Does the media know that war kills???

March 14, 2003

Despite daily reports about the "showdown" with Iraq, Americans hear very little from mainstream media about the most basic fact of war: People will be killed and civilian infrastructure will be destroyed, with devastating consequences for public health long after the fighting stops.

Since the beginning of the year, according to a search of the Nexis database (1/1/03-3/12/03), none of the three major television networks' nightly national newscasts-- ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News-- have examined in detail what long-term impact war will have on humanitarian conditions in Iraq. They've also downplayed the immediate civilian deaths that will be caused by a U.S. attack.

The closest thing to a report on the likely humanitarian impact to appear this year on the nightly newscasts was a January 23 CBS Evening News story about the mood in Iraq. Noting that "many [Iraqis] are genuinely scared" of war, the report stated that "almost half" of the country "would starve without government food handouts." But CBS's report shifted responsibility for any humanitarian disaster away from the U.S., suggesting that what Iraqis fear "perhaps even more than an American military attack" is that domestic "hatred and revenge could tear [Iraq] apart" in the aftermath.


The networks' failure to integrate humanitarian concerns into their war coverage is especially striking in light of the numerous humanitarian and relief agencies that have issued urgent warnings about the impending crisis. Human Rights Watch, for instance, issued a 25-page briefing paper (2/13/03) warning of a "humanitarian disaster" impacting hundreds of thousands of people if the U.S. attacks Iraq. ABC, CBS and NBC did not cover HRW's findings.

Nor did they cover the announcement made (also 2/13/03) by the United Nations' undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Kenzo Oshima, that as many as 10 million people might need food assistance during and after an Iraq war, 50 percent of Iraq's population might be without potable water, and that between 600,000 and 1.45 million people might become refugees and asylum seekers.

Also unreported on ABC, CBS and NBC were the internal U.N. estimates revealed in leaked documents publicized by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. The U.N. predicted that 30 percent of Iraq's children under five "would be at risk of death from malnutrition" in the event of war (CASI press release, 2/17/03), and that 500,000 people could "require medical treatment… as a result of direct or indirect injuries," with potentially 100,000 Iraqi civilians wounded "and another 400,000 hit by disease after the bombing of water and sewage facilities and the disruption of food supplies" (London Guardian, 1/29/03).

It's worth noting that the silence on ABC was not total; it did address some humanitarian issues on Nightline (2/24/03). In a segment about the "aftermath" of war, Nightline reported that "millions of Iraqis will need food, fresh water and medical care" and that "tens of thousands" of refugees may be created. But the central question posed was: "Who will take care of them? The American military or private humanitarian groups?" Seen through Nightline's lens, the main humanitarian problem would be the quandary confronting the U.S. as it both attacks Iraq and attempts to relieve the devastation it wreaks there; as correspondent Chris Bury put it in his introduction, "how exactly does an invading force juggle its military and humanitarian hats?"

Reporter John Donvan presented valuable information about the potentially "catastrophic" impact of war, but bracketed this with a tortured attempt to suggest that the U.S. would not be the real cause of civilian suffering: "And even if Saddam is the source of so many of the Iraqi people's problems, very likely it's the U.S. the world would choose to blame." Therefore, said Donvan, the U.S. was developing a relief plan, because "it is in American interests" and because "it's the right thing to do."

What could charitably be called Nightline's credulity was topped off by Donvan's closer. Humanitarian assistance is necessary to ensure that the war will have a "positive impact," he said, because "it is assumed that some Iraqi civilians, perhaps many, will be killed…. Not deliberately, but as a result of what is called collateral damage."

Unfortunately, Nightline is not alone among major media outlets in asserting that civilian deaths can be considered accidental even if the Pentagon predicts them ahead of time and factors them into its battle plans; it's a conceit that's widespread in the mainstream press.

NBC Nightly News, for instance, aired a story (2/19/03) about the Pentagon's "growing worries" about civilian casualties, in which it reported that military officials predict that thousands of Iraqi civilians may "be killed entirely by accident in an intensive bombing campaign." Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski offered details of the "devastating" air assault planned, and explained that "despite the most advanced technology" and "all the painstaking efforts the U.S. military," a large percentage of bombs "will stray off target, increasing the likelihood that civilians will die." Of course, predicted deaths from an aerial bombardment of a major city cannot be said to come about "entirely by accident."

Civilian casualties also came up in an earlier NBC Nightly News report (2/10/03) about the financial costs of war. Reporter Campbell Brown raised the question of "human costs, casualty numbers impossible to pinpoint," and addressed it with a soundbite from an academic analyst stating that "if there are going to be heavy civilian casualties, they'll mainly be caused by the Iraqis." Brown let this assertion stand without comment, and failed to contextualize it (with information about casualties from the Gulf War, for example, or about the people who can be expected to die as a result of damage to the public health infrastructure over the long term).

