cause another waste torture was noise. they bring big speakers with unbearable loud music. i think even after a 1000 years our great grandsons will receive our rights even those who were tortured by the nazis by stalin by hitler. now they're getting their rights and as he waits for his rights and he wants to ensure the world does not forget his story. his worst nightmare is that people will fail to remember. and such abuse will be carried out again on others in another war. sama b joy at other 0. berlin. ah, this is audra 0. these are the top stories. swiss banking giant u. b. s. is buying a troubled credit suisse in a $3000000000.00 deal. the combined groups gonna manage more than 5 trillion dollars worth of assets. chinese president, she's in pain, is on his way to moscow for to day visit russian president vladimir putin as

welcome what he called beijing's constructor role in trying to end the war. you crave general, you has more fun, beijing was in it. she to being says, this is a mission of peace and friendship. and that is important for the stability of what he says is a multi polar world to emphasize and strengthen this relationship between moscow and beijing. to combat what beijing, as described as the hedge, a monic bullying of the united states, but presidency to thing is very much going to moscow also to protect chinese interests. one is economic trade between russia and china has expanded since the invasion of ukraine by about 30 percent. it's now worth whopping $190000000000.00. officials into iran, se iranian president, abraham. gracie has welcomed an invitation to visit, re add by saudi arabia's king salmon. earlier this month, the country has reached an agreement to reopen embassies that have been closed for 7 years. palestinians are protested in hebron and garza against talks between

israeli and palestinian officials and egypt. hum us as the on group the governs gaza strip and it's condemning the palestinian authority for joining the meeting. the talks are aimed at trying to contain rising violence in the occupied westbank. north korean leader kim jong on has been overseeing 2 days of military drills focused on countering nuclear attacks. state media as, as the drills have included the firing of a ballistic missile, carrying a mock nuclear warhead on a south africa's opposition parties. the economic freedom fighters is calling for a national shut down and mass protests. it says it wants the president to be removed and rolling power outages to end. the bar is one of the businesses to close . all risk being looted securities being tightened, the government buildings and the arms being deployed in kenya, police in the capital. i robi, have fired tear gas, a demonstrate is protesting against inflation. some down the street has of also

thrown rocks of police opposition, leader, railer, or danger. normally lost law. sue's president election to william, brutal, and he's called for kins to come out on to the strings of the headlines than he's continues here on al jazeera. after up front. good bye. ah, knowledge is 0 rate with no, 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 an 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 in it up front special. ah, joining us today is katrina vanden heuvel, publisher and 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. i want to thank you all for joining me on up front. katrina want to start with you in the lead up to the iraq war. we saw officials and sarah gets up with the administration of then us 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 sell this iraq war to the general public? well, 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. many 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 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 that katrina is laying out here? i mean there's the bush strategy there. the sarah gets there to people who echo talking points and then there is this press failure that katrina just reference the right. there were some exceptions. there were people who pushed back. there are people who are skeptical, but in general there seems 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 phrases, 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 momentarily. 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 mil, turn destro 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 you start with a 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 and 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 weapons of mass destruction in iraq would be cited by bush and cheney and others. see, it's not just us saying it if 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 focus than 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, a long track record of human rights abuses. blair, even once wrote, 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, really did think there was a moral case for war, but actually he was extremely diligent in inventing full slacks about which were then nodded st. remember that in britain used the dossier of weapons of mass destruction. we notorious clay of 45 minutes of destruction of but at sea. so that had to apparently i'm reach chemical weapons on biological weapons. i'm pretty sure susan, that time it 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 choices 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, a bit because they said also had a parallel strategy of the single kinds of victims of the regime, many of whom a real woman said that let's not get it was a barbarous dictates if 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 bronze for invading iraq. i don't recognize what you're saying. that the tea party, the ocean of persons of this bags ahead of the wall was the production of fabricated evidence that saddam hussein's iraq posed a imminent threat to, to it's national 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 be intimidated and may accuse them of being unpatriotic. what effected 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 in the run up to war, the ability to quiet a press corps. 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 raising tough questions and they continued 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 shelby'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 a g e or whoever? right. be afraid of a government be afraid to push back or speak out against the award to be afraid to tell the truth. why are they afraid of administrations when they have those are 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 who 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, 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. i mean, you know, how much of this is the, were pressured, our jobs and making us do it. there's a military industrial complex that forces our 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, 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. and in a clarion call piece. 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 fall. so as well as we speak, david rem, nick 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 who's 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 loud 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 in opportunism versus the kind of broader structural pressure. and then to. 1 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 it least it doesn't justify the action but give some context for it. busy well, i was taken by something which could 3,

that's i just that which was the importance of access. but of course it's a, it's a, it's a story. but i think that was a collapse of a skepticism. and it was also a cost up another point. but those who oppose the war was targeted. but in the british pipers, i still remember scott rich. the former weapons inspector was very eloquent. ready fabrications of the western intelligence agencies, politicians, and that way he was covered and bullied and smeared in the british president no after the united states was, was completely, completely horrible. and so it wasn't unpleasant. that's 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 protest 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 and salvage in democracy. but at the nation, we believe for a 150 plus years, that war, the endless war does not permit 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 bare now or the key point the katrina alludes 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 you, 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 large, 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 false 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 well he 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 has 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 of that question? no. i accept that. on the fringes of the internet to work super on the scholar during the iraq war, the nation. thank you for educating me. i'll just get home and show that which at the time we're very bravely set up against the war, miles eviction about about the ukraine debates.

certainly, britain, i don't want united states. it's actually it's more constrain. it's a i was, was watching the debates in parliament a few weeks ago when the discussion was what to do about your credit. and everybody was driving, escalating the wall, the, the british climate and the labor party, national problem, the labor, the loss is a name, any one of the marginal. and i wonder before we go, i wonder how much of it is how we analyze the circumstances. the word don't 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, 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. in 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 required. another name was go up in this conversation, he apologized for supporting the war. he said he was to yeah, i think that i was a young and i'm a college student. he didn't get drunk at a frat party. he helped beat a war drum. 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. it muted really in the u. s. i think it was, edward said, 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's 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 id 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, on any circumstances, they go anything wrong unless it's too low. and that's not something that massive arrows of judgment nature, it will, they will never get it. they will always blank. somebody else implement, implement bagley or somebody else with the media never make a. 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 shingle 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 mindset? 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 remember 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. ah ah, along with

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