in 80, but jackson's jester further drop of up to 40 percent. i 2050. in january, spain's government announced the $24000000000.00 plan to protect and improve water supplies. well summarize of was in catalonia, a solar, that old structures like bridges, a church bell, tower, and other ancient ruins, have resurfaced for the 1st time navigation. abs also shine people in the middle of the water, when in fact they are standing on trial hand meteorologist. the warning yet another hot and dry summer head and environment once again, favourable fare. large wildfires will again, mutually monthly go event them in their climate change has clearly arrived. and unfortunately it is here to stay. we already have a lot of evidence that in spine we're suffering from the effects of global warming . and we're one of the most affected regions because heat waves are increasing more frequently than in other regions. spain as a country that is always halfway between temperate climates,

but now we're undergoing a change towards more air dryer climates, where the availability of water is lower. ah, just a quick look at the main stories of following the sour into the international criminal court on friday issued an arrest warrant for russian president vladimir putin is accused of being responsible for war crimes and ukraine. this includes the unlawful deportation of children and the unlawful transferred children from ukrainian territory to russia. this is susan put moments in the process of justice before those to see the judges. f reviewed the information and evidence submitted by the prosecutor and determined that the debt are credible allegation against d's, persons for the alleged crimes. they c. c is doing it's part of work. as a court of law,

the judges issued arrest warrants. the execution depends on international cooperation and other developments turkish president, russia typo on, says he'll now support finland's bid to join nato as follows, a meeting with the finished president. oh tuan, said the turkish puddles, dart ratifying helsing, he's bid now are to that meeting? the swedish foreman is to says anchor his decision to only ratify finland's bit is regrettable. took he had previously blocked finland and sweden's bid on the basis of security concerns. people in france, her again out in protest with unions warning they'll continue their fight against pension reforms. latest action is a day off the government bypass parliament enforcer a controversial plan to raise the retirement age. from 62 to 64 of his further anger, the demonstrators with protest turning violent. please use water cannon and tear gas to break up the crowds who had set fire to cause more than 300 people were arrested. and us president joe biden wants congress to impose tough

a punishment on bank executives as he tries to reassure the public after the collapse of silicon valley bank. us markets were down in early trading on friday, triggered by ongoing uncertainty in the banking sector. now up, frontier is coming out next to stay with us for that talk the law will. the law, when with neither side, willing to negotiate is the ukraine war becoming a forever war is america's global leadership, increasingly fragile. what will us politics look like? as we had to the presidential election of 2024, the quizzical look us politics the bottom line. 20 years ago this week, the united states launched its invasion of iraq, a move that members of u. s. president george w bush's administration, had been planning for months if not years in the run up to the war, the administration. and it's sarah gets, went into overdrive pushing the narrative that iraq and it's leader. saddam hussein

posed in immediate and significant threat to the united states. most of the media uncritically repeated dubious claims about weapons of mass destruction and possible links to al qaeda claims that were thoroughly debunked in the months and years that followed. so how complicit was the media in selling the iraq war to the public and has the press learned any lessons from past failures? that's our discussion this week, and it up front special. ah, joining us today is katrina vanden heuvel publisher, an editorial director of the nation norman solomon founder and executive director of the institute for public accuracy and author of war made easy. how presidents and pundents keep spinning us to death. and peter, o born former chief political commentator for the daily telegraph, an author of the rise of political lying, want to thank you all for joining me on up front. katrina. i want to start with you

in the lead up to the iraq war. we saw officials and sarah gets up with the administration of been u. s. president george w bush making the rounds in the press. and during those press rounds, it seemed like they were making a real effort to link the security of the united states post 911 to an imminent threat from iraq. can you walk us through the administration strategy to say all this iraq war to the general public? all the administration was determined to sell this war. knowing, as we know now that they didn't believe there was a tie between the attacks of $911.00 and iraq. but that there was a shock therapy plan to undermine and regime change. iraq and it was one of the media's greatest failures to date in accepting and failing to be a skeptic man, he said norman solomon and others, media ended up being lap dogs, not watch dogs. there was

a failure of skepticism. there was an acceptance of what was a lie. and just one example in the 2 weeks leading up to the war on tv, you had one of say, 200 pundits commentators, military experts, one who raised questions or any skepticism about going to war. that is a failure and it wasn't just fox, but it was the liberal kind of intelligentsia, the david rem next. jeff goldbergs of the atlantic, jonathan shade as recline. these were ones who, including the think tanks and washington lubricated the way for the lives of the white house. norman, can you pick up on that idea? the katrina is laying out here. i mean there's the bush strategy there. the sarah gets there. the people who echoed talking points and then there is this press failure, the katrina just reference the right. there were some exceptions. there were people who pushed back, there are people who were skeptical, but in general, there seemed to be a commitment to blindly repeating the bush administration's talking points with

