Media Bias, Oil For Food, and “No” WMD’s.

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk - October 12th, 2004

There are many people in media who were falling all over themselves chanting about Charles Duelfer’s report to Congress on October 6th 2004 that “proves” there were no stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction, ignoring the fact that in the same report Charles Duelfer also said that Hussein was funneling HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars from the “Oil For Food” program to the same branch of the military that was responsible for the “WMD’s” that were used against the Kurds, Shi’as and Iran. Just as the media are hardly able to contain themselves with the “Bush Lied” aspect of the report, they have no problems containing the rest of the report saying the Saddam corrupted the United Nations via the “Oil For Food” program and was getting help behind the scenes from France right up to the start of the war in March of 2003. 

    Starting on page 1 of “The Key Findings Summary of the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD”, Mr. Duelfer also states that in many different segments of his speech and report that Hussein’s regime violated the UN sanctions and “centered on Saddam’s efforts to influence certain UN SC permanent members, such as Russia, France, and China and some nonpermanent (Syria, Ukraine) members to end UN sanctions.” The Goal of this effort was “…to pursue his military reconstitution efforts starting in 1997 and peaking in 2001. These efforts covered conventional arms, dual-use acquisition, and some WMD-related programs.”

    Mr. Duelfer states in the section of the report (which can be found here in Volume I, Section “Regime Finance and Procurement”, Ambassadors to the United Nations from France and other countries who had seats on the Security Counsel were insisting that we should “Give the Sanctions more time to work” were also the same people who were working with the Hussein Regime to give resources for his weapons program’s to commence once more once these same sanctions were lifted.

    The most sensational aspect of the report, the speech Mr. Duelfer gave to Congress, and the questions that followed is the accusations of corruption and scandal of members of The United Nations and members of the Security Counsel were defying their own sanctions, not the “hidden” aspect that “Bush Lied to Bring us to war”. Mr. Duelfer was very clear that if The United States hadn’t invaded Iraq, no inspector from the UN, NATO or The United States would have been able to get a clear picture of what was going on in Iraq. But the media has chosen to ignore that aspect as well while at the same time embellishing the part of President Bush’s “War Crimes and Arrogance towards the International Community”. If President Bush had played by the same rules that the United Nations where cheating on, then one can make the argument that once the sanctions WERE lifted then Iraq would have indeed become the danger the International Community said he was. Ironic.

    The real meat of this report is the corruption with in The United Nations, ample resources for stories, editorials and news specials on programs such as “60 Minutes” on CBS or “Dateline” on NBC or newspapers like The New York or Los Angles Times… but no. It’s EASIER repeat the same story over and over again, to bash just ONE person, even easier if that person doesn’t fit into your world view or doesn’t agree with your political agenda. Since many members of the media believe the United Nations is a divine body above reproach, criticism is uncalled for and invalid… returning to the default position of trashing a politician, someone who can be discredited because of “being selected, not elected” to the White House.

Playing Favorites

Another aspect of this recent media bias is how they treat both candidates for President. Every word (or every utterance of ‘duh’, ‘uh’ or ‘um’,) George ‘Dubya’ Bush says is scrutinized, over analyzed and even taken out of context, while at the same time John Kerry is allowed to say almost anything with out the same level of scrutiny… with the exception of Talk-Radio and FOX News. The perfect example is in the first debate, John Kerry said he wouldn’t act preemptively with out his actions passing a “Global Test”, afterwards his surrogates were parsing out what he “really” meant.

When George Dubya Bush contradicts himself, it’s called “A Lie”, but when John Kerry makes contradictions of his own, the media and his surrogates call it “Nuance”. The media just doesn’t allow this double standard, The media perpetuates it. Perfect example of this are two controversies created by both CBS and ABC news.

First is the CBS controversy in September. Dan Rather and his “60 Minutes – Wednesday” team did a segment that “illustrated” that our current President didn’t fulfill his obligation to the National Guard 30-odd years ago. These documents turned out to be forgeries and that many of the experts CBS news relied on were misquoted and their statements were misrepresented in these documents authenticity. In turn, the family of the now deceased officer whom were to have written these documents have also come forward and pointed out several different facts that continue to prove that these documents were counterfeit. Later Mr. Rather said that the documents themselves were fake, but he believed in the content that they were based on was in fact still true. While trying to save face, instead of making the issue go away he’s actually made it worse.

Second is a news item that broke Friday on Syndicated Radio: “The Laura Ingraham Show”, where she read a memo that was leaked to her which was to the staff at ABC news written by Political Director Mark Halperin. In the memo he clearly states in so many words that there should be a different standard for each candidate and they should do anything to get their guy, Kerry, Elected.

“It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.”

As many of the media have asked and will continue to ask in the near future; what about objectivity and just reporting the news? During the Eight Years of the Clinton Dynasty, you weren’t allowed to question the Presidents actions because his motives were in the right place. People would become indignant if you brought up his many blunders, there were those who would become indignant and chastise you for speaking ill of the first President of the “Flower Power” generation. Now, if you apply the same standards towards this President you’re charged with impeding other’s “Freedom Of Speech”, even while those who insult this man’s character, faith and intelligence, far worse and far more inappropriate then what was said about the man from “Hope, Arkansas”.

Connections and Conclusion

When asked by John McCain if the Sanctions were working, Duelfer replied that the “Scations were in Free-fall”, but there are those who have said and continue to say that “Scations worked” and that if it was the United Nations who imposed these sanctions against Iraq then it should have been the United Nations who should have been responsible to insure they were seen through to the very end.

Just like Appeasement aided Hitler and gave him more time to build up and retool the German military machine before World War II, the sanctions imposed on Iraq helped Saddam Hussein build and acquire the resources to reinstate his weapons programs once the aforementioned sanctions were lifted. Imagine if members of The League Of Nations were aiding Hitler and his rise to power and getting rich while at the same time saying that the world should give the Treaty Of Versailles more time to work. That is exactly what’s occurring now.

 Similarly in the media- Those who are supposed to be reporting the news of the campaign have now become intertwined with it, and with it is a return of Yellow Journalism… report the sensational even if it isn’t’ true and don’t report the truth if it is sensational if it hurts the cause.

 The United Nations and the media were built on principles of the same men and women we celebrate here on The Fedora Chronicles. I believe there’s a united effort to corrupt that legacy for personal and selfish gain. The way to put an end to this is to make your voices heard, contribute essays and articles to this web page that you have sent to your local newspaper and other media outlets. If you need help, please be sure to drop us a line to our letters@thefedorachronicles.com. One of the goals of this webpage is to rekindle the rugged individualism of The Golden Era and to effect positive change with the modern tools we have at our disposal. The memories of those heroes of that era are counting on us all.