Seven Myths About the Iraq War: How BBC Newsnight failed journalism......

[JohnyCanuck]

on the 10 year anniversary of the invasion

By Nafeez Ahmed

As a participant in BBC Newsnight special, "Iraq - 10 Years On", I found myself feeling slightly miffed at the lack of real debate on the crucial issues.

On the one hand, Newsnight presented a number of narratives of the war and its aftermath as 'fact', which are deeply questionable. On the other, there were no serious, factually-grounded criticisms of the war, despite a diverse panel which included people who did not support it.

As author of a major book on the war and its historical context, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq, as well as co-author of a new report, Executive Decisions: How British Intelligence was Hijacked for the Iraq War, I consider myself to be reasonably informed. Yet BBC Newsnight failed almost entirely to bring any of these issues to light.

What follows is my Newsnight-inspired Iraq War Myth-Busting exercise, based on what was, and wasn't, discussed on the show.

http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2013/02/seven-myths-about-iraq-war-how-bbc.html

[sabrina 1]

1. That crime should never be forgotten until the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Good to see that at least the Brits still seem to care about the slaughter of innocents that their PM, Blair, who has been whining lately about people being mean to him, led them into.

I hope one day we will see elected officials courageous enough here and in France, Britain and everywhere crooked politicians contributed to that massive crime, brought to justice so that the victims receive some kind of justice.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Still, it's too bad the BBC Newsnight program

apparently obfuscated as much as possible the real extent of the depravity and criminality behind the Bush/Blair rush to war while it attempted to minimize the horrific consequences the illegal and unjustified war had for the inhabitants of Iraq.

[sabrina 1]

3. Yes, but we don't know what pressure was placed on them. We do know something

about it though. There is at least one suspicious death related to the BBC's interview with him and I remember the demonizing of the network at the time.

[MichaelMcGuire]

4. A pretty good source of BBC

being a mouth piece. Is medialens. we're still trying to get BBC Scotland to open the comments on Scots politics. As we can't currently debate. Also on the ground protesting the level of debate and bias in the BBC.

[MichaelMcGuire]

5. bump