COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS VIDEO: Lessons And Legacy Of The Iraq War

New Poll Shows Convergence Of American Opinion Upon Iraq War, But For Different Partisan Reasons

 

Iraq was a very divisive war in the United States. The decision to invade in 2003 split the public, and the Democrats and Republicans. A new poll by the Pew Research Center however, shows that many Americans now share a similar view of the conflict. This is the result of several factors. First, many Republicans who were always the most supportive of the war, now want to blame President Obama for Iraq, and therefore do not see things as positive as they once did. Democrats, many of which were against the war, now have a slightly better opinion, because of the withdrawal of American troops. Independents on the other hand, are right in the middle. Overall, members of the U.S.’s two major parties are now more likely to share the same ideas on Iraq, but for completely different reasons.

(Pew Research)

The Pew poll showed that there was a narrowing of opinions amongst Americans on the Iraq war. The organization questioned 924 people in March 2013, with a margin of error of +/-3.9%. The survey showed that those that were for or against the war have now come closer together. On the question of whether the United States had achieved its goals in Iraq, respondents were almost evenly split. 46% said that the U.S. had succeeded, while 43% said that it had failed. That was a dramatic change from the previous three polls that showed a much wider divide on that issue. In 2006 for example, 54% stated that America had succeeded, compared to 40% who believed it had failed. The gap widened in 2010 when 58% responded that the U.S. had succeeded versus 35% who said it had failed, and 56% who thought America had succeeded in 2011, compared to 33% who said it had failed. The same change was seen when people were asked was the U.S. right or wrong to use force against Iraq. 44% said it was wrong, against 41% who said it was right. In 2003, 72% said it was the right decision, compared to only 22% who were opposed. From 2005-2007, when Iraq was in the middle of its civil war, those polled were almost evenly split between the two positions. Then from 2007-2010 when security improved, oddly more thought the Bush administration had made the wrong choice. By 2011 however, 46% believed it was wrong to use force, and 48% said it was right, which was very similar to the 2013 results. The decline in those that felt it was right to invade Iraq was due to changes amongst Republicans. In 2006, 82% of Republicans believed that the U.S. had succeeded in Iraq, but that took a sharp drop afterwards. In 2010 it was down to 68%, followed by 48% in 2012, and 56% in 2013. A decline in positive opinion was also seen amongst Independents who went from 54% saying yes in 2006 to only 41% by 2013. Democrats on the other hand have increasingly seen things turn for the better going from only 34% who thought American had succeeded to 56% in 2010 and 2012, and then down slightly to 45% by 2013. Finally, the partisan divide continued when respondents were asked whether the Iraq war was the right decision. In 2003, 90% of Republicans said yes, steadily dropping to 58% in 2013, the lowest percentage since the question was first asked. For Independents, they started at 66% saying yes in 2003, then saw a large drop to 43% by 2005, before leveling off to 33% in 2013. Democrats followed a similar pattern going from 50% saying yes in 2003 to just 17% by 2008, but then recovering a bit to 33% replying yes by 2013. Many of these changes can be explained through partisan politics. Because George Bush started the Iraq war, Republicans have been more supportive of it, even to this day. Their opinion did drop off slightly as the war did not go as planned, but now has reached its lowest level. That’s because Republican politicians and conservative pundits have largely condemned President Obama’s decision to have a full military withdrawal, which was actually negotiated by the Bush White House. Many Republicans wanted to maintain a residual force in Iraq, and have claimed rightly that Obama has put Iraq on the backburner. In comparison, Democrats were mostly opponents of the war, but their opinions have actually become more positive in the last few years. That’s likely, because Obama was elected president, and pulled out American troops. That’s the reason why the majority still disagrees with the invasion, but now think the U.S. has succeeded.

(Pew Research)

(Pew Research)

The Iraq war continues to divide the American politic, but opinions have changed from the early years. Most Americans now are evenly split over whether the U.S. succeeded in Iraq, and whether invading was the right choice. This has occurred for different reasons, largely partisan politics, but it does show a general consensus now forming about the conflict 10 years after its start. The real lasting affects will be seen in how it affects policy, rather than the public. President Obama for example, has shown a strong aversion to getting involved in another Middle Eastern war as shown in his stance towards Libya and Syria. The military also seems to still be debating the merits and faults of counterinsurgency. These effects were actually predicted back in the winter of 2005 by Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University in an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “The Iraq Syndrome.” Professor Mueller wrote that Iraq could have a similar affect upon American politics that Vietnam did. He noted that the Republicans would be hurt by the war, because they started it, that it would create intense partisan divisions more than previous wars, and that Bush’s foreign policy strategies such as unilateralism, preventive wars, and preemption would all be casualties. Those points have all come true showing that while Iraq is hardly talked about in the West today it is still having a lasting impact upon how Washington thinks.

