In a New York Times science article (3/29/11) about the CIA and Pentagon's psychological profiling of foreign political figures, reporter Benedict Carey adds a note of caution:
Yet the assessments can also be misleading, even embarrassing. Profiles of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq that circulated in the early 1990s suggested that he was ultimately a pragmatist who would give in under pressure.
Carey gives no explanation for why such an assessment would be misleading or embarrassing–as if it went without saying that this was a misreading of the Iraqi dictator. In fact, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Hussein made repeated offers to negotiate a withdrawal–offers that were rejected by the elder Bush administration, and all but ignored by corporate media (Extra!, 11-12/90–see "Writing Off Negotiations").
Hussein also destroyed his chemical and biological weapon stocks under pressure from the U.N.; when the younger Bush insisted that U.N. inspectors be allowed to verify his lack of unconventional weapons, Hussein let them in–and Bush invaded anyway. Though the U.N. inspection teams were a major story in the months before the Iraq War began, corporate media sometimes seem to forget that they existed (Action Alert, 12/2/08).
Presenting Saddam Hussein as a madman who could never be reasoned with obviously helped the U.S. government justify military action. Why journalists should accept this depiction in the face of the historic record–well, you might need a psychological profile to explain that.
About Jim Naureckas
No need for a mind reading of any sort on why this fits the corpress profile, is there?
In this case, and so many others, those who do not recall history are fervently hoping to repeat it.
"Though the U.N. inspection teams were a major story in the months before the Iraq War began, corporate media sometimes seem to forget that they existed"
Corporate media forgot they existed in real time. Their work, just prior to the war, was NOT treated as "a major story" in the U.S.. It was, in fact, barely reported at all.
Prior to the reintroduction of inspectors, administration officials were making all sorts of wild claims about former Iraqi WMD sites coming back on line, sometimes even offering up satellite photos allegedly showing "new construction." The administration did this when the plan was to demand the reintroduction of inspectors, on the assumption that Saddam would refuse, thus providing a legalistic pretext for war. IOW, they never expected anyone to be able to check out their claims.
Those claims were omnipresent in the press.
When, later, Saddam agreed to allow inspectors to return, UNMOVIC immediately went to work on all of the sites about which these charges had been publicly made. They found smashed, abandoned buildings, gathering dust in the middle of nowhere. One UNMOVIC source, talking to CBS News, characterized the info provided by the Bush administration as "garbage after garbage after garbage," and "used another cruder word" for it, as well (CBS News, 21 Feb., 2003). This should have been a bombshell, but, instead, it went virtually unreported in the U.S., buried or ignored entirely (notable exceptions: the AP and Los Angeles Times). Those in the administration were so confident the press wouldn't call them on anything that they allowed Colin Powell to go before the UN and repeat some of the nonsense UNMOVIC had already debunked. And it worked.
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Left Hook!
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
[...] Maybe NYT Should Be Embarrassed by Misleading Hussein Profile [...]
Doug L., spoken like a true hypocrite. Looking over some of your recent comments on this very blog, you've engaged in the exact same foolhardy "madman" labelling of Gaddafi as US-led warmongers' mount a full-scale demonization propaganda campaign against him. This is exactly as FAIR was exposing as being done with Hussein.
The evidence of the hypocrisy:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/03/22/libya-lockerbie-and-the-foxmsnbc-convergence/
Doug Latimer: "…And it might be enlightening to do a check on how often these folks called for Qaddafi's head (and its seriously psychotic contents) in the last few years, when he was our ally in The War on Terror ┞¢, don't you think?"
SSS, calling someone who has consistently displayed megalomaniacal behavior over the course of decades "seriously psychotic" doesn't strike me as anything other than empirical observation.
How you're capable of twisting that into an endorsement of this "humanitarian intervention", given what I've posted here and at my blog, might make for an interesting psychological profile in its own right.
What do you think?
[...] http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/03/29/maybe-nyt-should-be-embarrassed-by-misleading-hussein-profile/ [...]
Saddam Hussein also sent a message to Bush Jr. right before the invasion saying he would allow anyone in to inspect, even allow US troops in to look for WMD. Bush refused. This was a set-up pure and simple, they had no intention of calling off the invasion. He was also set up in the Gulf war, allowed to invade Kuwait, and then attacked. Who knows what's really going on.
You know what? All these observations are irrelevant unless — of course — the US was still involved in a shooting war in Iraq. Or if the space shuttle Columbia hadn't burned up on re-entry. The NSA was ordered not to re-position its spy satellites — even temporarily — in order to scan the underside of the shuttle craft for possible tile damage. [The Iraqi invasion happened only a little more than a month after the Columbia accident.]
Still, all this would have been small consolation to Hussein. Had The Paper Of Record been their usual paragon of investigative journalism — the military court might have ordered that Saddam be only "barely" hanged with the thinnest piano wire available.
Hey! I did hear this funny story about George the Second having to be — like — REAL careful when he travels overseas. And I don't think it's because "W" has taken to wearing platform shoes just so he won't be mistaken for Alfred E. Neuman.
RE reading of history…..Saddam of course wanted to negotiate a withdraw.Under his terms.And the article says he got rid of his weapons to in effect do what the inspectors expected of him?What a joke.Look there were skrew ups gallor in our intel assessments.But when I hear it told as if BUSH were the main protagonist instead of Saddam ,you can bet the person telling the story is a duffas lib out on a binge.
When I hear it told as if Saddam were the main protagonist instead of Bush, you can bet the person telling the story is a duffas jacking off to photos of Commander Codpiece.
Actionfigure Prez Bush, of course, WAS the main protagonist……He attacked Iraq, not vice versa.