almost no scrutiny. the question to me is why, why would a media infrastructure allow that to happen? a conformity is so extreme and when we have exceptions, that's not the essence of propaganda. the essence is repetition of the code. words the catch phrase is the frame of reference and the of some that the united states has the prerogative to try to work its will on the world, including the charity, to the extent that seems strategically advisable and pragmatically possible. and so i think we had not only the careerist conformity and opportunism but also the institutional interlock with what has been called the military industrial complex. and that really continues so that the echo chamber was not simply a problem with individual career drive. but also really the

very structure of media, the way that the advertising and the ownership intersects and is interwoven with the entire political economy and government. i think some of the why can be answered by examining the revolving door not only literally, between media and government officials, but psychologically there is a sort of a worldly gig. it goes around. what do you mean when you say that we use for the revolving during the world again? what do you mean exactly? well, i mean that the personnel often move from government to media and vice versa. and also the assumptions about us. progress in policy are also shared in that way and quite literally when we talk about the up to the invasion of iraq just about 20 years ago. now we have a situation where there would be from the vice president's office. dick cheney from

rumsfeld at the pentagon and so forth, lies planted and leaked to people like judith miller and michael gordon at the new york times. they would be front page. and then those lies about suppose the weapons of mass destruction in iraq would be cited by bush and cheney and others. see, it's not just us thing. it is the news media. so this recycling was very insidious . peter, there are multiple pieces to these strategies, particularly when you look at them in a global context. in the u. k. the message from prime minister tony blair, at the time, took one slightly different, focused in the one in the us. it was less about the imminent threat and the looming danger at the onset, it was more that the country was going to war as a moral duty to liberate iraq from saddam hussein, a dictator with a track record long track record of human rights abuses. blair, even once ro,

quote the moral case against the war has a moral answer. it is the moral case for removing saddam. how effective was that strategy in garnering support for the war. busy well, the black did think that was a moral case for war, but actually he was extremely diligent in inventing full slacks about sizes which were then nodded. states, you know, remember that in britain use the dossier of weapons of mass destruction, notorious clay of 45 minutes of destruction, of but at sea so that her 2 apparently average chemical weapons, biological weapons. i'm pretty sure susan, that title was it was a fabrication, was the decision to prioritize the moral urgency rather than the urgency of the,

of the w m. d. 's. a strategic choice is that when that was more palatable to the british public was that one of the media was more willing to accept what, how do you account for the difference making in terms of what they chose to focus on. well, because they said also had a parallel strategy of the single cleanser victims of the regime, many of whom a real woman said that let's not get it was a barbarous dictator. there wasn't oh nonsense. and they were on sign from a grant that saddam was a a noxious figure. the trouble is that wasn't the grants for invading iraq. i don't recognize what you're saying. the tea party, bishop of persons of this bags ahead of the wall was the production of fabricating evidence that saddam hussein's iraq posed

a imminent threat to international courses. and katrina, keep in mind that this was a time just after 911 when it wasn't unusual. at all, to see the white house directly responding to journalists who questioned their narrative. they warned them they intimidated him. they accuse them of being unpatriotic. oh, what effect did that strategy have on the circumstances under which journalists were working while trying to do their jobs? well, i think we've seen in times of war or do run up to war the ability to quiet oppress court. there were very few questions i remember in the run up to war the iraq or helen thomas is no longer with us. was one of the few was racing tough questions and they continue to marginalize her. but i want to pick up on what norman said. it's not just the individuals, it's the news organizations which maintained a kind of warlike support and didn't raise the tough questions which were clearly

in need of being raised. you had a, judith miller being pumped with emigrate to lobby's nonsense. but let's look at tv, for example, norman, who was then involved with phil donahue showing emerson, b, c, was essentially ousted, and that wasn't a personal decision. that was a corporation, a fearful of taking on a president's war. help me understand how we get it makes sense intuitively that a journalist doesn't want to book the system from their news organization because he's stay employed by these news organizations. right? but there are many people who believe that big corporations drive government, not the other way around. why is the big news outlet? why would a news corp, why would it would g e or whoever? right. be afraid of a government be afraid to push back or speak out against a war to be afraid to tell the truth. why are they afraid of administrations when

