An American Examination of Conscience about Saddam Hussein

The 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq constitutes a great opportunity to draw grim conclusions. Only the media, which used to completely support George W. Bush’s administration, do not seem to feel any remorse. In the latest Gallup poll, 53 percent of Americans declared that the war started on March 19, 2003 was a mistake, while 42 percent responded that the invasion was a good thing.

The percentage of the invasion’s supporters is astonishingly high, especially when we look at what it meant for the U.S.: 4,500 dead soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, either physically or mentally, $800 billion buried forever beneath the sands of the Iraqi desert.

In return, the U.S. gained next to nothing — apart from the stolen fissile materials that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi returned when he got cold feet. On the other hand, it suffered heavy losses. The Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which allegedly posed a threat to the whole world, did not exist, exposing America to worldwide ridicule. The U.S. also strengthened its biggest enemy — Shiite Iran (counterbalanced by Sunni Saddam Hussein at the time).

The 42 percent of ardent war supporters show that when people get something into their heads, it is very difficult for them to change their minds. The deceitful George W. Bush’s propaganda, feeding on emotions and feelings that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, works very well despite 10 years having passed.

Obviously, it is not the only reason why Americans find it so hard to reconcile themselves with the completely unnecessary heavy toll of lives lost was and prefer living in an illusion.

The media, which on the eve of the outbreak of war were totally incapable of independent thinking, are largely to blame for this state of social consciousness of American citizens. Economist Paul Krugman reminds us about it in The New York Times:

“And there’s a very big anniversary coming up next week — the start of the Iraq War. So why does there seem to be so little coverage?

"Well, it’s not hard to think of a reason: A lot of people behaved badly in the run-up to that war, and many, though not all people in the news media, behaved especially badly.

"It’s hard now to recall the atmosphere of the time, but there was both an overpowering force of conventional wisdom — all the Very Serious People were for war, don’t you know, and if you were against it you were by definition flaky — and a strong current of fear. To come out against the war, let alone to suggest that the Bush administration was deliberately misleading the nation into war, looked all too likely to be a career-ending stance …

"And a lot of people in the media failed.”

Krugman did not fail. He was against the invasion. That is why, today, he is first to point out the mistakes, just like Senator Barack Obama, who also voiced his objections four months before the war:

“I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war …

"I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power …

"But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors.”

Unfortunately, Obama and Krugman were merely exceptions to the mainstream tendency. Even the liberal New York Times jumped on the bandwagon of war propaganda, for which it had to apologize to its readers when Iraq turned out to be a nightmare.

“Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged or failed to emerge,” read the May 2004 statement by the editors.

At the end of 2002, when noted journalist Tom Ricks of The Washington Post wrote an article entitled “Doubts,” quoting experts who questioned the imminent invasion, his own editor ignored him. His supervisors told him that he was relying on the opinions of the retired — and thus independent — in the military too heavily. At the time, everyone was listening only to President Bush’s officials.

One month prior to the invasion, left-wing TV station MSNBC fired Phil Donahue, one of its most popular journalists, for severe criticism of Bush’s war preparations. “Countdown: Iraq” replaced Donahue's show.

However, it is what was happening in the "red-wing" media that might really make your hair rise. That usually “sensible” journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post got caught up in the public hysteria is very surprising.

Columnist Ann Coulter, still one of the stars of the conservatives, claimed:

"We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don't need an 'international coalition.' ...

"The nation has been invaded by a fanatical, murderous cult ...

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

Even in the conservative National Review, you could read articles like the one by Jonah Goldberg:

"The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region ...

"Well, I’ve long been an admirer of, if not a full-fledged subscriber to, what I call the 'Ledeen Doctrine,' … [which says,] 'every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.'"

Ten years later, this very same Jonah Goldberg, along with Krugman, criticized the media and their community: "The Iraq war justifiably led to a lot of media soul-searching about how journalists were too credulous of the Bush administration’s arguments."