@ pelle l.
Irrelevant? Sure…if you want to continue to do it over and over and over again.
I imagine he needs to be careful where he travels in the US as well.
Of course Bush was the main protagonist. For 8 years we supported Hussein…then when he stopped doing what we wanted, he wasn´t so nice a person, then he tried to kill Bush Sr. and he was a monster and had to be stopped (and we needed to free the people and protect and control the oil).
Bush's admirers needn't worry about the great man being held to account for his monstrous crimes . . . unless he's foolish enough to go to, say, Switzerland, or some other such place where they take the law seriously. In one of our grander ironies, all the trolls who despise the ground Obama walks on need to thank him for steadfastly refusing to do his Constitutionally mandated duty of prosecuting Bush/Cheney. Mr. Obama says, "Look forward, not Backward," as he blithely avoids his duty to the law he was sworn to uphold. This dereliction of duty, this facile dodge of what's morally right, this utter contempt for the law and democratic principles is very dear to the hard, brittle, poisoned hearts of the right-wing Troll, and their masters. So, Trolls, on your knees before the Great Conciliator–it's a position you should be very used to by now (Boehner and the Kochs and Bachmann thank you sincerely), so get busy.
Saddam offered to allow the CIA to investigate any part of Iran it wanted to examine. Naturally this offer was rejected because the neocons were determined to destroy Israel's enemy. In other words, we went to war against Iraq for Israel, a nation that dictates our foreign policy, can steal our military secrets with impunity (Pollard case), has 60 senators in its pocket at any time, enjoys favored nation status for manufacturing all shells, has unlimited access to American vetoes in the UN whenever it commits international crimes, treats Palestinians as subhumans with no human rights or property rights. All of Palestine belongs to Israel and that includes all water rights.
If this paragraph reminds you of the policies of a leader in Germany until 1945, you are paying attention.
Please correct Iran in the first sentence. Should read Iraq.
Tim Mentioned Bush admirers.It seems we have a group of Saddam admirers.A friend of mine (Dr internal med)who grew up in Iraq and was there under Saddam and now goes back to his country often goes back to as he says it ….."a different world".He lived the fear.The horrors.Now he sees the endless possibilities of freedom.Hard won by Iraqis and americans and derided by the liberal core.Unlike you lot of pencil pushers he is an Iraqi.Over here only 3 years.I let him read your comments.If you could see the consternation in his face.The sputtering anger over your foolishness.He wants to hit you all in the face with a shoe(our joke).His question to me that i will forward to you is this……."Are these educated people"?Yes I answered.Educated in a liberal fog.Now you may carry on with your bloaviating.
Only in poor Michael's fevered brain is anyone here a "Saddam admirer."
Saddam admirer may of gone too far.How about Saddam appeasers?Yeah that is a much better fit.Now ask the question who would be more deserving of your disdain Bush or Saddam?The answer from the fevered brain of Libs would be Bush.As little boys Saddam used to take his sons to torture factories on Sunday mornings.His form of entertainment I suppose.Now I would bet Bush did something a bit different.But in the world of liberal relativism i would doubt if you could see the difference.That fog,that liberal smokescreen,that liberal indoctrination is quite a mind f#%k.
I don't think anyone here is nominating Saddam for sainthood here, but Bush attacked and invaded a counrty that did not attack us or have any involvement in 9/11.
Disdain is too soft a word to discribe what Bush did to that country and our own.
Well Dick I am no Bush lover.But the reasons he attacked and toppled Saddam were tenfold,and very connected to 911.Shortly after that fateful day Bush demanded that Sadam stop playing games and come clean on a number of things.Sadam had broken every caveat in his 1rst gulf war surrender document.That alone demanded a resumption of war…immediately.But no-one acted.Liberal arguments say he acted in good faith with weapons inspectors. Nonsense.He played a dangerous shell game at a time when the world was not convinced that he had destroyed his WMDs.On his deathbed he admitted as much.Due to fear from Iran he left open the idea that he "may" still be armed.He also raged that it was his right to eventually re-arm in any way he saw fit, and use those arms if need be against Israel as he was the "lion of Judah",and a soveignn leader not beholden to any strictures-especially from the US.He in effect snapped his fingers under Bushes nose and told the world body to go pound sand.The world and our legislative bodies then saw the need for action.Bush after 911 acted.All that said ….mistakes were made.And Bush I feel did overstep his constitutional powers.He cost this country a huge price.History (not Democratic lying rhetoric)will judge his actions.But for him…. the war once begun(and agreed to by Dems)would of been lost due to their defeat retreat and surrender mentality.And NEVER let it be said that Iraq is not better off.A tyrant is gone.Hung by his own people.He was an animal.You may not be nominating him for sainthood.But too many on these blogs list Bush in the same box.That is logic put on its head.And a lie
Hung before he could talk. Hung before the trial was over.
Maybe the US put a rush on it because Saddam Hussein was in the employ of the US when he attempted the assassination of the Iraqi head of state in 1959 ("The Lie of Regime Change" Roger Morris, former NSC staff, April 2003 op-ed).
In "Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot", a UPI story by Richard Sale, 4-10-2003, State Department and CIA interviewees told the reporter that Saddam's men assassinated scores of people ("Communists"!) from lists provided by the US government
The CIA/DIA pulled all the strings during the Iran/Iraq war hoping for a damaging stalemate. And we know the chemicals Saddam used "on his own people" came from the US because we have the receipts.
Can we get a more thoughtful naysayer than michael e? Wasn't Saddam hanged? A hanged man has no deathbed.
Saddad had no connection to 9/11.
Whoops! Saddam, obviously…..