Media's dark cloud a danger Falsely bleak reports reduce our chances of success in Iraq By JIM MARSHALL On Sept. 14, I flew from Baghdad to Kuwait with Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg from Dearborn, Mich. He was in a body bag. He'd been ambushed and killed that afternoon. Sitting in the cargo bay of a C 130E, I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in his death. News media reports about our progress in Iraq have been bleak since shortly after the president's premature declaration of victory. These reports contrast sharply with reports of hope and progress presented to Congress by Department of Defense representatives -- a real disconnect, Vietnam déja vu. So I went to Iraq with six other members of Congress to see for myself. The Iraq war has predictably evolved into a guerrilla conflict similar to Vietnam. Our currently stated objectives are to establish reasonable security and foster the creation of a secular, representative government with a stable market economy that provides broad opportunity throughout Iraqi society. Attaining these objectives in Iraq would inevitably transform the Arab world and immeasurably increase our future national security. These are goals worthy of a fight, of sacrifice, of more lives lost now to save thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands in the future. In Mosul last Monday, a colonel in the 101st Airborne put it to me quite simply: "Sir, this is worth doing." No one I spoke with said anything different. And I spoke with all ranks. But there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with "the rest of the story," the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy. During the conventional part of this conflict, embedded journalists reported the good, the bad and the ugly. Where are the embeds now that we are in the difficult part of the war, now that fair and balanced reporting is critically important to our chances of success? At the height of the conventional conflict, Fox News alone had 27 journalists embedded with U.S. troops (out of a total of 774 from all Western media). Today there are only 27 embedded journalists from all media combined. Throughout Iraq, American soldiers with their typical "can do" attitude and ingenuity are engaging in thousands upon thousands of small reconstruction projects, working with Iraqi contractors and citizens. Through decentralized decision-making by unit commanders, the 101st Airborne Division alone has spent nearly $23 million in just the past few months. This sum goes a very long way in Iraq. Hundreds upon hundreds of schools are being renovated, repainted, replumbed and reroofed. Imagine the effect that has on children and their parents. Zogby International recently released the results of an August poll showing hope and progress. My own unscientific surveys told me the same thing. With virtually no exceptions, hundreds of Iraqis enthusiastically waved back at me as I sat in the open door of a helicopter traveling between Babylon and Baghdad. And I received a similar reception as I worked my way alone, shaking hands through a large crowd of refinery workers just to see their reaction. We may need a few credible Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops. -- U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) of Macon, a Vietnam combat veteran, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Great post. Too many are too quick to sweep information like this under the rug in order to promote their political agendas.
Yes, the success of this war hinges on the media. Forget planning, or help from other countries, or getting the lights on, or getting Iraqis to trust us. If the media, thousands of miles away, reports only good stories, and sweeps everything bad under the rug, this war will be over by Christmas. Come on guys, quit blaming the media for your problems and take some responsiability in your lives.
We're doing all of those things, in case you were too focused on the bad news reports coming out of Iraq to pay attention.
No doubt about it...An Iraqi representative was asked point blank, as a citizen of Iraq how do you feel whether or not the country is getting better, and improving?... He had no reason to lie, and he basically said, although he wants less American soldiers and more Iraqis initiating reconstructive projects,..."The improvement is incredible. People have more water, Business is better than ever, More people are going to schools, they have so much more police who are acting so much better than before...The people feel more confident. There are more representatives taking an active part in Government processes. The future shows so much promise" No doubt many soldiers feel in their hearts "this is worth doing"...Some of these soldiers won't live to see another year or perhaps another month... It's time all entities be as far as possible in looking at the complete picture and not just one side or another...These soldiers are willing to die to make a differance and accomplish something worth doing in their hearts and minds...The least they deserve is a fair shake in all respects...
No I'm to focused laughing at hypocrite conservatives who call everyone else cry babies and tell them to suck it up, complaining about the media affecting operations in Iraq. Its ridiculous and hillarious, when you guys expose yourselves.
Except that the author of this piece is a House Democrat, and the other Democratic Reps who went on the mission to Iraq echoed his sentiment.
He's also a member of the House Armed Services Committee, what do you expect him to say, and secondly I'm speaking more of the posters on this board.