SOURCES

Mueller, John, “The Iraq Syndrome,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005

Pew Research, “A Decade Later, Iraq War Divides the Public,” 3/18/13

NBC TODAY SHOW VIDEO: Gulf War - Operation Desert Shield, 8/8/90

AL JAZEERA VIDEO: Obama Marks End Of US Campaign In Iraq

What Happened When Saddam’s Statue Came Down In Baghdad On April 9, 2003? The Creation Of An Iraq War Myth

On April 9, 2003, a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. The U.S. press focused upon this event as a sign that the Iraq war was over, and that Iraqis were welcoming their liberation at the hands of the Americans. This was an act of myth making because the idea for taking down the statue came from two Marine units, only a sparse number of Iraqis were even there, and fighting was still raging in the city, which would eventually turn into the insurgency. The role of the Marines was largely unknown at the time, but the rest were ignored because the media wanted an iconic image to finish off the war.

The fall of Saddam's statue became the news of the day on April 9, 2003 (AP)

The toppling of the Saddam statue was hailed throughout the American media. Tom Brokaw of NBC said that the event was like, “All the statues of Lenin [that] came down across the Soviet Union.” The Washington Post had the headline, “Iraqis Celebrate in Baghdad,” the New York Times went with “Jubilant Iraqis Swarm the Streets of Capital,” and the Boston Globe wrote, “It was liberation day in Baghdad.” CNN’s Bill Hemmer said, “You think about seminal moments in a nation’s history … indelible moments like the fall of the Berlin Wall, and that’s what we’re seeing right now: Regular Iraqis with their opportunity and their chance to take their own axe to take down Saddam Hussein.” Fox’s Brit Hume noted, “This transcends anything I’ve ever seen. … This speaks volumes, and with power that no words can really match.” All thought the event was a historical moment that they were excited to see. To them, it seemed like Iraqis were celebrating their freedom, and the fall of Saddam both figuratively and literally, just as the Bush administration had predicted.

The 3rd Marine Battalion enters Firdos Square. It was their idea to take down Saddam's statue (AFP)

The media portrayed the fall of the statue as an act of the Iraqi people, but it was really the U.S. military that was behind it in a spontaneous act. On the morning of April 9, a psychological warfare team attached to the 3^rd Battalion, 4^th Marine Regiment in Baghdad, decided to head towards Firdos Square. When they arrived there, they found some Iraqis and reporters milling around. Right across from the square was the Palestine Hotel where many Western reporters were staying. The 3^rd Battalion had just arrived there, and then moved to the square as well. They saw a few Iraqis in front of the Saddam statue, which led one Marine to offer a sledgehammer to them to hit the edifice with. The battalion commander then decided to help the Iraqis take the statue down. First, the Iraqis began hitting the statue with the hammer, then the psychological warfare team broadcast their plan to pull it down in Arabic, while the Marines sealed off the square. The Iraqis tried toppling the statue on their own, but that failed. The Marines then drove an M88 tank recovery vehicle up to the statue. While attaching cables to it, a Marine hung an American flag over Saddam’s head. The psychological warfare team told him to take it off because they thought it would look bad for the assembled press. An old Iraqi flag was eventually found, and put on top of the statue instead. Then the M88 pulled it down. Some Marines then suggested that Iraqi children would look nice on the M88, and some were promptly found and photographed by the press. The whole process took around two hours, and there were long down periods where the Iraqis, Marines, and reporters were doing nothing, but milling around. Writer Peter Mass who was travelling with the 3^rd Battalion at the time, also believed that many of the scenes seen that day were Iraqis acting out for the cameras. For example, when the Iraqis began hitting the statue with the Marine sledgehammer, journalists swarmed them. When they stopped taking photos however, the Iraqis stopped and walked away. After the event, there was some speculation that the Marines staged the entire thing. First hand accounts by a member of the psychological warfare team included in a postwar lessons learned report, and an article by Peter Maas dismissed these ideas. The psychological warfare team and the 3^rd Battalion just happened to come across the statue, and decided to take it down spontaneously. There was no advanced planning going on that day, but the psychological warfare unit was aware of how the images would play out in the press, which led them to do things such as tell the Marine to take down the U.S. flag off of Saddam’s head and replace it with an Iraqi one. What actually happened was that the American press picked up on the story, and turned it into hyperbole.

