Selling The Iraq War To The U.S.
(CBS) Politicians have had to sell the public on going to war since Colonial times, but they never had the arsenal of advertising and communications techniques the Bush administration is using to sell a possible war on Iraq. Bob Simon reports on those techniques and those employed by the elder Bush prior to the 1991 Gulf War Sunday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m., ET/PT.
Simon reminds viewers that a horrible story spread widely by the first Bush administration prior to the Gulf War about Kuwaiti babies pulled from incubators by invading Iraqis turned out not to be true. The current Bush administration may be also misinforming the public in its efforts to justify a possible second war with Saddam Hussein.
One example of misinformation, according to physicist and former weapons inspector David Albright, was the Bush administration’s leak to the media in September about Iraq’s attempt to import aluminum tubes which administration officials claimed were headed for Iraq’s nuclear program.
“I think it was very misleading,” says Albright, who directs the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright says the tubes could be possibly used for a nuclear program, but were more suited to conventional weapons production. Government experts thought that too, Albright tells Simon, but administration officials “were selectively picking information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent than it is, and, in essence, scare people.”
Simon’s report examines the administration’s use of Madison Avenue to produce an ad campaign aimed at improving the image of America in the Muslim world. He also interviews a former CIA agent who investigated the oft-mentioned report that hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague several months before the deadly attacks on 9/11.
Despite a lack of evidence that the meeting took place, the item was cited by administration officials as high as Vice President Dick Cheney and ended up being reported so widely that two-thirds of Americans polled by the Council on Foreign Relations believe Iraq was behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
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Interesting. I did a quick online search. On August 6, 2002, Mr. Albright wrote a piece for The Guardian. He wrote . . . You would think that if Iraq had a nuclear weapon, it would have done something to show it. But then you can't be certain. Another factor that increases the uncertainty is that Iraq is well aware that Russian controls on nuclear material are terrible, and is excellent at illicit procurement. It works with insiders, it doesn't deal with middlemen, and it has a fighting chance of getting highly enriched uranium and not being discovered. Once it gets the gas-centrifuge programme, you have to assume that it could make [a bomb] in half a year. That sounds pretty scary to me. Granted, I don't know a gas-centrifuge from sic 'em but he admits no one really knows what Iraq has been doing. You can read this entire article at . . . http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C2763%2C769816%2C00.html
Then I found an article written by By David Albright & Kevin O'Neill, Fall-Winter 2001 where they wrote . . . Expert opinions regarding how close Iraq may be to acquiring nuclear weapons are uncertain and vary from a few months to several years, depending on the scenario. The most optimistic projection is offered by the U.S. government, which according to Einhorn, views Iraq as not capable of indigenously building a nuclear explosive for at least five years from early 2001.*46 Former Action Team Leader Dillon argues that as of 1998, Iraq would have needed "five years, plus or minus two years" to enrich sufficient uranium and produce a nuclear explosive. However, he adds that Iraq would need only "one year, plus or minus one year" to build a nuclear explosive if it secretly acquired enough fissile material or, in the extreme, a functional nuclear weapon.*47 ISIS's own assessment concluded that, as of late 1998, Iraq needed two to seven years to enrich enough uranium for a first nuclear device.*48 If Iraq should acquire fissile material abroad, ISIS estimated that it could assemble a nuclear explosive in less than one year.*49 Again, pretty scary stuff to me. http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/cns-miis-albright-2001.htm
Then in May/June 1998, in an article titled Masters of deception, Mr. Albright wrote . . . The stakes are high. Inspectors believe that Iraq could reconstitute its nuclear weapons program quickly, once sanctions are lifted. Although Iraq might need several years to recreate its enriched-uranium or plutonium programs, it might be able to acquire fissile material on the black market. In that case, it has already learned enough to be able to build a nuclear weapon in less than a year. As a result, Iraq’s nuclear potential must be carefully scrutinized by international inspectors for some time to come. http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1998/mj98/mj98albright.html
Maybe it's just me, but the above articles seem to disagree with what Mr. Albright said on 60 Minutes tonight.