 2005.
Cannon, Jason. "Roadside bomb kills Clanton soldier", The Clanton Advertiser. October 26, 2005. Retrieved October 26, 2005.
Parsons, Claudia & Quinn, Andrew. "US military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,000", Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

. October 25, 2005. Retrieved October 26, 2005.
"DoD Identifies Army Casualty", United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

. October 25, 2005. Retrieved October 29, 2005.
Misperceptions, The Media, and The Iraq War, PIPA. October 2, 2003.

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