The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: It's All Good To FOX News
Reported by Ellen - May 31, 2005
The first Big Question on Big Story's Memorial Day edition was "What have we accomplished in Iraq?" Substitute host Judge Andrew Napolitano had a single guest to answer this question - Dan Senor, former CPA spokesman, now a FOX News contributor. I'd expect a truly fair and balanced news report to include someone a little more objective, a little less involved in the US invasion but even hoping for a counter-view to the Bush Administration's position is unrealistic on "real journalism" FOX News.
Predictably, Senor's report was so glowing, you might easily forget all the bad news that came out of Iraq the same day. None of it was discussed on Big Story which I am guessing was pre-recorded, though I never saw anything that said so explicitly. But over at FOXNews.com, the following was reported:
The U.S. military nearly set off a sectarian crisis Monday by mistakenly arresting the leader of Iraq's top Sunni Muslim political party, while two homicide bombers killed about 30 police, and U.S. fighter jets destroyed insurgent strongholds near Syria's border.Northeast of Baghdad, an Iraqi military aircraft crashed Monday during a mission with four American troops and one Iraqi on board, the U.S. military said.
In answer to Napolitano's question about what we have accomplished, Senor gave the usual "we removed one of the most brutal dictators and liberated the Iraqis" rhetoric. Apparently, the issue of Iraq's WMD's has slipped off the FOX radar screen into permanent amnesia. We must have invaded Iraq for purely humanitarian reasons.
While Senor spoke, "Progress report on building freedom and democracy in Iraq" was written on the screen. Senor continued, "But more importantly, Judge, what we're doing now is building a democracy in the heart of the region that's never known it. We need to stimulate reform throughout the region and you're already seeing the seeds of it with the Iraq election... and thanks to our men and women in uniform who created the space for that to happen and now you're seeing the ripple effect through the region in places like Lebanon... Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Comment: Saudia Arabia? Last I heard, it was still a monarchy. According to Democracy Now, "In Saudi Arabia, petitioners were recently arrested after calling for political reform. Amnesty International has long called for reform of Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system, where defendants face convictions based on confessions obtained under torture or deception."
But Napolitano seemed content to accept Senor's happy talk and threw him only softball questions about all the good news coming out of Iraq.
Next, the conversation turned to infrastructure, Senor made sure to tell us that the Iraqi infrastructure was not "terribly damaged" by the war, that it suffered from "three decades of chronic underinvestment" by Saddam. "He built palaces not electrical grids, hospitals, etc." (Obviously, there must be a vast difference between that and Bush granting tax cuts for millionaires and cutting public services to pay for it. Otherwise, someone on the show would have said so, right?)
Senor added that electrical generation is at pre-war levels and that "the economy's bustling right now - cars, microwave ovens, satellite dishes - so there's even more pressure on the electrical grid..." Some might say the United States should have planned for such increased pressure if the infrastructure was so neglected but nobody on FOX did.
Instead, the screen showed the following Big Facts, one after another: "541 Iraqi School Renovations have been completed to date (video of smiling Iraqis working together on a construction project); 170 more Iraqi schools are under construction; construction is underway on 142 Health care facilities; major cell phone company's (sic) in Iraq are gaining subscribers; 90 water treatment projects are underway in Iraq; USAID's rural water initiative constructed wells at 81 sites." These facts, which the FOX News producers must have prepared before the interview, prove just how scripted this "discussion" was.
Finally, Napolitanto asked about "elements of democracy." Once again, the on-screen caption proved the answers were known in advance. As Senor talked, the screen said "Democracy will thrive in Iraq."
Senor then bragged about Bremer signing an order "that the politicans can't influence, intimidate and meddle with the judges... And to this day the judiciary is independent, something we take for granted in the western world but is really unheard of in the Muslim world." Comment: Neither Senor nor Napolitano (a judge, himself - as the audience is constantly reminded) seemed to notice any irony in the fact that while they were touting judicial independence in Iraq, the U.S. Congress has been threatening it here at home.
In a futher bit of irony, also seemingly unnoticed by anyone at FOX, the next Big Facts on the underscored the importance of minority representation in the political process: Most of the government's posts "went to Iraq's majority Shiites... Kurds and Sunni Arabs are also strongly represented." Comment: I wonder if the U.S. will step in and force the Kurds and Sunni's to be less "obstructionist" if they don't go along with what the Shiites want to do.
