November 6, 2009

THE BBC’S JEREMY PAXMAN ON IRAQ - “WE WERE HOODWINKED”

In an interview last week, Jeremy Paxman - leading interviewer on BBC 2’s flagship Newsnight programme - claimed that he had been “hoodwinked” by US government propaganda prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Paxman commented:

"As far as I personally was concerned, there came a point with the presentation of the so-called evidence, with the moment when Colin Powell sat down at the UN General Assembly and unveiled what he said was cast-iron evidence of things like mobile, biological weapon facilities and the like...

"When I saw all of that, I thought, well, 'We know that Colin Powell is an intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man. If he believes all this to be the case, then, you know, he's seen the evidence; I haven't.’

"Now that evidence turned out to be absolutely meaningless, but we only discover that after the event. So, you know, I’m perfectly open to the accusation that we were hoodwinked. Yes, clearly we were."
(Paxman, ‘Is World Journalism in Crisis?‘, Coventry University online interview, October 28, 2009. The entire interview is available here: http://coventryuniversity.podbean.com/2009/10/29/is-there-a-crisis-in-world-journalism-jeremy-paxman/)

Consider the admission that Newsnight's leading interviewer could respond to government claims clearly intended to supply a pretext for war on what was, even more obviously, the very brink of war: “If he believes this to be the case; he's seen the evidence, I haven't.”

Does not government submission of evidence mark the point where serious journalism +begins+ rather than ends? What is the reason for journalism at all, if the responsibility is simply to accept what a US Secretary of Defence says because we “know” he “is an intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man”?

As Paxman should be aware, the "sceptical" Powell helped whitewash the March 1968 massacre of some 500 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai by troops of the US Americal division. Powell was tasked with investigating a detailed whistleblowing letter from US soldier, Tom Glen, confirming that Americal was guilty of routine brutality against civilians. Among other horrors, Glen reported that Americal troops, "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves”. In his report responding to Glen’s letter, Powell wrote:

"In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." (Robert Parry and Norman Solomon, ’Behind Colin Powell's Legend - My Lai,’ The Consortium, 1996; http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html)

It is not true that Powell’s evidence on Iraq was revealed to be “absolutely meaningless” only “after the event”. In fact, it was immediately evident, as we reported in our media alert of February 10, 2003, five days after Powell‘s presentation. See: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/03/030210_Blairs_Betrayal1.html

We wrote to Paxman on November 4:

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