The Marines gave the Iraqis a sledgehammer to hit the statue with (AP)

The Iraqis tried and failed to take down the statue themselves (AFP)

A Marine placed a U.S. flag on top of the statue's face (AP)

He was later told to take it down because it would look bad to the press, and was replaced by an Iraqi flag (AP)

A Marine M88 tank recovery vehicle finally pulled down the statue (AP)

  The first bit of distortion done by the media was to exaggerate how many Iraqis were in Firdos Square on April 9. The BBC approximated that there were only 200 people in attendance, a figure other sources seemed to roughly agree upon. Peter Mass estimated that 25-50% of those were reporters and Marines. He also noted that most of the Iraqis there were just standing around and watching, rather than being actively involved or celebrating. Reuters took a series of long-shot photos that day that showed that the square was almost empty, and sealed off by the Marines. Some TV reporters also noted the sparse crowd before the statue came down such as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, and anchors at Fox News. However, as soon as the statue came down the media began talking about far more, such as Simon Robinson on CNN who claimed that 1,500 were in attendance even though the Marines had not let anyone else in since they arrived. The press also tended to use close-up shots of the people immediately surrounding the statue to give the impression that there was a large crowd there. The use of close-in shots is common in the media, but some were obviously taken in by what they were seeing, and wanted to say that there were large numbers of Iraqis there that day to emphasize how important it was. This was a view not shared by many of the journalists actually in the square or those making close observations of it.

This wide angle-photo of Firdos Square shows the sparse crowd on April 9 (Reuters)

Next, journalists began overstating the relevance of the event. Ann Garrels of National Public Radio for instance, reported that there were hardly any Iraqis in the square, and they weren’t really celebrating when the statue came down, but were just standing around observing. She was then told by her editors to emphasize Iraqis acting joyful, because that was what they were seeing on TV. Of course, that was a distorted image itself, because as noted above, the networks were only showing a cropped view of the day’s proceedings. Photographer Gary Knight who was embedded with the 3^rd Marine Battalion got a call from his editor demanding that he take pictures of the square because it was on TV. He told them there were few Iraqis in attendance, but they insisted anyway. One of the worse examples came from the San Francisco Chronicle. They took a story penned by Robert Collier, which originally said that there were only a couple dozen Iraqis there, who were not overwhelmed by the statue being toppled. The next day, he found out that his editors had re-written his piece, saying “A jubilant crowd roared its approval” when Saddam’s figure fell, and some shouted, “We are free! Thank you, President Bush!” Of course, none of that happened, and Collier was later quoted as saying that his editors wanted a victory scene so they created one out of their own imagination. They told him that he didn’t understand the importance of the scene, which was why they revised his story. Many of the reporters in Firdos did not think anything special of the day. It was those in other locations, like the TV anchors and the editors that wanted to make a big deal out of the statue’s fall, and proceeded to do so.

The toppling of Saddam's statue was often compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall by the media (Boston Globe)

This desire to find a glamorous image to juxtapose what the media thought was the end of the Iraq war, was a driving force according to a media analysis done by researchers at George Washington University. They argued that the fall of the Saddam statue became what they called a “victory Frame” for the press, which consisted of the use of historical metaphors, repeated use of the image, exaggeration of the event, and using it to claim that the war was over. The paper looked at CNN and Fox News coverage of Iraq, the two major 24-hour networks, from the week before the statue came down on April 9 to the week afterward. Both ran constant live coverage of Firdos Square on the 9^th. From 11 a.m. to 8 pm. Fox played the image of the statue coming down on average every 4.4 minutes, and CNN showed it every 7.5 minutes. The anchors also constantly compared it to the coming down of the Berlin Wall, and the victory of capitalism versus communism in the Cold War. This was done 1 ½ times every thirty minutes between noon and 8 p.m. on both networks. Finally, the two top newsmen for the CNN and Fox, Wolf Blitzer and Brit Hume respectively, immediately started talking about the end of the war, and the postwar situation after the statue came down. The researchers found that in matters of war and foreign policy, the press tended to follow the lead of the government. In this case, it was pushing the line that Iraqis would greet the U.S. troops as liberators. When they saw images of Firdos Square, it appeared that the White House was right, and they exploited it for everything they could to push that argument. The military didn’t have to stage the event, because the press loves these types of images, and wants to be patriotic and supportive of the administration during times of war. In this case, some even went beyond exaggerating it to straight forward fabrication to create an Iraq that they imagined, and were conditioned to expect by the government.