they have those? i wrote several reasons. mark one is, you know, in washington often that the, that conformity drive is not necessarily one of oppression. that's one of seduction . boom journalists have access. they want to be inside. secondly, these news organizations are not. we did a center fold years ago or the news organizations and little cogs in big corporations which have business in washington regulatory and other business. so there's that web and then there's just a mindset. i remember doing chris matthew sunday show and i said, i thought you iraq was a war of aggression. david gregory, all 65 of them stood up, loomed over me and said, how dare you say that that is on american? i think to be american is to be unyielding in defense of civil rights, civil liberties of justice and of speaking you know the truth to power. the problem is that those in power often know the truth. norman,

that you and katrina have started to talk about this relationship between the professional and political pressure is applied to journalists to get them to conform. and some people who just decided that it was best for their career was just good business to go along with this war. i'm always trying to understand what the ratio is there just a little bit of you know, how much of this is the, were pressured, our jobs are making us do it. there's a military industrial complex that forces i hand and shapes our consciousness and how much of it is you know what that line is shorter. it's much easier to be on the front page if i just take this approach, how much of it is the ladder? because i'm starting to become more and more cynical as i get old. maybe you're becoming more realistic. yeah, the lines get shorter when you get more reward. there's a lot more goodies there. and this is where the line between political analysis and sun. psychoanalysis becomes rather thin. katrina mentioned seduction,

and i think it's a very key point because yes, there are punishments for stepping out of line. and there are a lot of rewards for staying in line and going out on a limb is not very helpful to careers. if you think it's going to crack and there's not a mattress underneath to cushion your fall. and so we have examples in both directions where for instance, david remnant the editor of the new yorker wrote a de facto editorial a couple of months before the invasion of iraq, 20 years ago calling for that evasion in a clarion call apiece. and he edited a magazine during the months before the invasion of which repeatedly published articles that claimed that there was a direct tie between saddam hussein and al qaeda and $911.00 complete falso, as well as we speak. david remich is still the editor of the new yorker. there is

no accountability whatsoever. whereas people who did step out of line, for instance, phil donahue, whose show was cancelled a few weeks before the invasion of iraq, according to lead memos from and b, c. m. s. n b c, precisely because you allowed and they were voices of minority of voices on the show, but still voices aloud on his program. that was unacceptable. because the memo from nbc that was leaked said that the competitors like fox would be waving the flag as the bombs fell on baghdad. they didn't want to be the network out. peter, what's your assessment of, you know, how much of this is just ra, naked, self interest and opportunism versus the kind of broader structural pressure. and then to wasn't really a situation where if you didn't go along with the system you're was career suicide because in some ways that at least it doesn't justify the action,

but give some context for it. well i, i was taken by something which katrina said just then which was the importance of access. but of course it's, it's, it's a, it's a story. but i think that was a collapse of skepticism. and it was also, of course to follow up another points. but those who oppose the war was targeted. but in the british papers, i still remember scott rich weapons inspector was very eloquent. fabrications of the western intelligence agencies, politicians on the way he was covered and bullied and smeared in british president of the states was, was completely, completely horrible. and so it was an unpleasant silence. no mark what,

what strikes me is that there was another phenomenon in the run up to the war, not just media malpractice, but the new york times called the protests around the world, the other superpower. and there was a real sense of people, a community global community gathering to say no to war. that dissipated when the war began. but i think it remains what strikes me. i don't know if this strikes peter or norman is that we talk a lot about democracy in this country today in salvaging democracy. but at the nation, we believe, for a 150 plus years, that war, the endless war does not from a true democracy at home. yet we have a kind of celebration of george w and the chinese and people who took us into a disastrous ford. there is no accountability in the system, you know, in,

with all of these people speaking out against the war with all of this critical analysis, all this deep pushback norman, why did the media look the other way? why was there such an effort to silence the resistance? because it's not like it wasn't fair or the key point that katrina alluded to that there was a huge disconnect between what people in the united states around the world wanted certainly many, many of them, including millions on the streets and what was coming from the mass media and i think that's symptomatic of the fact that at the time and especially as a war is launched in the so called professional ethos. if you are pro war, you are quote, objective. if you are anti war, you're biased. and in retrospect then being pro war based on lies means never having to say you're sorry at all. so that is both a history that is distorted in real time or very quickly after,

