Example of headline spin from the Wash Post:
Note the headline of this article and compare it to the supporting "facts" in the article. The headline screams that warnings were "muted", followed by a sub-head that seems to contradict the headline.
Headline:
Warnings on guerrillas were muted
Headline support:
"...analysts at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are complaining that their reports would be softened as they moved to the White House. 'The caveats would be dropped and the edges filed off,' the intelligence official said."
Read the the above carefully - "complaining that their reports would be softened". There isn't a single fact in this story that the reports WERE SOFTENED, to the contrary! The story cites 3 sources, a CIA spokesperson, an administration official, and an analyst who in one form or another support the subhead of the story.
My question is this: why did the Post go with a headline that was based on comments made by people who weren't in-the-know of what was actually communicated to the White House????
The media spin is totally out-of-control.
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Warnings on guerrillas were muted
Policymakers were told dangers of tactics in Iraq, analysts say
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
THE WASHINGTON POST
March 27 -- Intelligence analysts at the CIA and Pentagon warned the Bush administration that U.S. troops would face significant resistance from Iraqi irregular forces employing guerrilla tactics, but those views have not been adequately reflected in the administration's public predictions about how difficult a war might go, according to current and former intelligence officials.
CIA ANALYSTS "thought there was a good chance we would be forced to fight our way through everything," said one intelligence official who sat in on many briefings. "They were much more cautious about it being an easy situation."
With U.S. and British troops being forced to defend a more than 200-mile supply line from the Kuwaiti border to U.S. troops 50 miles from Baghdad and to fend off small-scale attacks by the Iraqi irregular forces, analysts at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are complaining that their reports would be softened as they moved to the White House. "The caveats would be dropped and the edges filed off," the intelligence official said.
"The intelligence we gathered before the war accurately reflected what the troops are seeing out there now," one military intelligence official said. "The question is whether the war planners and policymakers took adequate notice of it in preparing the plan." At least one pre-war intelligence analysis described potential threats of Iraqi irregular forces mining harbors, planting bombs and firing at troops while disguised in civilian clothes, according to one senior intelligence official.
A CIA spokesman said the intelligence agencies presented President Bush and senior national security officials with "the full debate," including a National Intelligence Estimate that analyzed the scenarios that U.S. forces would likely encounter during a war. "Senior intelligence officials have all had their say," the spokesman said.
One senior administration official said the consensus among intelligence agencies is that Saddam's Fedayeen, a Baath Party militia commanded by President Saddam Hussein's son Uday numbers about 25,000 members. The force has led a series of guerrilla-style attacks on U.S. and British forces in southern Iraq cities.
A ‘MAJOR ANNOYANCE'
The official said the paramilitary force is viewed as a potential "major annoyance" to the U.S. war plan at the moment, but one that could expand into a significant problem. Because U.S. and other foreign media have heavily reported the attacks, the official said, "they could become a major factor in the public relations battle during these early days of the war."
"We look at them as one of Saddam Hussein's tools, particularly in his trying to lure us into urban warfare," one senior intelligence official said yesterday. But he added that they could become more important than they are "if the media turns them into the equivalent of the black pajama Vietcong," referring to the guerrilla force that caused many U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War.
That view was echoed at the Pentagon yesterday by Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who, when asked about the firefights involving the fedayeen, described them as "fairly limited incidents [that] take on a greater perceived value than they are."
The fedayeen, also known as "martyrs of Saddam" or "men of sacrifice," were organized in 1995 by Uday Hussein. In addition to the paramilitary force, there are an additional 3,000 in a reserve made up of Baath Party members and some Iraqi journalists, according to an intelligence official.
"[Policymakers] were told the fedayeen would fight more fanatically than regular army forces, using conventional or unconventional means," one analyst said yesterday. "We did not predict the notoriety they have already achieved."
Pentagon spokesmen struggled yesterday to deal with the media focus on the irregular forces. Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman, described them as "thugs" who "have done extraordinary things which go outside all laws and norms." If captured, she said, they would be treated as war criminals.
Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy director of operations for the U.S. Central Command, which is running the war, described the activities of the fedayeen who operate either in or out of uniform as "more akin to the behaviors of global terrorists."
LONG-LASTING RESISTANCE?
CIA and Pentagon analysts disagree about how long the fedayeen and other units, such as the 15,000 members of the Special Republican Guard and the Special Security Organization, a force of 10,000 that enforces Baath Party orders, would continue to fight.
CIA analysts believe these groups will fight to the end, whether Hussein is alive or not. "This is about surviving for them," said one former senior Iraqi analyst who still consults with the Pentagon. "A large percent of them acted like secret police and fear what the Americans would do with them."
One Pentagon official said the consensus in military intelligence is that the fedayeen will remain a threat only so long as Hussein remains in power. So the key to getting rid of them is getting rid of Hussein, the official said.
"The consensus is, when the regime is gone, these guys will be gone," he said. "They won't have any role in a postwar Iraq."
The key, he added, is remaining focused on "breaking the back" of the inner circle around the Iraqi president. While U.S. forces will be advancing with even greater caution in the face of the fedayeen threat, he said, they will continue to move toward Baghdad, which he described as "the center of gravity" in Iraq.
"Once we break the back of the regime, these thugs will become less of a threat," he said. "We need to eliminate the perception that there is a central governing body that is loyal to Saddam Hussein and his regime."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
AI