The media whole heartedly believed that the fall of the statue symbolized the fall of Saddam’s regime, and in the following week drastically cut back their reporting on Iraq; completely missing what was going on in the country at that time. Fox News dropped their coverage of Iraq 70%, CNN’s went down 26%, ABC’s 66%, NBC’s 58%, and CBS’ 39%. On Fox, stories about fighting declined 79% in that week, and stories about strategy and tactics used in the war were reduced by 81%. Likewise at CNN, combat reporting declined 81%, and strategy and tactics pieces were down 89%. Stories of on-going fighting with visuals dropped 76% at Fox and 73% at CNN. This had a dramatic impact upon public opinion back in the United States, where those who thought the war was over jumped from 28% on April 8 to 41% on April 15, and support for Bush’s handling of the invasion went from 69% on April 3 to 76% after the statue fell. Of course, the war was not over, but much of the media was missing that because it was so caught up on Firdos Square. Even that day, the new Iraq was emerging. Some of the Iraqis who were cheering in the square turned out to be doing so for Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, Moqtada’s father who was killed by Saddam. One Iraqi who walked up to Peter Maas and told him he felt free, was later surrounded by a mob of Iraqis who accused him of being a Baathist spy. A Marine had to stop the crowd from killing him. Starting on the 9^th, Baghdad began to be torn apart by looters, and in the following seven days 13 U.S. soldiers were killed, and thousands of Iraqis came out into the streets of Baghdad calling for the Americans to leave. Hardly any of that was noted at first, because the press and their editors were so enraptured by the tale they had spun about Saddam’s statue.

On April 18, 2003 thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad demanding that the U.S. leave (AFP)

The American media is a powerful institution. They can spin tales, and create their own history. That’s what happened on April 9 in Baghdad. Two U.S. Marine units spontaneously decided to take down a statue of Saddam they found, but the press spun it as an act of jubilant Iraqis celebrating their freedom from an oppressive dictator. This was compared to the end of the Cold War, and declared the victorious image of the end of the conflict. The fact that there was still fighting going on in the capital that day, and the looting had already begun was barley mentioned, and would take at least two weeks to sink in back in America, as the press began to reduce their reporting on Iraq thinking that it was all over. The media thus fooled themselves and the public, and played into the hands of the Bush administration that claimed Iraqis would welcome their liberation by the U.S. It would take a long time for both groups to figure out what was really happening in Iraq, as the fall of the former regime was ushering in not only a period of anarchy, but almost immediate resistance to the U.S. occupation. The victors in the White House and media were too busy celebrating to notice that at the time.

SOURCES

Aday, Sean, Cluverius, John, Livingston, Steven, “As goes the statue, so goes the war: the emergence of the victory frame in television coverage of the Iraq war,” Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 9/1/05

BBC, “In pictures: Saddam toppled,” 4/9/03

Boston Globe, “Toppling Saddam,” War in Iraq Photo Gallery

CNN, “Saddam statue toppled in central Baghdad,” 4/9/03

Fontenot, Col. Gregory, Degen, LTC E.J., Tohn, LTC David, “On Point, The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Center for Army Lessons Learned, 5/1/03

Gilbert, Matthew and Ryan, Suzzane, “Did iconic images from Baghdad reveal more about the media than Iraq?” Boston Globe, 4/10/03

Information Clearing House, “The photographs tell the story…,” 4/10/03

Maas, Peter, “The Toppling: How the Media Inflated the Fall of Saddam’s Statue in Firdos Square,” Pro Publica, 1/30/11

Rampton, Sheldon and Stauber, John, Weapons Of Mass Deception, New York: Penguin, 2003

Source Watch, “Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein,” 2003

Zucchino, David, “Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue,” Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04

How The Bush White House Used Leaked Intelligence To Launch A Media Campaign Against Iraq In September 2002

In early September 2002, the Bush White House unraveled a concerted propaganda campaign to convince the American public of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The administration proved masterful at media manipulation, leaking a story about Iraq’s nuclear program to the press, and then quoting the story as proof of their claims. They then included the piece in an official release, which was reported on again. The news created about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, seemed to provide a convincing case against Saddam, when all along it was simply one administration claim repeated again and again by different outlets.

