When bombing of Iraq seemed only hours away, all was calm in the US embassy in Kuwait. Though Iraq's fearsome weapons of mass destruction were the topic of every news bulletin, US ambassador to Kuwait, Jim Larocco, was nonchalant. We know this because we have before us at this time the report to his company of a businessmen who was one of those in the local American community summoned to the embassy on February 3 to be briefed on the crisis.
The businessman summarized Ambassador Larocco's words thus: "No one at the embassy has gas masks and American embassy does not recommend any. They are not even interested in finding out a source for gas masks. The main reasons for this decision are the new interceptor missiles in place in Kuwait, and the fact [that] the biological and chemical warheads [of Iraq] are very ineffective."
William Randolph Hearst famously admonished his correspondent that "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." Dan Rather tried to combine the two functions. Amid the countdown to Armageddon, CBS beamed out to its affiliates a newscast with an exultant Rather reporting that Cruise missiles were raining down on the Beast of Baghdad. As he spoke, computerized contour mapping of Baghdad streets and buildings flashed across the screen.
"It's not known how many casualties are being caused by the bombing," Rather announced portentiously on the bombing broadcast. Moments later it emerged that this was all a rehearsal, with Pentagon correspondent David Martin. Rather, who has been having a tremendous El Niño winter, looks as ecstatic as he did years ago hanging onto the lampost in Galveston as he reported the onrush of the hurricane that made his name.
Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, the blighted lovechild of Bill Gates and General Electric, the liberal intellectuals were gallantly fighting their own virtual war. Viewers on Friday, February 20, were treated to those Rambos of the Nation magazine, Eric Alterman and William Arkin discoursing on how the war should be fought.
Arkin, who barely knows the difference between a tank and a tow truck, savaged the UN's decision to allow Iraq to sell more oil in return for food. As Richard Pearle gazed on in wonderment, Arkin said the food shipments would sap the resolve of the Iraqi people to topple Saddam. Alterman was as eager as Arkin to see the bombs fly. The petulant pundit lost all patience when a caller phoned in to say that his son was on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf, and had told his dad that he and shipmates had lost all respect for President "Zipperboy", who was playing with fire in Iraq to distract attention from the Lewinski scandal. Alterman snapped back that the caller's son should shut up and follow orders. He had no business, Alterman said, saying such rude things about the Commander in Chief.
In the crisis aftermath, the US press had enormous difficulty in facing the fact that Saddam Hussein won a great victory and Uncle Sam ate crow. Instead of the glorious satisfaction of dropping bombs and missiles on Baghdad (a project rendered inoperable by the students in Ohio and Minnesota, plus diplomatic isolation of the US and UK), the war party here had to endure the smooth-tongued, nattily be-suited UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, reporting that a satisfactory agreement had been reached with the Beast of Baghdad, described by Annan as "calm" and "well informed".
It was comical to read the New York Times Wednesday February 25, in which the wretched Madeliene Albright had her flack Jamie Rubin try to put a redeeming spin on the debacle. The front page story, by Michael Gordon and Elaine Sciolono, was headlined "Fingerprints on Iraqi Accord Belong to Albright" and announced that it was the Secretary of State who had basically written Annan's negotiating position before he departed for Baghdad.
It was clear that Annan had successfully brokered an agreement that contradicted the adamant US position enunciated by Albright in her first major speech as Secretary of State on the topic of Iraq-that sanctions would not be lifted so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power.
The New York Times's two big stories on the Annan mission buried this all-important concession at the very end of the stories. Christopher Wren's piece from the UN had thirty paragraphs. It was only in the thirtieth, final paragraph that Wren got around to reporting that the agreement "pledges both sides to cooperate better, to enable UNSCOM to report to the Security Council that all weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated, after which the crippling oil embargo and other sanctions on Iraq can be removed." (Last sentence of the entire dispatch, our italics.)
It was the same with Gordon and Sciolino's piece, which had 55 paragraphs, with "Mr. Hussein's insistence on a deadline for lifting economic sanctions against Iraq" making a furtive appearance only in paragraph 50. CP
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