and also pre figurative so the cliche really applies. that the 1st casualty of war is truth and we have that not only in retrospect, but right now where we have a group think that is continual and the circumstances change, but the dynamic stays was the same. so in 2023, we can have antony blanket and the president of the united states, joe biden, saying that it is absolutely unacceptable for one country to invade another. and yet, those 2 folks teamed up for bogus hearings of the senate foreign relations committee in the middle of 2002, with biden, as senator chair and blinking as chief of staff railroading through excluding dissenting voices. railroading through the conventional wisdom that was accumulating was essential to invade iraq. so we are in or wealthy and territory

here. and i guess what studying to me peter, you know, i heard katrina talk about you know, being not just shouted down and intimidated, but profoundly rejected by the american media when she had the audacity to call the iraq war, a war of aggression. does that happen now? do we see the same kinds of intimidation and final thing? is there more space for descent? is there more space for critical pushback? and is the media willing to cover it? think me up for that question. no. i accept that. on the fringes of the internet to work super papers on discover during the iraq war, the nation. thank you. the educating me, i'll just get home things that voices which at the time, but very brightly sitting up against the wall miles eviction about

about the ukraine debates. certainly, britain was united states. it's actually, it's more constrain. it's a i was, was watching with a bike in parliament a few weeks ago when the discussion was what to do about your credit. and everybody was driving the escalating the wall, the not the british climate in the labor party, national profit, the labor, the sense of what you've lost is a name, any, even of the marginal. and i wonder before we go, i wonder how much of it is how we analyze the circumstances. the word think has come up in this conversation multiple times and it keeps lingering in my mind in troubling me a little bit. i think about how reporters it would the benefit of some of some

hindsight have attempted to make sense of their failure to cover the iraq war properly and other situations. an investigative reporter, bob woodward, for example, admitted to not doing enough, but he ultimately blamed once again group think as the reason why he didn't further question the rationale for war writing for bloomberg in 2013 as reclining no name was come up in this conversation, he apologized for supporting the war. he said he was to yeah, i think that i was a young and dumb college student. he didn't get drunk at a frat party. he helped beat a wardrobe. this is something quite different. does this approach demonstrate the media's unwillingness to actually address its failures by framing them as individual choices? right? rather than symptoms of an actual structural problem, i will give you all an opportunity to respond to that. i'll start with you, norman was do something that's not often talked about. it's avoided because the

structure of corporate power, interlocked with the military, industrial complex is very unpleasant. now, no, repentance in redemption is very mood muted. really in the u. s. i think it was edward saeed, who pointed out that one of the huge crimes, if you will, of the western powers in the middle east is a complete lack of remorse. there still no remorse about what's being done to palestinian people from the united states. certainly not in his real either. and so we have this dynamic going on where people are absolutely encouraged to say, well, we made some mistakes. course other people are suffering and dying as a result of mistakes. but i do hope we hopefully do better next time, which reminds me of something i think attributed to mark twain. it's easy to quit smoking. i've done at thousands of times. that best bet that is perfectly at peter

. well, it is simply the case that the media will never, ever, under any circumstances, they go anything wrong unless a cause of no, i'm not a massive hours of judgment nature, it will, they will never aggressive. i will always blame somebody else, but implement, implement bagley or somebody else with the media never makes mistakes. i think the structural piece of media power is critical to understand. it's not just individual journalists, but they do have some power as norman was talking about david remich and his cohort . again, the bar to dissent and dissent with reporting and facts and values is not high in this country. a russian poet. yes, guinea, you have to shanker, used to say,

why is it you love, other countries just dissidence so much and not your own? and i think there's something to that and that people inside washington understand, as i said earlier, it's not true oppression suppression. but it is seduction. if you want to be close to the rings of power. and i think that's what we have to work against. and if i might, you know, there are 234 medias in this nano 2nd change in volatile media landscape. and i think a younger generation isn't necessarily watching the old t v. now, will that change mind sense? and i do think many people in this country are listening to other things other than the think tanks. the reports did ministration. just to say briefly, the landscape of the world changed as a result of the iraq war. in 2007, putin gave this famous speech at the munich security conference,

talking about the end of a unipolar world. and i do think the iraq war in many ways in the debacle. the legacy of debacle has changed the nature of the power coordinates of this world and that should be remembered to as we move into more and more wars and try and find alternatives to war if possible. katrina norman peter, i want to thank you all for joining me on up front. thank you and give everyone that is our show up front. we'll be back next with ah

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