The administration unleashed its plan on September 8, 2002. It began with an article in the New York Times by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon entitled “U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts.” The piece started with the claim that Iraq had tried to buy thousands of aluminum tubes to build centrifuges for enriching uranium for an atomic bomb. It said that U.S. intelligence had found out that Saddam had met with his nuclear scientists and praised their work, defectors claimed that acquiring a nuclear bomb was a major goal of Baghdad, and that new construction was going on at suspected sites. Administration officials told the Times that Iraq’s nuclear program was making Saddam an even greater threat, claiming that he would be more likely to use his weapons of mass destruction if he had the protection of a nuclear bomb. War supporters within the White House went on to say that they were afraid that Iraq was even further along with its program than U.S. intelligence knew about. They did not want, “The first sign of a ‘smoking gun’” to “be a mushroom cloud.” The rest of the article went on to recount Iraq’s previous attempts to build a bomb, and claims about its chemical and biological arsenal. This was the opening shot in the White House’s propaganda campaign. Although the Times report included Iraqi defectors, and other sources, the major claims about Saddam’s nuclear operations came from the administration itself. The line about a “mushroom cloud” for example, came from one of Bush’s top speechwriters Michael Gerson, and was okayed for use by the White House Iraq Group on September 5. The next phase was to hit the Sunday news talk shows, and repeat these claims again and again.

(MSNBC)

That day, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press. He claimed that Iraq had restarted both its nuclear and weapons of mass destruction programs. He said that Baghdad was buying equipment to build a nuclear bomb such as the aluminum tubes. Cheney then quoted the New York Times article as proof of his argument. He went on to say that the U.S. did not know whether Iraq had a bomb or not, but that it was an immediate threat that America could act against in self-defense. He warned that if the Bush administration did not act, the United States would become a target of any atomic device Iraq could build in the future. The genius of the White House’s program was revealed in this interview. The Vice President was able to use the government’s own leak as proof of its claims against Iraq’s nuclear ambitions.

TV appearances by Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice followed. Powell was interviewed on Fox News Sunday saying that Iraq’s weapons programs and stocks were growing. (1) Later that day, Rice went on CNN’s Late Edition, and said that the aluminum tubes that Iraq attempted to buy were only good for centrifuges. She warned that the United States did not know how quickly Iraq could get a bomb, and used Gerson’s phrase that Washington did not want to find out through a “mushroom cloud.” Here again, administration officials were repeating the party line on Iraq, and using the phrase devised by the White House Iraq Group. The point was to flood he Sunday talk shows with the government's argument to create a media buzz about the threat posed by Saddam.

On September 12, the White House Group released a white paper on Iraq entitled, “A Decade of Deception and Defiance.” It was written by Jim Wilkerson, a deputy to White House communications chief Karen Hughes. It went over a number of Saddam’s crimes such as his human rights abuses and dictatorship, and then went through his weapons and nuclear programs. It mentioned a defector who claimed that Iraq had secret biological, chemical, and nuclear facilities. The next day, Miller and Gordon wrote about it in the Times. Along with going over a number of charges against Iraq’s WMD, it repeated many of the claims made by the Bush administration in the two reporters’ piece from September 8 such as the aluminum tubes Iraq tried to purchase, and that Saddam had recently met with his nuclear scientists. It did add that there was a debate within the U.S. intelligence community over the tubes with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Oak Ridge nuclear facility all believing that they were for a nuclear program, while the State and Energy Departments were dissenting. With this white paper and article, the propaganda campaign had completed the circle. First, the government leaked the aluminum tubes story to the Times, then Cheney and others quoted the piece as proof of their charges against Saddam, the White House then wrote a paper partially based upon the Times article, and then the newspaper wrote about the nuclear story all over again. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone was talking about the threat Saddam would pose if he eventually acquired an atomic bomb when in fact, it was all started by one single claim the administration told to the New York Times.

