In advance of the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, the UK media parroted government lies and fabrications uncritically and became an enthusiastic part of the state’s propaganda machine. An inquiry into British reporting of the Iraq war is well past due.
January 24, 2023
Intro
Peter Oborne’s article published by the very interesting online Declassified UK magazine on January 18, 2023, convincingly documents how the mainstream media use fake and omissions to legitimize their country’s war adventures. In this case, the run-up to the US/UK-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
I believe it is important to ask: Could media consumers be the object of the same gross deceit now when it comes to Ukraine? Is there any real reason to believe that that conflict is covered differently – not the least given the suspicious homogenisation across the media spectrum and the cancelling of Russian media?
Oborne starts out:
“Twenty years ago, Tony Blair provided the British public with false information about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction in order to make the case for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Sir Tony has never gone on trial. He has suffered no personal consequences. Nor have his spy chiefs and advisers. He was recently awarded the Order of the Garter, the highest honour in British public life.
Not one of the British journalists who published Sir Tony’s lies and falsehoods about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction has suffered professionally. Many have gone on to greater things.
Meanwhile, those who revealed the illegality and barbarism of the war have suffered. Julian Assange, who revealed so many of the war crimes committed by US forces, now languishes in jail.”
Jan Oberg, editor
