“In Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussein is no more. One month
ago, that country was a prison to its people, a haven for
terrorists, an arsenal of weapons that endangered the
world.” In a televised address from the Rose Garden of the
White House in Washington DC, on April 15, 2003, George W.
Bush was europhic. “These are good days in the history of
freedom.”
Saddam Hussein had been overthrown – the Second Gulf War was
over. However the debate about the causes of the war – and
thus about the credibility of US President George W. Bush –
has only just begun. According to one former high-ranking US
secret service agent, “the threat to America posed by Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction was a propaganda lie used to
deceive the public.”
The Cutting Edge documentary Operation Saddam: America’s
Propaganda Battle, screening on SBS Television on Tuesday
July 29 at 8.30pm, presents the individual stages of the
propaganda battle, by which the American and British
governments sought to justify the Second Gulf War.
How does one sell a war? This was a question that weighed
heavy on the minds of those in the US administration long
before the war had even started. Operation Saddam: America’s
Propaganda Battle takes a look at the marketing of this war
– a cocktail of distortion, lies and forgeries – as shown by
former secret service agent Ray McGovern, American
investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and best-selling
author John MacArthur.
MacArthur, for instance, tells of how the amazing image of
an Iraqi man climbing the huge statue of Saddam Hussein in
central Bagdad at the end of the war and throwing an
American flag over the head of the dictator, was actually a
carefully staged publicity stunt dreamed up by an
advertising agency in the US. “I think the Rendon group
advised the Pentagon right up through the seizure or the
knocking down of the statue in the central square in Bagdad
… that was a set piece thought of ahead of time for the Bush
re-election campaign.”
The documentary also examines the truths, lies and
distortions around the assertions that Saddam Hussein was
acquiring and building nuclear weapons, and the pretenses
behind the Congressional authorization for the decisive new
directions in American foreign and defence policy.
