The Iraq War: Discussion on the Influence of the Media on US Foreign Policy

The Iraq War: Discussion on the Influence of the Media on US Foreign Policy

Alison CalessID: i6056159

UCM

Word Count: 2824

11 December2012

The Iraq war has sparked intense debate about the influence of the media over foreign policy makers in the United States, specifically within the executive branch of the government. When understanding foreign policy at the international level, one must delve into the influences on foreign policy decisions made at the state level. This includes media’s role and relationship with both the government’s ability to utilize it for power, providing the population with unbiased information to form opinions, as well as the media’s coverage reflecting the general public’s consensus on global affairs. There are two perspectives when looking at media’s impact: pluralist and elite models. The pluralist model assumes that power is dispersed throughout society equally, allowing no single set of interests to dominate. As a result, the media is independent from political influence and acts as a powerful constraint on the government.[1] In contrast with this, the elite model states that power is in fact concentrated within elite groups who dominate politics and society; thus, media is not independent, but rather an instrument used by government officials to mobilize support for their policies.[2] This elite model is backed by realist principles that the government officials are the most well-equipped to make decisions for the security of the nation, and therefore their influence over the media and public opinion is contributing to the country’s well-being. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the validity of each of these models and their applicability within the framework of the Iraq War. To supplement and strengthen this argument, the Vietnam War will be analyzed for additional support. This discussion will evaluate whether or not the elite model, backed by realistic ideals, best explains the role of media and public opinion in determining a state’s foreign policy.

Realism rests upon the assumption that the elite model is correct because media and public opinion are seen as irrelevant to understanding international politics. This is because the most important actor is the state, meaning the domestic structure has minimal bearing.[3] Furthermore, as the main actor, the state pursues its self-interests due to the nature of the international system. Applied to the Iraq War, the foreign policy decisions made by the Bush administration were due to external forces, not internal ones such as media and public opinion. However, this realist perspective does acknowledge the importance of mobilization of the public and media in support of the national interest because this is morally correct.[4] This would provide an explanation for the Bush administration’s actions preceding, during, and after the Iraq War.

From the start, the Bush administration constantly had to legitimatize its decision to go to war due to the lack of UN Security Council approval and the controversial morality of pre-emptive strikes. This meant that the US government was trying to validate a war that was not legal according to international law, and had to convince the public that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, providing these to al Qaeda terrorist group, as well as make a persuasive link between this and the attacks of 9/11. The problem with this task was that it became difficult to sustain once Iraq was occupied and the corroborating evidence was lacking – in fact, non-existent. But the US government was incredibly successful in upholding public belief in a number of different misperceptions. These misperceptions included that the US had found WMD in Iraq, that they found evidence that Iraq supported al Qaeda, and even that world public opinion supported the war. All of these stemmed from information given by the administration. Public opinion, including falsified information, was influenced by the powerful role of media in US society. The general public does not have the time or resources to seek out primary sources of information in order to formulate their own opinion on a foreign policy decision of the US government. Supposedly the press is supposed to provide critical analysis on this information, but this was lacking in context of the Iraqi War. In the US, typically the public is divided into isolationists and internationalists. Isolationists are against government taking positive action in world affairs, while internationalists are very much in support for an active role.[5] In order to convince the majority of the public that action in Iraq was needed, the Bush administration had to make framing their actions as self-defense a priority.

First, let’s begin with some particulars on these misperceptions. The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) conducted a series of polls with the polling firm Knowledge Networks (KN). The results showed that even post-war, 24% of Americans believed that the US had found WMDs in Iraq.[6] Additionally, 62% were convinced that the world opinion was either balanced or a majority actually favored the war. Both of these have since been disproved.[7] Another important aspect are the sources that people were receiving their news from. Eighty percent said they received their news electronically. Also, those who had FOX News Channel listed as their main source of information had the most misperceptions, while those who watched PBS or listened to NPR had the fewest misperceptions.[8] Different theories on how these misperceptions were created vary from those claiming it's the people’s failure to pay attention to the news, all the way to seeing misperceptions as functions of political attitudes: an intention to vote for the President or an identification with the Republican party was linked with higher levels of misperceptions than those who were opposed.

