Two Notes On The Media
1) All of the above - crucial information relating to the current crisis - has been almost completely excluded from the media. People simply do not know that there are good reasons for thinking that Iraq has no WMD, and that arms inspections of the kind taking place now have been enormously successful in disarming Iraq in the past. Incredibly, there has been almost no discussion on the success of the 1991-98 UNSCOM inspections - an obviously key issue for understanding the worth of the current inspection process - and almost no mention of the opinions of previous inspectors describing "fundamental disarmament".
As a result of this media silence, politicians have been free to talk endlessly of the threat from Iraq's WMD, and of its lamentable failure to cooperate and disarm peacefully. In a recent BBC Question Time programme, U.K. environment minister Michael Meacher said that "no one would argue that Saddam Hussein doesn't have weapons of mass destruction" (February 27) - the entire panel appeared to be in agreement.
1) All of the above - crucial information relating to the current crisis - has been almost completely excluded from the media. People simply do not know that there are good reasons for thinking that Iraq has no WMD, and that arms inspections of the kind taking place now have been enormously successful in disarming Iraq in the past. Incredibly, there has been almost no discussion on the success of the 1991-98 UNSCOM inspections - an obviously key issue for understanding the worth of the current inspection process - and almost no mention of the opinions of previous inspectors describing "fundamental disarmament".
As a result of this media silence, politicians have been free to talk endlessly of the threat from Iraq's WMD, and of its lamentable failure to cooperate and disarm peacefully. In a recent BBC Question Time programme, U.K. environment minister Michael Meacher said that "no one would argue that Saddam Hussein doesn't have weapons of mass destruction" (February 27) - the entire panel appeared to be in agreement.