WASHINGTON, 30 March 2003 — The Pentagon had long predicted that the confrontation with Iraq would be unlike any other war in history. That claim has been proved correct, although not for the reasons the US top brass may have been thinking of.
For the first time, the public back home has had access to round-the-clock reports of every cough and spit of the military campaign, much of it supplied by the 750-strong army of correspondents embedded with US and British military units in the thick of the action. From live television pictures of battles through up-to-the-minute Internet headlines to acres of newspaper coverage, this has become the fastest, most extensively scrutinized war ever.
But in such a rapidly changing environment, the sheer volume of information has at times made it almost impossible to establish what is true and, just as importantly, how that affects the big picture. The problems of sorting out fact from fiction and claim from counterclaim have been compounded by the unpredictable nature of the war. With just nine days of the conflict passed, there have already been a series of apparently critical developments, all of them beamed instantly onto television screens and reported as fact in a blaze of newspaper headlines, that have subsequently turned out to be inaccurate.
1. Iraqi Convoys Head South
The London-based Daily Telegraph newspaper’s front page headline on Thursday (March 27) could not have been more dramatic. “Saddam sends out his tanks,” it thundered. According to the paper, two Iraqi columns, each containing 1,000 Republican Guard vehicles, were heading south to attack coalition forces in what would be the pivotal battles of the war. The tank columns, however, failed to materialize.
The correspondent, Walter Rodgers, said Iraqi units were streaming out of Baghdad under cover of a sandstorm to engage US marines around Najaf. The claim was downplayed almost immediately by the Pentagon. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that a few “light vehicles” were understood to be heading in the general direction of the US forces.
2. The Taking of Umm Qasr
As coalition ground forces poured across the Iraqi border from Kuwait on the first night of fighting on March 20, a pooled despatch from a reporter with the Royal Marines gave an action-packed and detailed account of the British assault on the Faw Peninsula and the port of Umm Qasr. The Marines, the report said, had successfully secured the port. Both Sky and BBC News 24 reported that Umm Qasr was in British hands. By the next morning, it seemed academic anyway: Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defense staff, announced that Umm Qasr had been “overwhelmed” by coalition forces, a claim repeated again by both US and British commanders yesterday.
But last Sunday, it became clear that Umm Qasr was far from being under control, as television news broadcast live pictures of a prolonged firefight between US Marines and about 150 Iraqis, who held out against artillery shelling and intense air strikes.
3. Chemical Weapons Factory
The news story that politicians and media alike have been waiting for broke late on Sunday evening: The apparent discovery of an Iraqi chemical weapons factory and, with it, vindication of the coalition assault on Saddam Hussein.
The story came from a correspondent from the Jerusalem Post who was traveling with the US 3rd Infantry. The plant, the paper said, had been discovered by American troops at Najaf. US television network Fox began running the story, which also quoted Pentagon officials.
On Monday, much of the British press treated the discovery with some caution.
The London-based Guardian newspaper gave the claims of a chemical factory find a short story on the front page, and warned that Pentagon officials had been unable to confirm the story. The London Evening Standard gave the claims lots of space but also enveloped them in health warnings, pointing out that the story had originated from unconfirmed reports.
Its sister paper, the Daily Mail, was not so circumspect. Under the headline “Allied troops storm massive chemical weapons factory,” it reported the discovery as fact, quoting Pentagon sources describing the installation as “very well-disguised.” Within 24 hours, Gen. Tommy Franks was cautioning that most claims about weapons of mass destruction finds were “based on speculation.” Former weapons inspectors also dismissed the reports.
4. Executions
A series of images broadcast on the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera have ignited one of the biggest controversies of the war. The channel showed lingering pictures of the bodies of two British soldiers, Sapper Luke Allsop and Simon Cullingworth, who had been caught in an ambush in southern Iraq. The Sun claimed the “sickening” Al-Jazeera film showed the two men had been executed. “One trooper had a massive chest wound and the other’s neck and upper chest was covered in blood,” the report said. “Both men’s faces were clearly visible on the film — shot at close range in the border town of Safwan.”
During a press conference with George Bush at Camp David on Thursday, Tony Blair claimed the soldiers were the victims of “an act of cruelty...” But the prime minister’s official spokesman later began backtracking from that position, saying there was no “absolute evidence” that they had been executed. On Friday, the Mirror led with Luke Allsop’s sister Nina emphatically denying that he had been executed. She said his colonel had told them he had died instantly when the vehicle was ambushed.
5. Basra Uprising
With coalition forces brought to a halt by a fierce sandstorm and facing repeated guerrilla attack by Iraqi forces, both the military and the media were searching for a breakthrough in the campaign. That came on Tuesday evening when BBC News 24 began broadcasting reports of an uprising against Saddam Hussein’s forces in the southern city of Basra. About 1,000 troops loyal to Saddam had held off the British forces dug in around the city for almost five days. Inside, a humanitarian crisis was unfolding as many of the 1.2 million residents were forced to survive without water or power.
The story was broken by Richard Gaisford, a GMTV (British morning television program) correspondent embedded with the British troops. Soon television news and wire services were running reports of British artillery hitting Iraqi mortar positions which had been firing on civilians. Pooled despatches from reporters with other British units around Basra added weight to the story.
On Wednesday morning, the Daily Telegraph greeted the uprising in a leader article as “the best news of the war so far for the allied forces.” Except it was not so straightforward. Four days later, the much heralded uprising is yet to happen. The city remains under the control of Saddam’s forces and the British remain camped on the outskirts.
6. Basra Tank Column
On Wednesday, news broke of one of the biggest tank battles involving British forces since the Second World War. A convoy of up to 120 Iraqi armored vehicles had been spotted breaking out of the southern city of Basra in broad daylight, heading south toward the British-held Faw Peninsula in what commanders described as an “offensive posture.”
TV news reports on Wednesday evening and newspapers on Thursday were filled with gripping accounts of the battle between British tanks and the Iraqi armor. “British artillery and jets launched a fierce attack last night on a convoy of up to 120 Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers seen pouring out of the city of Basra,” the Guardian newspaper’s front-page story said.
It was not until yesterday’s Ministry of Defense press briefing that the truth emerged: Rather than 120 Iraqi vehicles, there had been only three. A contrite military admitted that the error had stemmed from an “erroneous signal” from the coalition’s electronic moving target indicators. US Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks described it as a “classic example of the fog of war.”