But another explanation of the public misperceptions is related to the media’s lack of critical analysis of information given by the government. For example, on May 30, 2003, President Bush made the following statement: “… for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong. We found them.” The following day, the Washington Post headline read, “Bush: ‘We Found’ Banned Weapons.”[9] Numerous other statements were made by Bush and other members of his administration that were seen as asserting falsehoods, and not scrutinized by the media before publishing. Some more examples include Colin Powell, the Secretary of State at the time, addressing the UN Security Council in February of 2003 with photographs of ‘al Qaeda training camps’ in Iraq. What Powell failed to mention was that the photos were taken in the northern part of Iraq, outside the control of the Iraqi government; but of course, this information was not published at the time. When the media simply copies and pastes these quotes into an article for the public, without assessing their validity, people have no reason or basis to believe they’re incorrect. Additionally, Vice President Cheney made several ambiguous statements, including, ““If we’re successful in Iraq . . . so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”[10] This implies, and therefore is relayed to the public, that the government is sure of the link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks against the US. Beyond this, President Bush made several remarks at a press conference in October of 2003 that appeared to reinforce several misperceptions of the American people:

“The intelligence that said he [Saddam Hussein] had a weapon system was intelli- gence that had been used by a multinational agency, the U.N., to pass resolutions. It’s been used by my predecessor to conduct bombing raids. It was intelligence gathered from a variety of sources that clearly said Saddam Hussein was a threat. And given the attacks of September the 11th—it was—you know, we needed to enforce U.N. resolution (sic) for the security of the world, and we did. We took action based upon good, solid intelligence. It was the right thing to do to make America more secure and the world more peaceful.”[11]

When asked if the Bush administration did or did not imply that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11th attacks, 71 percent of Americans said yes.[12] Their beliefs were validated by continuous reports that the war was successful. For example, in 2003, President Bush alighted upon a US aircraft carrier to declare ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq – symbolizing for the American people that everything was okay.[13]

In contrast with the Iraq war, which demonstrated the power and influence of the government in media and public opinion, the Vietnam War has commonly been used as an example of the pluralist model, backed by liberal ideals. As stated previously, the pluralist model assumes that power is dispersed throughout society equally, allowing no single set of interests to dominate.[14] Liberal thinkers would agree with this statement, which backs their beliefs of an increasingly globalized world, due to the free flow of information, is having a progressively liberalizing effect on the world.[15] Additionally, to the extent that media and the public is capable of both influencing and driving foreign policy, liberal theories are strengthened.[16] The Vietnam War has been well known as the first ‘televised war’. Additionally, the media began to report on true horror of the war and flashed images that captured the pain and increasing number of casualties as a result of the government’s decisions.[17] In this view, liberalism assumes that since people generally prefer peace to war, public opinion acts as a powerful constraint on elected leaders and therefore on the external behavior of a state. This correlates with the “CNN effect,” which is when independent news media coverage pressures policymakers to pursue a particular course of action during a crisis.[18] This encourages the idea of an independent power of the media to demand a response by the government on a specific event by rapidly spreading immense amounts of news.

Based on this principle, the US government’s change in policy regarding action in Vietnam was due to the growing discontent of the general public. This discontent would then be seen as a direct result of the media critically assessing and reporting on the government’s actions, thus creating a general feeling of dissatisfaction in the public that their representatives were misleading them about the war efforts. In order for this to occur, public opinion has to constrain foreign policy formulation and the media needs to be independent of government when reporting on international affairs. For this, the media acts as a separate actor interpreting decisions of the government.[19]

