Iraq: why the media turned
From Jonathan Mirsky
Sir: William Shawcross (‘Leaving Iraq would court disaster’, 28 October) rolls out the stabin-the-back accusation that the media ‘helps only those violent extremists’ trying to destroy Iraq. But the media initially supported the war. Then Bush and Blair were caught lying and the realities of the war became apparent. The same happened in Vietnam. Newspapers and television were once prowar. For many reporting the war, as I did in 1965 and 1967 (and Mr Shawcross himself did superbly), the realities changed the reporting. Nonetheless, the failed commander, General William Westmoreland, told me, ‘The war in Vietnam is the first war in history lost in the pages of the New York Times.’ But unlike Mr Shawcross, reporters in Iraq, where nearly 90 have died (more than in 20 years in Vietnam), know what’s what. Are they wrong to describe the corruption and unreliability of the Iraqi police, hundreds of whom have been dismissed? Or to say that the Iraqi army is largely unreliable, often with only half its strength in the field?
The brutal truth about the war is this: just as many southern Vietnamese hoped the Americans would save them from the Vietcong but grew to fear the Americans more, many Iraqis were grateful that Saddam was removed but now feel the Coalition behaves like foreign occupiers. The yet more brutal truth, as was also the case in Vietnam, is that the insurgents are far more willing to die than the American soldiers and their local colleagues are.
Jonathan Mirsky London W11
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