The Gulf Wars: Nationalism and threats

Suddenly the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait became the top story on the local and international news agendas and remained so for many months.
Interest in the invasion ratcheted up when the US claimed that Iraq might also invade Saudi Arabia, which was reputed to control 20 percent of the world’s known oil reserves and had an investment portfolio even larger than Kuwait’s.
For the world’s media it was a bonanza, a real shooting war in the heart of oil-and-money land. Even at this early stage, it was apparent that information for the media was going to be very one-sided as the words “spokesmen”, “officials” and “sources” prefixed many quotes and that any further invasion, were it to happen, would be reported on from a distance.
Arab News slipped into war-reporting mode relatively slowly, waiting for local responses rather than immediately condemning the violence outright. Talks between the US Secretary of State at the time James Baker and then Soviet Foreign Secretary Eduard Shevardnadze over Afghanistan made the editorial piece in the Aug. 4 edition, which led with the headline: “GCC Slams Invasion of Kuwait.”
Apart from a story that carried the title “Gulf developments worry Asian states” on the same page, which was a hand wringing piece on the effect of the war cutting the level of remittances returning home, it was the only mention of the looming conflict on the Kingdom’s border.
After the slow start, Arab News warmed to the task. Details of arms build-up, a blockade of Iraqi tankers in the Gulf and observations of the building of a coalition of the willing, had stretched to articles appearing over four pages by mid August.
All the coverage was from the US point of view and almost all from newswires, most of which quoted “official sources.” Notably, an Associated Press report from Nicosia, on the same front page, quoted a UK bank employee in Kuwait as having seen young Iraqi soldiers shedding their uniforms, refusing to obey orders and deserting the scene.
Aug. 19 saw Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal effectively fire the starting gun for reporting in the Kingdom on the crisis by announcing that the UN was considering military action against Iraq.
“Any military confrontation will depend on Iraq’s action. Iraq has occupied a peaceful Arab country and displaced its legitimate authority,” he said at the time.
Three days later, Arab News devoted most of the front page and a large portion of its inside pages to stories on Iraq. Throughout the closing months of 1990, the troop build up, politicking between coalition players and the pronouncements of Saddam Hussein were standard fare in Arab News.
To localize the news, the paper frequently included the Saudi point of view expressed through statements from King Fahd and the Saudi authorities, which also reinforced the Saudi commitment to removing Saddam from a peaceful neighboring Arab state.
“Pull out from Iraq as you did from Iran, Fahd tells Saddam” pronounced the front page on Sept. 30.
November saw a change in tone in Saudi Arabia. “We have sought foreign forces support after learning of Saddam’s evil designs against the Kingdom,” announced King Fahd on the front page.
The statement was aligned with the position of the mainstream media and Bush administration, but was in direct conflict with a pronouncement from the Pentagon in early August that said any quick Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia did not have sufficient logistical support.
By January 1991, over half a million Allied troops were deployed in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. Intense diplomacy between US and Iraqi officials failed to bring about an Iraqi withdrawal.  By Feb. 26, US and Allied Arab forces, along with the underground Kuwaiti Resistance, controlled Kuwait City and Allied air forces pounded the retreating Iraqi occupation army. By March 3, 1991, Iraq accepted the terms of the cease-fire and the fighting ended.
Arab News had kept up the pace and volume of reports on the war but had, even though the newspaper was close to the action geographically, been kept at a distance as much of the rest of the world.
Apart from a local comment on what was permitted public knowledge, we had largely been kept at a distance. We relied on the “official spokesmen” and commentary dotted with the pronouncements of the Saudi government and King Fahd.
That all changed in round two in 2003.
Between the two wars the political world had drastically changed. America had suffered a devastating attack on the World Trade Center that had shattered forever the myth of the nation’s invulnerability. The “war on terror” had come into existence and in a grim moment of déjà vu another George Bush was about to go to war with Iraq.