According to many analysts, this was actually not true in regards to the Vietnam War. In fact, the basis of the liberal argument is completely challenged by specialists like Daniel Hallin. In his study, An Uncensored War, he instead argues that the media continued to follow the elite model, continuing to parallel the internal discussions of the government.[20] It is widely accepted that media coverage of the war was broadly supportive up until 1968, including both newspapers and television. The ‘critical’ media analysis did not start coming out until there were arguments within the government about whether the war was a good decision. The media shift simply reflected the growing concerns of an emergent majority of the administration. Hence, rather than critical reporting being the result of journalists adopting an oppositional stance, it was actually generated by journalists mirroring the debate within the US foreign policy debate. This can be seen as a kind of reciprocal relationship between the media and foreign policymaking of the government. As suggested by realist principles, the two are not independent bodies, but the elite government, who from a realist view has the ability to make the correct decisions for the security of the nation, dominates the media as a tool for perpetuating their influence. This is exceptionally easy for government officials, particularly on media types that rely heavily on officials as their main news sources.[21] This description of the events suggests that the elite model prevails in relation to the Vietnam War the same way it did in the Iraq War.

A main issue with the Iraq war and the influence of the media was the way the news was reported. Before, during, and even for a period it ended, they tried to avoid feelings of conflict about going to having gone to war. As has happened in some past events, the media appeared to feel that it was not their role to challenge the administration. This correlates with Lance Bennett’s indexing hypothesis: US journalists tend to index new coverage to the thoughts strictly within Washington D.C. Bennett explains that this arises from a need to avoid upsetting major political and economic interests, the deference of journalists towards official sources, and the vast quantity of information that is supplied solely by governments to journalists.[22] Furthermore, this parallels the realist thought that the media is limited to procedural-level criticism (the means by which a war is being fought), but don’t actually question the justification for the war, or substantive influence. Although this is worrisome that the Iraqi war demonstrates it is possible for a President to use their position and power of persuasion to gain support for false beliefs, all hope in the power of the democratic foundation is not lost. Some believe that these situations with media are unique, and in this case its attributed to the post-9/11 aftermath. The persisting sense of threat can lead to blindly trusting those in power and a media that is more reluctant to challenge their decisions (citation). Additionally, of those in the population that didn’t hold the false beliefs that were pushed by the Bush administration and cleanly unfiltered by the media, only a very small minority of these supported the decision to going to war. So when the mechanisms for informing the public are not compromised by construed information, the public can more accurately support policies that reflect the preferences truly held by the majority of Americans. But the Bush administration did seem to fully exemplify realistic ideals by embracing normative components; no matter the information they are given, the public will be ignorant and ill-informed, so elites are more likely to do what is truly in the nation’s interest. The misperceptions that were spurred on by the government seem to simply follow the realism notion that mobilization of public support of the national interest is morally correct. So which model - elite or pluralist - prevails in the context of the Iraqi war? With the evidence presented, the elite model, supported by realistic principles, seems to be the clear victor. Overall, the Bush administration’s goal throughout the Iraq War, and in general throughout their two terms, had a strong realist foreign policy. Their goals, strategies, and tactics that controlled their decision-making process placed core national interests ahead of liberal goals such as nation building, peacekeeping, or multilateralism. This continued in their influence over the media, and thus impacted public opinion. The basis of the elite model, that media has minimal impact on policy due to concentrated power within society, prevails.

Bibliography

Bennett, W. Lance. 1994. “The Media and the Foreign Policy Process.”

Hallin, D. (1993) The uncensored war. Peace Review.

Full transcript: “Bush Defends Foreign Policy,” Washington Post.

Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Benjamin I. Page. “Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy?”

American Political Science Review 99.1 (2005).

Kull, Steven, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq

War,” Political Science Quarterly, CXVIII (2003).

McLaughlin, Erin. "Television Coverage of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam" Veteran.

December 3, 2001. August 2004. The Media and the Vietnam War. 19 October

2005.

Mike Allen, “Bush: ‘We Found’ Banned Weapons; President Cites Trailers in Iraq as

Proof,” Washington Post, 31 May 2001.

Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Time Dunne, (2012). Foreign Policy: Theories,

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[1]Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Time Dunne, (2012). Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, pg. 169.

[2] Smith, 169

[3] Smith, 179

[4]Smith, 181

[5]Smith, 170.

[6]Kull, Steven, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, CXVIII (2003), pg. 5.

[7]Kull, pg. 6.

[8]Kull, pg. 14.

[9] Mike Allen, “Bush: ‘We Found’ Banned Weapons; President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof,” Washington Post, 31 May 2001.