(PBS)

President Bush topped off the campaign by addressing the United Nations on September 12. The President said that the world could not wait for Iraq to get a nuclear weapon. He warned that the international community would only know if Baghdad had a bomb when it used it. He went on to claim that the aluminum tubes were proof that Iraq was trying to enrich uranium. The rest of the speech was full of charges about how Iraq was expanding its WMD programs. Here the U.S. government was spreading its case from advocating to the American public to the world body, trying to convince it that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat that needed to be dealt with.

The American media always tends to follow the lead of the government. Whenever Washington makes announcements it gets noted, and officials are major sources for reporters. Thus, when the Bush White House leaked the story of the aluminum tubes to the New York Times, it was immediately reported. The administration then used that coverage to claim that their argument against Iraq was supported by the news. This was then repeated again and again, in a concerted propaganda campaign to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the country because he was attempting to acquire a nuclear bomb. The White House proved adept at manipulating the media, but in the end, it had little affect upon the public at that time. In mid-August 2002, 53% of respondents in a Gallup Poll said they favored invading Iraq, while 41% were opposed. During the campaign, the numbers went up to 57-58% for a war, but by the beginning of October they were back to 53% in favor. The tubes story proved to be an important event for the administration to make its case against Iraq, but it was not the last. It would launch more campaigns, go to the Congress for an authorization for the use of force against Iraq, present to the United Nations again, and lobby allies to join its war plans. What it showed was how many in the media played along with the government, and helped promote the war. This is something that few have acknowledged since then. In May 2004 for example, the editors at the New York Times wrote a short piece on their pre-war Iraq coverage and mentioned the aluminum tubes reporting saying that they should have been more skeptical. They wrote that the story came from U.S. intelligence sources, when in fact, the White House orchestrated it. In the end, they promised more aggressive reporting on Iraq, yet to this day it, along with the rest of the America press continues to depend upon the government as a major source for its coverage. That gives little assurance that the next time an administration decides to launch a media offensive, the U.S. press will not fully comply, and repeat the official line rather than provide a critical source for the American public to decide the merits of the government’s decisions.

FOOTNOTES

1. Mukhopadhyay, Dipali, “The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004

SOURCES

Allen, Mike, “War Cabinet Argues for Iraq Attack: Bush Advisers Cite U.S. Danger,” Washington Post, 9/9/02

Dickinson, Tim, “West Wing Pipe Dream,” Mother Jones, 7/28/03

Gellman, Barton and Pincus, Walter, “Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence,” Washington Post, 8/10/03

Gordon, Michael and Miller, Judith, “Threats And Responses: The Iraqis; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts,” New York Times, 9/8/02

Isikioff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

Landay, Jonathan, “Iraq has been unable to get materials needed for nuclear bomb, experts say,” Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9/13/02

Miller, Judith and Gordon, Michael, “White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons,” New York Times, 9/13/02

Mukhopadhyay, Dipali, “The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004

New York Times Editors, “The Times and Iraq,” New York Times, 5/26/04

Risen, James, State of War; The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2006

Saad, Lydia, “Top Ten Findings About Public Opinion and Iraq,” Gallup News Service, 10/8/02

Americans Think Iraq War A Mistake Even Though Feel Things Better Now

A recent Gallup poll of 1,018 Americans in July 2009 shows that while a majority of Americans think that things are going well in Iraq, about the same amount think that going to war was a mistake. From July 10-12, Gallop conducted a telephone poll of 1,018 Americans. They asked about their perceptions of the Iraq and Afghan invasions, and how they thought things were going now in both conflicts. 56% said things were going well in Iraq, while 58% said the war itself was a mistake.



In the first year and 3 months of the war, Americans perceived things as going well and the invasion worthwhile. In mid-2003 only 27% said the war was a mistake, and the public was almost evenly divided on their perceptions on how things were going with 52% saying things were good, and 47% seeing things going badly. From early 2004 to mid 2008 however, perceptions of Iraq turned negative peaking at 71% saying things were bad in January 2007. The same thing happened with opinions on whether the invasion was a mistake, going from 38% saying yes in mid-2004, to peaking at 63% saying yes in April 2008. Americans have continued to think badly of the invasion from then to the present day, despite a better view of the on-going conflict.


