Reporting on WMD Deception

Analysis:

This piece from news 8 is typical of much of the coverage of Iraq that GRIID has monitored over the last three years in that it relies entirely on government sources of information. This particular story goes further, actually, relying only on voices created by, or friendly to the current administration. The story starts out noting that this report on Intelligence failures was created by the president and that it concludes that the pre-war intelligence was wrong and recommend 70 changes. The newsreader never elaborates on what specific things were found to be wrong and gives only a very cursory description of the 70 proposed changes. This is followed by a short clip of the President, who says “to win the war on Terror we will correct what needs to be fixed and build on what the commission calls solid intelligence successes.” The News reader does not elaborate or question what the president means by “solid intelligence successes”.

Aside from Bush, the only other perspective provided in this piece is local congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is the chairman of the House intelligence committee and a Republican. The news reader prefaces Hoekstra’s comment by saying that the report “puts to rest the accusations that the Bush Administration changed the intelligence for political gain”. Hoekstra is then quoted saying that the report shows that the Bush administration did not pressure the intelligence community to distort information. Hoekstra’s comment and the report itself do not address the question of how the Bush administration used what ever intelligence that was given to it. The question of whether the administration selectively used intelligence that supported their position while ignoring intelligence that did not is not addressed in the report, and yet the news readers comment frames the story to make it appear that it does.

One other point worth mentioning is that none of the local news outlets reported that the sections of this report dealing with intelligence on North Korea and Iran, two nations that the President has singled out as part of the axis of evil, were included in the declassified version of the report.

Story:

Newsreader – A report released this morning calls American intelligence of Iraq weapons, pre-war intelligence, dead wrong. The report was given to the president this morning from a commission he created last year to look into intelligence failures. It recommends seventy changes including better human assets and more information sharing between the agencies. It also urges the president to give the director of national intelligence broad powers.

Bush – To win the war on terror we will correct what needs to be fixed, and build on what the commission calls solid intelligence successes.

News reader- The report also said that many of the intelligence problems have yet to be fixed. And this morning 24 hour News 8 caught up with representative Pete Hoekstra from Holland. Congressman Hoekstra is the chairman of the House Intelligence committee and says the findings also put to rest the accusations that the Bush administration changed the intelligence for political gain.

Hoekstra – There have been accusations that, you know, people were trying to distort, to pressure the intelligence community to distort the information for political purposes or to push a political agenda and it’s important for the American people to know that that did not happen. I’m not sure how much more comforting it is to know that it was just flat wrong.

News reader – Congressman Hoekstra points out that December’s intelligence reform bill has already started the needed changes to make the country’s intelligence more reliable.