Commendably, CBS Evening News aired one segment on the prospect of "door-to-door urban warfare" in Iraq (1/13/03) that took a more grounded approach. CBS's Bryon Pitts reported that fighting in cities like Baghdad, "filled with women, children and unarmed men," would involve heavy casualties, both military and civilian. Offering a rare glimpse of an ordinary soldier's criticism of the planned urban fighting, Pitts interviewed a private who said, "If it was up to me, I don't want no part of it. You know, it's too dangerous, too deadly."

There have been other scattered mentions of civilian deaths on the three network nightly newscasts. All made brief mention (3/3/03) of Iraq's charges that U.S. and British warplanes killed six civilians near Basra in early March. CBS and NBC (2/16/03) reported on the anniversary of the U.S. destruction of the Amiriyah bomb shelter during the Gulf War, an attack which killed over 400 civilians. (CBS thoughtfully noted that "apart from the tragedy" involved, "the images of the civilian dead and wounded were a major public relations setback.") All three have also done stories about peace activists volunteering as "human shields;" these stories necessarily alluded to the activists' concerns about civilian casualties, but did not elaborate.

Overall, however, death and disaster have been discussed as troubling details rather than fundamental facts of war-- unless media can blame Saddam Hussein. One segment on ABC News' Good Morning America (2/20/03), for instance, focused on the evils that Hussein may wreak. ABC News reporter Claire Shipman opened with a strident emphasis on Hussein as "somebody who's happy to kill his own people." Explaining "what the Bush Administration most fears," Shipman asserted that Hussein might "starve thousands of his own people, destroy their infrastructures, even cities in order to slow down U.S. troops, and then blame the United States." This remark was followed by a soundbite from a spokesperson from the Center for Strategic & International Studies asserting that Hussein "is very likely to try and commit some kind of humanitarian disaster" in the event of war.

It's important for journalists to investigate the Iraqi regime's atrocities, but media must just as tirelessly investigate the U.S.'s role in Iraq's sufferings-- and not merely as actions committed "by accident." Journalists might remember, for example, that the U.S. deliberately targeted Iraq's water system during the Gulf War, even while predicting that this would lead to large-scale epidemics (The Progressive, 9/01). When media fail to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of deaths that U.S. policy has contributed to in Iraq, they obscure the plain fact that war is always, in its own right, a humanitarian disaster.

ACTION:
Please urge ABC, CBS and NBC to do in-depth reporting about the impact that war will have on civilians in Iraq, both in terms of immediate deaths and long-term suffering and death from infrastructure damage.

CONTACT:
ABC World News Tonight
Phone: 212-456-4040
PeterJennings@abcnews.com

CBS Evening News
Phone: 212-975-3691
evening@cbsnews.com

NBC Nightly News
Phone: 212-664-4971
nightly@nbc.com

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.


For more information about the humanitarian impact of war in Iraq:


Human Rights Watch backgrounder about the potential humanitarian crisis in Iraq: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iraq021203/

The Center for Economic and Social Rights, "The Human Costs of War in Iraq": http://www.cesr.org/iraq/docs/humancosts.pdf


http://www.fair.org/activism/war-kills.html

Good thing we stopped diplomacy when it was finally starting to work, otherwise we might not get another chance to kill countless innocents.

Originally posted by adidas_n_motion
Good thing we stopped diplomacy when it was finally starting to work, otherwise we might not get another chance to kill countless innocents.

Hey, are you Tom Daschle? This sounds like something he might have said recently...

What more diplomacy do you want? Do you really happen to believe that Saddam Hussein has any intentions to fully comply with a diplomatic solution? Has he ever shown any intention of doing so? Would Iraq ever really fully entertain complete disarmament?

The Iraqi reaction to the deadline has been laughable - if they were really serious, and I mean really serious about entertaining a diplomatic solution, wouldn't they have immediately responded as such after their ultimatum? Of course not - they immediately responded with defensiveness.

Some would argue that they responded as such because of the "threat" of the bully USA - that they are "justified" in their response because of the ultimatum.

It's time to force their hand...

[Adam D]

Originally posted by scobib
What more diplomacy do you want? Do you really happen to believe that Saddam Hussein has any intentions to fully comply with a diplomatic solution? Has he ever shown any intention of doing so? Would Iraq ever really fully entertain complete disarmament?

While Hussein is less than an admirable character, it is impossible to prove that diplomacy would ultimately fail. The only diplomacy used this round was, "disarm or die" and "get out". That hardly constitutes legitimate diplomacy. The Bush II regime is terrible at diplomacy all around the board.

The Iraqi reaction to the deadline has been laughable - if they were really serious, and I mean really serious about entertaining a diplomatic solution, wouldn't they have immediately responded as such after their ultimatum? Of course not - they immediately responded with defensiveness.

