Did the Press Really Fail?

Helen Thomas claims in her 2006 book Watchdogs of Democracy? that White House press corps failed to do its job in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

But not everyone completely agrees. Dana Milbank, a former White House correspondent for the Washington Post who is now a columnist for the paper, wrote a review of the book which questions Thomas's claim that the press corps laid down.

Included in the review were questions taken from the transcript of a White House press conference prior to the March 2003 invasion.

Here are some examples:

"If all these nations . . . have access to the same intelligence information, why is it that they are reluctant to think that the threat is so real, so imminent that we need to move to the brink of war now?"

"I wonder why you think so many people around the world take a different view of the threat that Saddam Hussein poses than you and your allies?"

"How would you answer your critics who say that they think this is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it . . . your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place."

This list goes on. Which proves that the press corps did ask some tough questions. Could they have pushed harder? Maybe. But I wasn't there, so I don't know.

In 2004, Jim Lehrer of PBS told Chris Matthews on Hardball that the American press failed because journalists believed the invasion was only designed to be a “liberation” and not an “invasion.” Thus, they didn't feel the need to be as critical, Lehrer suggests. But an article in the Washington Post which ran on Feb. 21, 2003, refutes Lehrer's claim about the press's ignorance of a planned occupation.

An excerpt from the article follows:

"The Bush administration plans to take complete, unilateral control of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with an interim administration headed by a yet-to-be named American civilian who would direct the reconstruction of the country and the creation of a "representative" Iraqi government, according to a now-finalized blueprint described by U.S. officials and other sources.

Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, is to maintain military control as long as U.S. troops are there. Once security was established and weapons of mass destruction were located and disabled, a U.S. administrator would run the civilian government…."

So the plan to occupy Iraq was reported on in detail in a major American newspaper.

So is the press really to blame? And was Congress hoodwinked, or were some its members afraid to vote against authorizing the invasion lest they be viewed as un-patriotic? And were Americans who opposed the war afraid to speak out?

Who's to say a more critical press and outspoken public would have changed things anyway?

--Caine O'Rear