Marshall is a first term Rep., a Viet Nam vet (do you remember how the "media" covered that one?), and the former Mayor of Macon which is the heart of his rural district. By all accounts, he was pro-Iraq war but is considered a moderate. And the war in Iraq may be the only thing he and Bush agree upon. From the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: "Finally, it's the economy, stupid. It was in 1992 and it will be again in 2004. It's not hard to envision the scenario for a Democratic victory. A Senate candidate like U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) runs. With the plain-spoken, direct style that helped him win a congressional seat in South Georgia in a tough year, he makes an appealing case on television and on the stump. As a consistent tax cutter and a genuine decorated combat veteran who supported getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he cannot be attacked as "soft on" [fill in the blank], or be labeled "too liberal for Georgia." (And if he gets attacked, he gives as good as he gets.) As an advocate for racial tolerance, rural economies, affordable housing and jobs, jobs, jobs, he brings out traditional Democrats." http://www.dscc.org/newsroom/inthenews071103/
This is absolutely true! In fact, just yesterday I saw a grainy videotape of Wolfe Blitzer beating an American soldier to death with an industrial-sized tub of "Just For Men®" hair coloring. It will probably be censored, but just in case, set your VCRs to record "When Good Liberal Reporters Go Bad" on FOXnews tonight at 9PM.
If you can get past the America haters/Chicken Little crowd, we are, in fact, making progress, slowly but surely: Baghdad City Cop By BERNARD B. KERIK "Welcome to a free Iraq" is what Jerry Bremer, administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said to me as he reached out to shake my hand when I arrived in Baghdad four months ago. I'm still moved by those words as I say them myself, "Welcome to a free Iraq," just as I was moved yesterday by President Bush -- under pressure at home and abroad -- standing firmly by our nation-building project in his U.N. speech. As I toured Baghdad for the first time, I saw a city ravaged by war, looting, and lawlessness. Or so I thought. What I didn't know then, and didn't learn until later, was that most of the damage to the infrastructure was caused by three decades of rule by a tyrant, who used his country's natural wealth not to enhance its power plants and sewage and water systems, but to aggrandize himself. These systems will now have to be built or re-built over the next several years and can't be fixed with a "band-aid." In my four months in Iraq, spent living with, working with, and learning from Iraqi police, I've seen things that would sicken the worst of minds. In our hunt for the Fedayeen Saddam, Saddam Hussein's trained assassins, I watched video after video of interrogations of Iraqis whose lives ended with the detonation of a grenade that was tied to the neck or stuffed in the shirt pocket of the victim. I watched the living bodies disintegrate at the pull of the pin. And if that's not enough, there's a tape of Saddam sitting and watching one of his military generals being eaten alive by Dobermans because the general's loyalty was in question. But Iraq is now a different country. The re-building of the infrastructure has begun and the streets are full of life, with bustling markets and shops. But reconstruction isn't just about bricks and mortar: Iraq's civic structures were in tatters, too, especially its Baathist police force, an organization that had, in any case, no credibility with the Iraqi people. My job was to assist in setting up this force again, with proper training, new values, a respect for human rights. The latter phrase -- "human rights" -- has been absent from Iraq's vocabulary for decades. Certainly, no one has heard it uttered, until now, within the four walls of a police station. The magnitude of our task can be measured from the fact that we had to teach cops that when you pull a man suspected of a crime into the station, you can't just hang him upside-down and beat him with an iron bar. Due to our efforts, 40,000 Iraqi police are back to work helping to restore law and order, and assisting the U.S.-led coalition in its hunt for Saddam and his loyalists. It's the beginning of a long haul. Like it or not, building a country from scratch takes time and money. Securing a country such as Iraq will take a professional civil police service, 65,000-75,000 strong, an Iraqi army of hundreds of thousands, and a temporary civil defense force to augment U.S. and coalition forces. To those who claim that we're not doing enough, fast enough, it helps to put matters in perspective. We're doing a hard job to the best of our abilities, in postwar circumstances, with really scarce resources and a clock ticking above our heads. In my four months there, I oversaw the setting up of 35 police stations in Baghdad. Try setting up 35 stations in New York in four months! New Yorkers will remember that it took the Giuliani administration eight years to create the safest large city in the world and that was with every resource under the sun. Five months ago in Iraq, we adopted a country of 24 million, with no electricity, water, technology, Internet, telephones or radio communications, etc. There