The Trade-Off Between Thorough Deliberations and Thoughtless Dereliction

Ellie Keen — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:40:40 +0000

The technology to enable the instantaneous global transmission of pictures, sounds, and words to communicate to the viewers is getting better by leaps and bounds. But to what extent reporting is improving to satisfy the need for independent, balanced and credible information? The following lines cast a closer look at BBC’s coverage of issues concerning human and monetary costs of the Iraq war that have evolved over 2007 to date.

Does BBC show the full picture when it comes to the war in Iraq, its real costs and far reaching consequences? At best it is selective and partial and at worst suffers from periodic bouts of amnesia and myopia. It seems as if BBC attempts to tiptoe its way around some issues, reporting it casually but without going into the depths of issues or discussing its possible implications. One example is what it had to say recently about extra funds needed for the Iraq war: ‘US President George W. Bush has asked Congress for an extra $46bn (£23bn) to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and finance other national security needs’. Interestingly, several internet searches failed to bring items where BBC covered, quoted or even made an indirect reference to what any of the three expert witnesses told to the House of Representatives budget committee Peter Orszag, Linda Bilmes or Amy Belasco about a matter of direct relevance in Britain, Middle East and worldwide.

The additional expenses bring the overall amount of war funds the president requested for the next budget year to nearly $200bn. However there are far graver details of what such a rise would tantamount to that are not brought to BBC audiences’ notice. The cost of the US’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with wider efforts in the ‘war against terror’, could reach $2,400bn (£1,175bn, Euro 1,700bn) over the next decade, the US Congressional Budget Office said. Interest payments represent more than a quarter of that total. The figures, presented to the House of Representatives budget committee by Peter Orszag, CBO director, are based on an assumption that US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will be reduced to 75,000 by 2013 and stay at that level for four years. Interestingly BBC preferred to forego divulging in details of the hearings and what the experts testimonies reveals.

That projection includes repairing or replacing damaged equipment, expenditures by the military and the Veterans Affairs Department to care for injured or disabled service members, and as much as $415 billion in interest on the national debt added because of deficit spending to pay for the wars, CBO Director Peter Orszag said. But Linda Bilmes, who teaches public policy at Harvard, testified that the economic cost to the nation from the loss of lives, lost earnings potential and lifetime care for injured veterans, the increase in oil prices attributable to the war and other impacts on the economy could add more than $1 trillion, says the Congress Daily.

Amy Belasco, defence specialist at the Congressional Research Service, presented numbers similar to Orszag’s on past and projected fiscal 2008 costs of the conflict and noted that the yearly cost of the war has more than doubled over the last three years. All three of the witnesses protested the use of emergency supplementals rather than the normal budget process to pay for the wars. The supplemental process prevents the usual detailed review of the spending requests and has allowed the services to use the money for expenditures not directly related to the war, the three witnesses said. ‘It is difficult to understand why, five years into the war, we are still funding it largely in this manner,’ Bilmes said.

House Budget Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., who had requested the CBO report, also complained about the use of supplemental and deficit spending for the war and called the projected costs of the conflict, staggering. But, he added, ‘the dearest price has been paid’ by the more than 4,200 service members killed and more than 35,000 wounded.

According to CNN’s Jack Cafferty this figure ‘amounts to about $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in [USA] and that it includes $700 billion in interest, since these wars are all being fought on borrowed money to begin with. And more than 70% of this money would go to the war in Iraq.’ Cafferty also included that apparently ‘as of September 30th, the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $604 billion’.

Adjusted for inflation, that is higher than the costs of the Korea and Vietnam conflicts, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. That’s more than the Gulf War ($88 billion in today’s dollars), or Korea ($456 billion), or Vietnam ($518 billion). It’s within shouting distance of the price of the Korea and Vietnam conflicts combined. But the US economy is much larger today than it was in, say, 1968 – meaning the financial burden on the nation posed by these costs is correspondingly lighter. Defence spending during those two wars accounted for a far larger share of the American economy. In the months before the March 2003 Iraq invasion, the Bush administration estimated the Iraq war would cost no more than $50 billion.

Media outlets ought to answer why it hasn’t sufficiently probed the cakewalk crowd who promised a casual march to victory in Iraq. How many media activists pressed for accountability of the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming ‘measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.’