When broken down by political views, a majority of Republicans still think the war was worthwhile, while a majority of Democrats and Independents disagree. Only 26% of Republicans think the war was a mistake, while 59% of Independents and 78% of Democrats have the opposite view. This partisan difference is obviously due to the fact that a Republican administration initiated the war.

While Gallup thinks the more positive view of events in Iraq today are linked to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq’s cities that only occurred in June 2009 when opinion changed for the positive back in mid-2008. A more likely cause is the drop in violence and the dramatic decline in reporting about the war that began in 2007. That still has not reversed the generally negative view of the invasion. Unless there is a dramatic reversal of events, these views will probably persist until 2011 when combat troops are due to depart Iraq. Americans will think that the country has improved, but that the Bush Administration should’ve never invaded in the first place.

SOURCES

Newport, Frank, “Americans Upbeat on Progress in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gallup, 7/16/09

U.S. Public Opinion As Combat Troops Exit Iraq's Cities

June 30, 2009 was the official deadline for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities. At the same time two public opinion polls were released of Americans on what they thought about Iraq. CBS News and the New York Times did one, and the other was by Rasmussen. The former found that a majority of Americans thought that things were going well in Iraq, while the later reported that very few people in the U.S. feel that the war is over, but a majority is hoping that President Obama brings home the troops by the end of his term in 2012.

The CBS News/New York Times poll was conducted from June 12 to 16, 2009 and just focused on how people thought the U.S. was doing in Iraq. 62% replied that the U.S. was doing well. This was actually lower than the last two times this question was asked back in April and March 2009. In April 71% said America was doing well, and 64% responded that way in March. The drop in the polling numbers in June might have been caused by the spate of bombings and violence in Iraq in that month on the eve of the withdrawal.

The public first began feeling positive about Iraq in September 2008 when 52% responded that things were good there. The low point was in June 2007 when 77% said the war was going badly. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all had positive views as well. 71% of Republicans felt things were going good, compared to 63% for Democrats, and 54% for Independents.

How Are Things Going For The U.S. In Iraq?

	6/09	4/09	3/09	12/08	9/08	6/07	5/03
Well	62%	71%	64%	56%	52%	22%	72%
Bad	31%	24%	33%	39%	46%	77%	24%

The Rasmussen survey focused upon whether the public felt that the war was ending or not, the effect of the withdrawal on Iraq, and when they felt the troops would be home. Only 16% said the war was finished, while 64% said it wasn't, and 20% were not sure. When asked how they felt security in Iraq's cities would be in the future, 81% said that it was likely or somewhat likely that they would turn violent. 44% said they were very likely to go bad. When asked what the U.S. should do if that happens, only 17% said that American forces should be sent back in to help. 68% said that the Iraqis should handle it, while 15% were not sure. Respondents were also split on what Iraq would be like in the next 6 months. 38% said it would get better, 25% said it would get worse, and 24% said Iraq would stay about the same.

There were two questions about the final U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as well. When asked would America be out by December 2011, 48% said they were confident or very confident that would happen, compared to 46% who said they were not. When asked about a longer timeline, 66% said it was likely or somewhat likely that President Obama would have combat troops out by the time his first term ended in 2012. 59% went on to say that it was more important to get the troops out than finish the job in Iraq.

Those surveyed also seemed to have been keeping up with recent events. 80% said they had been following the news on the withdrawal from the cities, while only 4% said they had not kept up with the story at all.

The Surge and the drop in violence can be attributed with the change in American attitudes about Iraq. Beforehand, the sectarian war and high U.S. casualties turned most of the public against the war. The dramatic drop in deaths from 2008 to the present, has the U.S. back to thinking optimistically about the future of the conflict. The main priority however, is to get the combat troops out as soon as possible. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. public feels if President Obama decides to keep a large advisory force in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for withdrawal. Perhaps they will be satisfied with most troops coming home, but then again since so many feel that Iraq needs to deal with its own problems, they might be upset with a residual force staying behind.

