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A failure of skepticism in Powell coverage

Feb. 10-- In reporting on Secretary of State Colin Powell's Feb. 5 presentation to the United Nations Security Council, many journalists treated allegations made by Powell as though they were facts. Reporters at several major outlets neglected to observe the journalistic rule of prefacing unverified assertions with words like "claimed" or "alleged." This is of particular concern given that over the last several months, many Bush administration claims about alleged Iraqi weapons facilities have failed to hold up to inspection. In many cases, the failed claims -- like Powell's claims at the UN -- have cited US and British intelligence sources and have included satellite photos as evidence.

In its report on Powell's presentation, the New York Daily News (2/6/03) accepted his evidence at face value: "To buttress his arguments, Powell showed satellite photos of Iraqi weapons sites and played several audiotapes intercepted by US electronic eavesdroppers. The most dramatic featured an Iraqi Army colonel in the 2nd Republican Guards Corps ordering a captain to sanitize communications." The Daily News gave no indication that it had independent confirmation that the photos were indeed of weapons sites, or that individuals on the tapes were in fact who Powell said they were.

In Andrea Mitchell's report on NBC Nightly News (2/5/03), Powell's allegations became actual capabilities of the Iraqi military: "Powell played a tape of a Mirage jet retrofitted to spray simulated anthrax, and a model of Iraq's unmanned drones, capable of spraying chemical or germ weapons within a radius of at least 550 miles."
Dan Rather, introducing an interview with Powell (60 Minutes II, 2/5/03), shifted from reporting allegations to describing allegations as facts:
"Holding a vial of anthrax-like powder, Powell said Saddam might have tens of thousands of liters of anthrax. He showed how Iraqi jets could spray that anthrax and how mobile laboratories are being used to concoct new weapons." The anthrax supply is appropriately attributed as a claim by Powell, but the mobile laboratories were something that Powell "showed" to be actually operating.

Commentator William Schneider on CNN Live Today (2/6/03) dismissed the possibility that Powell could be doubted: "No one disputes the findings Powell presented at the UN that Iraq is essentially guilty of failing to disarm." When CNN's Paula Zahn (2/5/03) interviewed Jamie Rubin, former State Department spokesperson, she prefaced a discussion of Iraq's response to Powell's speech thusly: "You've got to understand that most Americans watching this were either probably laughing out loud or got sick to their stomach. Which was it for you?"
Journalists should always be wary of implying unquestioning faith in official assertions; recent history is full of official claims based on satellite and other intelligence data that later turned out to be false or dubious. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first Bush administration rallied support for sending troops to Saudi Arabia by asserting that classified satellite photos showed the Iraqi army mobilizing on the Saudi border. This claim was later discredited when the St. Petersburg Times obtained commercial satellite photos showing no such build-up (Second Front, John R. MacArthur). The Clinton administration justified a cruise missile attack on the Sudan by saying that intelligence showed that the target was a chemical weapons factory; later investigation showed it to be a pharmaceutical factory (London Independent, 5/4/99). In the present instance, journalists have a responsibility to put US intelligence claims in context by pointing out that a number of allegations recently made by the current administration have already been debunked.

Among them:

-- Following a CIA warning in October that commercial satellite photos showed Iraq was "reconstituting" its clandestine nuclear weapons program at Al Tuwaitha, a former nuclear weapons complex, George W. Bush told a Cincinnati audience on Oct. 7 (New York Times, 10/8/02): "Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of his nuclear program in the past."

-- When inspectors returned to Iraq, however, they visited the Al Tuwaitha site and found no evidence to support Bush's claim. "Since December 4 inspectors from [Mohamed] ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have scrutinized that vast complex almost a dozen times, and reported no violations," according to an Associated Press (AP) report (1/18/03).

-- In September and October US officials charged that conclusive evidence existed that Iraq was preparing to resume manufacturing banned ballistic missiles at several sites. In one such report the CIA said "the only plausible explanation" for a new structure at the Al Rafah missile test site was that Iraqis were developing banned long-range missiles (AP, 1/18/03). But CIA suggestions that facilities at Al Rafah, in addition to sites at Al Mutasim and Al Mamoun, were being used to build prohibited missile systems were found to be baseless when UN inspectors repeatedly visited each site (Los Angeles Times, 1/26/03).

-- British and US intelligence officials said new buildings at Al-Qaim, a former uranium refinery in Iraq's western desert, suggested renewed Iraqi development of nuclear weapons. But an extensive survey by UN inspectors in December reported no violations (AP, 1/18/03).

-- Last fall the CIA warned that "key aspects of Iraq's offensive [biological weapons] program are active and most elements are more advanced and larger" than they were pre-1990, citing as evidence renewed building at several facilities such as the Al Dawrah Vaccine Facility, the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, and the Fallujah III Castor Oil Production Plant. By mid-January, inspectors had visited all the sites many times over. No evidence was found that the facilities were being used to manufacture banned weapons (Los Angeles Times, 1/26/03). The AP concluded in its Jan. 18 analysis: "In almost two months of surprise visits across Iraq, UN arms monitors have inspected 13 sites identified by US and British intelligence agencies as major ‘facilities of concern,’ and reported no signs of revived weapons building."

Regarding the number of allegations made by the Bush and Blair governments that have washed out on inspection, former UN weapons inspector Hans von Sponeck told the British newspaper The Mirror (2/6/03) following Powell’s UN presentation:

"The inspectors have found nothing which was in the Bush and Blair dossiers of last September. What happened to them? They are totally embarrassed by them. I have seen facilities in pieces in Iraq which US intelligence reports say are dangerous.

"The Institute of Strategic Studies referred to the Al Fallujah Three castor oil production unit and the Al Dora foot and mouth center as ‘facilities of concern.’ In 2002 I saw them and they were destroyed; there was nothing. All that was left were shells of buildings. This is a classic example of manipulating allegations, allegations being converted into facts."

Responsible journalists should avoid playing a part in such a conversion by making a clear distinction between what has been alleged by the US government and what has been independently verified.

Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

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BRIEFS

Cops accused of spying onjournalists
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Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ conservative talk show The O’Reilly Factor, threatened a family member of a victim of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with physical violence before ejecting him from the show. Jeremy Glick, whose father was killed in the terrorist attacks, is a professor at Rutgers University and a teacher in the state prison system; he is also a signatory of the Not In Our Name "Statement of Conscience."
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