How often do viewers in the UK ever get to hear over on Newsnight an appraisal on Iraq that takes onboard a view that is independent of the official line? An important assessment conveniently overlooked is the statement made upon returning from a visit to Iraq, this is what Senator Joe Biden has declared in Iowa in September 2007: ‘If we do not change course in Iraq soon, you’re going to see, two years from now, helicopters hovering over our embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad with people hanging’ onto ‘the ladders just like Vietnam. Mark my words.’

Speaking on NBC, Biden provided this update on how security really is in Iraq presently: ‘I went to this big conference in Ramadi, middle of Anbar province, with the central government figures – two vice presidents, a Sunni and a Shia, and the deputy prime minister … Our helicopters couldn’t take off because of a sandstorm. They didn’t dare try to drive us from Ramadi … We could not go outside the city … [Is] there any security? When I left from the Green Zone to get to the airport, which is about nine miles, [I] couldn’t take a helicopter. We went 90 to 100 miles an hour in an evasive pattern along what they call Irish Way. The idea there’s any greater security there and their definition of security? They say they’re down from 1600 sectarian attacks to 950. That’s success?’

Over time, Newsnight has aired despatches filed by correspondents embedded with combat forces in Iraq. Does it affect the BBC’s ability to look at both sides of the picture? There are indications that many issues are left aside untouched and un-investigated. A case in order is the new US embassy in Baghdad that is the largest and most lavish embassy in the world. Tucked inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, the $600-million compound includes grocery stores, a movie theatre, tennis courts and a club for social gatherings. In ‘The Mega Bunker of Baghdad,’ Vanity Fair reporter William Langewiesche argues that it’s not being built for diplomacy. While reporting on improved security in certain quarters of Baghdad Newsnight hardly mentions the grounds on which the bunker mentality behind the project is being questioned. ‘What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it’s blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?’ asked Edward Peck, a former American diplomat in Iraq, in remarks quoted by the Associated Press.

One among many key topics Newsnight ought to cover is to investigate how US and UK funds are spent on defence and reconstruction in Iraq. Interestingly, some knowledgeable people get little or no mention on Newsnight no matter how important facts they draw attention to. Take the example of Pratap Chatterjee author of Iraq Inc: A Profitable Occupation which points out that ‘to put the priorities of the U.S. government a different way, just $3.33 out of every $100 in U.S. taxpayer dollars spent in Iraq has gone to Iraqi civilian reconstruction (not counting the cost of the security forces). Various estimates put the cost of private security at about a quarter of this expenditure, so the number is reduced to $2.50 on civilian reconstruction per $100 spent in Iraq.’

Does BBC shy away when it comes to set out to investigate, expose and uncover information and activities about American expenditures in Iraq? It does appear enthusiastic to pursue fact-finding and expose journalism of public affairs and their impact on Iraqi population. Furthermore, it tends to forego possibilities of engaging with available expertise that could help bring such information in the public domain. Thus one hardly finds Newsnight ever seeking views from promoters of financial transparency like Pratap Chatterjee who is author of the book, Baghdad Bonanza: Iraq’s Failed Reconstruction?

Could viewers expect Newsnight to provide any befitting mention of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone where The Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America – a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theatre that screened shoot-‘em-up films, and all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service – much of it run by Haliburton.

Trust is boasted to be the foundation of the BBC as it pledges to be independent, impartial and honest. However, the above examples draw attention to lapses where BBC has not risen up to secure straight, clear-cut answers for informing and educating the British public on how its government’s allies spend public money in Iraq. Its news producers should remain wary if part of their reporters risk becoming ‘mere passive processors of unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve some political or commercial interest. Not journalists, but churnalists’ complains award-winning reporter Nick Davies noting a general trend in the media where an ‘industry whose primary task is to filter out falsehood has become so vulnerable to manipulation that it is now involved in the mass production of falsehood, distortion and propaganda.’

What overseeing mechanism can help ensure media reporting that is reflective of realities on the ground? Should media and communication committees at Lords and Commons deliberate on such matters or do the media watchdogs need to take such a role upon them?

Links:

BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7057512.stm

Early Iraq War Expenses:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.htm

Testimony at House of Representatives budget committee by US Congressional Budget Office experts:
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1007/102407cdpm2.htm

Senator Joe Biden’s interview:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20676549

Pentagon Report:
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Signed-Version-070912.pdf

Baghdad’s Fortress America:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,511579,00.html

Jim Zackey | ukwatch.net

The Trade-Off Between Thorough Deliberations and Thoughtless Dereliction