SOURCES

De Pinto, Jennifer, "Polls Show Most Say Things Are Going Well in Iraq," CBS News, 6/30/09

Rasmussen Reports, "64% Say War in Iraq Is Not Over Yet," 7/1/09

The Decline of Reporting on Iraq

On June 23, 2008 the New York Times ran a story on the decline in press coverage on Iraq. That report coincides with a more in depth one in the journal American Journalism Review from their June/July 2008 issue. Both pointed out the sharp drop in the number of stories in the American media about the war, and how that is shaping U.S. public opinion about Iraq.

Both stories started off with surveys documenting the drop in war coverage. Those numbers came from the Project for Excellence In Journalism (PEJ), Andrew Tyndall who monitors the nightly TV news, and the Associated Press. PEJ found that in the first ten weeks of 2007 Iraq accounted for 23% of the stories on TV news. That dropped to around 3% in 2008. On cable news, the coverage went from 24% of stories to only 1%. Andrew Tyndall looked at the three major networks ABC, CBS and NBC and found a similar decline. The number of minutes dedicated to Iraq went from over 4,100 minutes in 2003, to 3,000 minutes in 2004, to around 2,000 minutes from 2005-2006, and then dropped to 1,157 by late 2007. In the first half of 2008, only 181 minutes have been shown on the war. The Associated Press conducted a survey of 65 newspapers. It found a peak of 457 stories on Iraq in September 2007 when General Petraeus reported to Congress. In the following months stories on the war dropped to a low of 49.

Editors provided a number of reasons for their coverage. These included the cost of maintaining a reporter in Iraq, war fatigue by the U.S. public, the importance of local over international stories, and the presidential campaign and economy dominating news coverage. Many networks and newspapers are also cutting back their reporters in Iraq. CBS for example, no longer has a full time correspondent in Iraq, and reporters from the other two networks told the New York Times that they were worried that many if not all of them might be recalled after the presidential election was over.

Mark Jukowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism authored a March 2008 report on press coverage and believes the turning point occurred in May 2007. On May 24, 2007 Congress voted for war spending without including a withdrawal clause. After that the political debate in Washington ended and so did much of the press coverage. For example, the PEJ study found that from January to May 2007 20% of news coverage was about Iraq. From May to March 2008 however, war stories dropped 50%.

Editors and reporters said that the American public simply isn’t interested in the war anymore as another cause for the drop in stories. The American Journalism Review article found the opposite. As the media decreased coverage for other stories, so did the public’s knowledge and interest in Iraq. The Pew Research Center for example, found that 54% of Americans knew how many U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq in July 2007. By March 2008 only 28% were aware.

As the Iraq war continues into its fifth year reporting on it can only be expected to decline. Even when new fighting erupts such as recently happened in Basra and Sadr City, stories rarely make it onto the front page of newspapers. Weekly news surveys by the Project for Excellence in Journalism show that the war has dropped to 5% or less of news coverage since early April, and for some weeks isn’t even a top ten story. Jukowitz believes that the war will return if Obama and McCain make it a campaign issue, but that seems unlikely with the economy tanking and gas prices skyrocketing. Rather than being news leaders, the American press are turning out to be news followers, failing to do their job to inform the public about one of the pressing news stories of the day, the war in Iraq.

SOURCES

Jurkowitz, Mark, "Why News of Iraq Dropped," Pew Research Center's Project For Excellence In Journalism, 3/26/08

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, April 7-13, 2008: McCain Gets Least Coverage But Best Media Narrative,” 4/14/08
- “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, April 14-20, 2008: Obama and Clinton Debate the Debate,” 4/21/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, April 21-27, 2008: Post-Pennsylvania Spin Drowns Out McCain,” 4/28/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, April 28-May 4, 2008: The Pastor’s Press Tour is the Week’s Big Newsmaker,” 5/5/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, May 5-11, 2008: The Media Hear The Fat Lady Humming,” 5/12/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, May 12-18, 2008: Clinton Wins W. Virginia, Obama Wins the Headlines,” 5/27/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, May 19-25, 2008: While Democrats Battle on, McCain Makes News,” 5/27/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, May26-June 1, 2008: Iraq Roars Back as a Campaign Issue,” 6/2/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, June 2-8, 2008: Clinton Drives the Media Narrative the Week Obama Wins,” 6/9/08
- Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, June 9-15, 2008: Obama Makes More News Than McCain, But It’s Not All Good,” 6/16/08

Ricchiardi, Sherry, “How the Media Abandoned Iraq,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2008

Stelter, Brian, “Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burners,” New York Times, 6/23/08