was nothing, and yet the critics are saying that it's taking too long. One would think that they themselves have the answer, or the magic pill that will fix it all, but unfortunately, there isn't one! It's always easier to criticize -- as some Congressional delegations in Iraq are prone to do -- when you have no operational involvement, insight, authority or responsibility. And to those critics who think the answer is the deployment of more U.S. troops, I say: Caution! More U.S. or coalition troops mean more U.S. and coalition targets, injuries and deaths; and those we do not need. The coalition can't fight someone they can't see and they'll never deter those who are willing to, or more so want to, die. What we need is the ability to identify, locate and capture or kill the enemy that's trying to prevent freedom from growing in Iraq -- and no one can do that better than the Iraqis themselves. The creation of a new Iraqi intelligence service is more critical right now than ever and expediting that, and the recruiting, training and deployment of Iraq's new police and military, is essential. All of this is being done, and at speeds that make our federal and state bureaucracies look like they're standing still. And yet the political criticism is deafening. History has taught us that there's always a cost for freedom. On 9/11 we learned that we'll pay now or we'll pay later. As one who stood beneath the twin towers and watched people jump from the burning buildings, and also witnessed first-hand the fall of Saddam, I more than most have an understanding of the threat of radical Islam. Let's not forget that this is a war. So for now, the war should continue; and as Jerry Bremer would so proudly say, "Welcome to a free Iraq." Mr. Kerik, a former chief of the New York Police Department, has just returned from a four-month stint in Baghdad as senior policy adviser to Ambassador Bremer. URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106436207474742600,00.html
It's so offensive for you to imply that anybody who was against the war or criticizes the admins rebuilding plans is an "America Hater" How about every time somebody posts an article that is against Affirmative Action, I call them a "White supremacist bigot"; Is that cool?
No, Samuel, not cool. You should call them either "caring", "fair", or "trying to do the right thing". Now go sit in the corner, Samuel. You need a timeout.
If there weren't so many bad things happening in Iraq, there wouldn't be so many bad news reports. Of *course* you don't want the media to cover the ambushes, murders and bombings -- every time an American soldier comes home dead or another Iraqi leader is assassinated, the guy *you* voted for gets the blame. But, no, it's *the whole world* who has an "agenda," not those who wanted this unprovoked war, invasion and occupation of a foreign nation -- against the wishes of the international community. You guys sure were quick to take responsibility for the "win" in Iraq. And since this is such a "noble" cause, you shouldn't have a problem sacking up and taking responsibility for the Americans coming home in body bags.
I think a more cogent argument could be made that in fact Bush is killing our troups. Bush has always maintained that the decision to invade Iraq was his and his alone. Carry on.
Green. No cover those things for sure, but also cover what is happening on the streets of Iraq, and how the MAJORITY of Iraqis feel. I am glad to see some reality hitting this BBS. DD
Reporting bad news kills. The media should be censored. I love America and therefore only want to see good things about the country and progress reported. If anything bad happens, don't bother mentioning it. It's war we know that's going to happen so why report it? Especially since it causes are well intentioned, just humanitarian intentions to be thwarted. The press should be free, but only free to publish good the good things that happen.
I wonder if you read the article: They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with "the rest of the story," the progress made daily, the good news.
I read the article, but I was posting partially in response to the article and partially in response to other posters. I disagree. I think the polls done recently were released. The pictures of Saddams statue coming down was shown time and time again, that was certainly showing our progress. I think that while progress is being made in some areas troop deaths are an 'event' and get the lions share of coverage. When Saddam's sons were killed that was covered almost to saturation level because it was an 'event'. It was also one of the U.S.'s progress. Whatever 'events' happen that the media can cover, it will regardless of whether the even slants to the left or to the right. In the meantime articles like this whine and cry because stories like new Iraqi policeman patroling their own streets don't get more coverage. There is good news and progress being made in some areas, but to cry that the 'rest of the story' isn't being told is bogus. When the Saddam's statue was coming down, were there Iraqis who despite being rid of Saddam still didn't like the invasion? I'm sure there were, but that 'rest of the story' wasn't covered. It's the nature of news, and it certainly isn't killing our troops that the danger they face day in and day out is being reported.