During the conflict however, Arab News was there in the thick of it with two of our very own war correspondents, Nasser Al-Nahr and Essam Al-Ghalib. Al-Ghalib was not embedded with the coalition forces and phoned his copy through every day from wherever he could.
“War within hours” was the banner headline Arab News ran on March 18, 2003, reporting the demand that Saddam should leave the country — or else. The following day, the rather jolly headline, “High Noon for Cowboy Era”, which carried a photograph of George Bush adjusting his Stetson, underlined the mood of gung-ho macho that seemed to pervade the media keen for a re-run of the Desert Storm of 1991.
At 5:34 a.m. Baghdad time on March 20, 2003, the military campaign swung into action, ten days later than planned.
Dramatic reports followed thanks to Arab News’s Al-Nahr in Baghdad and Al-Ghalib in Kuwait City getting information firsthand from people on the ground.
“ITN Journalists Feared Dead” was the headline on March 23 — our source a Kuwait police lieutenant colonel. ITN preferred to report that the reporters were missing. These two reporters began to establish Arab News as a source of solid information, rather than simply conveying the official version of news.
Our reporters in the war zone continued to send back big picture reports and some gritty and revealing reports.
“Day of Setbacks for US” was the headline of an Al-Nahr story.
“US Soldier Attacks Comrades in Kuwait,” was the title of a story from Al-Ghalib, who was reporting on an American soldier who rolled hand grenades into his comrades’ tent.
“He’s a Muslim and it seems he was just against the war,” a military source said at the time.
The reports gave light and shade to an otherwise partisan “white knight” style of reporting from elsewhere.
Another member of the Arab News team, Mohammed Alkhereiji, was stationed in Jordan gathering reactions and reports from the Arab perspective. “Unjust and Evil War” was the headline of one of his stories, quoting the Secretary-General of the Islamic Action Front, Hamza Mansour.
“America has set its sights on the Arab and Muslim world in its entirety and Baghdad is only the beginning of their plans for total occupation of our region.”
This kind of view clashed horribly with the official line that the streets of Baghdad would be filled with welcoming Iraqis tossing roses at the generous saviors of their country. But we got the story, we published it and a significant event happened, which set the tone of the newspaper for the future.
Arab News, instead of relying on stories from wires, achieved the treasured position of being the source of stories for the wires thanks to the alternative stories from men on the ground not controlled by the coalition.
By April 1, Robert Fisk had joined the war commentary printed in the Arab News. His acerbic observations (via the UK’s Independent newspaper) on the rhetoric of Gen. Franks among others was both refreshing and revealing.
“The military ‘plan’ is so secret, according to Gen. Franks that very few people have seen it all or understand it,” wrote Fisk on April 1. “I suspect there is no real overall plan. Because I rather think that this war’s foundations were based not on military planning but on ideology.”
This was not a popular view. Tony Blair’s recent performance at the Chilcott inquiry on the war rather confirmed Fisk’s suspicions. It was about regime change, and oil.
A fortnight into the war, the Arab News was joining in the cynicism generated by reports that were sourced outside the mainstream.
“‘Liberated’ by US Bombs” was the April 2 headline. Note the fact that the word “liberated” is apostrophized. Al-Ghalib’s inside report of being searched and wandering the streets of Baghdad gave a vivid picture of the confusion reigning. Suicide bombers, happy Iraqis shaking hands with American soldiers and others wanting them out of the city gave a far more detailed and truthful picture of the aftermath of the bombing of the city than anodyne official press releases.
He followed up four days later reporting on a demonstration in Nassiriyah. “No to Saddam; No to US,” ran the headline.
It was all over bar the shouting. The cease-fire was declared on May 1, but the ensuring fortnight of violence saw Arab News experiencing a baptism of fire and a test of its ability to deliver the news.
It was the first real test of the newspaper’s depth of character and a taste of its new status being the source of news worldwide. It changed the attitude of news gatherers and readers around the world and provided the paper with a reputation for credibility and integrity that it still carries.