Would you imagine any other reaction? Any leader, valiant or despot, would respond the exact same way. There's nothing diplomatic about ultimatums.

Originally posted by Adam D
While Hussein is less than an admirable character, it is impossible to prove that diplomacy would ultimately fail. The only diplomacy used this round was, "disarm or die" and "get out". That hardly constitutes legitimate diplomacy. The Bush II regime is terrible at diplomacy all around the board.

It is as improbable to forecast that diplomacy WOULD have worked. Since the beginning of this situation nearly a year has passed - are you honestly telling me that in the last year, the US has not provided the UN, and the UN has not provided enough different diplomatic courses of action? Enough options?

The inspections were a joke - if Hussein had truly wished to comply with the UN resolution, he would have offered everything up, opened up his sealed documents, and allowed full access many, many years ago. Time has been ticking since 1441 was passed, and not much has been accomplished "diplomatically" since it was - not by ANY administration. Clinton had much more of an opportunity to deal with the situation in Iraq, and yet nobody is mentioning his failure at diplomacy...

If nobody takes you up on your suggestions, are you guilty of bad diplomacy? I didn't really see many counter-proposals happening... diplomacy is a process of negotiation - and it's impossible to negotiate with someone that refuses to budge from their position, I don't care who the hell you are...



Would you imagine any other reaction? Any leader, valiant or despot, would respond the exact same way. There's nothing diplomatic about ultimatums. [/QUOTE]

There's nothing diplomatic about a defensive response, either...

[seksybeetchkerri]

Hussein is untrustable.. he SHOULD get out.


I feel really bad for the innocent citizens in iraq... but their leader doesnt give a shit about them.. if he did.. he would leave.


People in this forum keep saying that they are going to get slaughtered.... murdered.... its gonna be a complete tragedy.


I think that some are over dramatizing the situation.. yes some are going to die...... if this war happens.... but IN EVERY WAR people die.. .innocent and guilty.. its a shame yes... its wrong.. yes... but for sadam to know once and for all that we wont fuck around..... this is what has to be done.. and i support bush, and his commitee in whatever choices they make.


*soldiers going over there and the ones that are there already there.. are in me and my sons prayers every night that they come back safley*

Originally posted by seksybeetchkerri
Hussein is untrustable.. he SHOULD get out.


I feel really bad for the innocent citizens in iraq... but their leader doesnt give a shit about them.. if he did.. he would leave.


People in this forum keep saying that they are going to get slaughtered.... murdered.... its gonna be a complete tragedy.


I think that some are over dramatizing the situation.. yes some are going to die...... if this war happens.... but IN EVERY WAR people die.. .innocent and guilty.. its a shame yes... its wrong.. yes... but for sadam to know once and for all that we wont fuck around..... this is what has to be done.. and i support bush, and his commitee in whatever choices they make.


*soldiers going over there and the ones that are there already there.. are in me and my sons prayers every night that they come back safley*

Nicely put, I support Bush as well and will continue to support him in the decisions he makes for this country. I am glad that he is leading America in this fight.

Actually, Iraqi civilians will perish at our hands - as their Republican Guard forces their people to march to war at gunpoint. They arm the people, and walk behind them... It happened in the last war, and it will happen again. If they try to run, they shoot them.

[seksybeetchkerri]

Originally posted by PhatBuddha
Nicely put, I support Bush as well and will continue to support him in the decisions he makes for this country. I am glad that he is leading America in this fight.

preach on sistah! :-D


i'm glad to see at least ONE person likes bush

Originally posted by seksybeetchkerri
preach on sistah! :-D


i'm glad to see at least ONE person likes bush

I do, and I'm proud he's from Texas, unlike Natalie Maines (sp?) of the Dixie Chicks...

Originally posted by scobib
I do, and I'm proud he's from Texas, unlike Natalie Maines (sp?) of the Dixie Chicks...

I like Bush, too, obviously. And unlike Natalie Maines, he can still be heard on the radio in Dallas.

Originally posted by seksybeetchkerri
preach on sistah! :-D


i'm glad to see at least ONE person likes bush

No shit!!!!!!

[woodyrosen]

yes they know war kills...they also know that fear=consumption

posted by kerri:

I think that some are over dramatizing the situation.. yes some are going to die...... if this war happens.... but IN EVERY WAR people die.. .innocent and guilty.. its a shame yes... its wrong.. yes... but for sadam to know once and for all that we wont fuck around..... this is what has to be done.. and i support bush, and his commitee in whatever choices they make.

More missiles and bombs (over 3,000 according to top military brass) will be launched on Iraq in a period of TWO DAYS than during the entire Gulf War (most of these missiles and bombs will land smack on the populated city of Baghdad). If there is any overdramatizing it is over the need and urgency of waging such a scorched-earth policy of this magnitude on a country that has already been brought to its knees by 12 years constant bombing and economic sanctions.