We have been lied to

Monday, June 15, 2009

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

We have been lied to

It is rather ironic that, on the day an inquiry into the Iraq war is announced, a gaggle of defence correspondents should go into print in The Guardian complaining about how the MoD is controlling the reporting of the war in Afghanistan.

Fronted by Stephen Grey, the piece observes that thirteen British soldiers died last month in Helmand province, but their deaths were reported, for the most part, in small paragraphs on the inside pages of newspapers.

The reason for this, according to Grey is because journalists find it almost impossible to reach and report from the frontline of the conflict. For instance, when the Royal Marines launched a fierce hand-to-hand battle last Christmas in the muddy poppy fields of central Helmand, four soldiers died - but the only news that escaped was a press release from the Ministry of Defence.

Thomas Harding, defence correspondent for The Daily Telegraph is then quoted, telling us that there has been a devastating breakdown of relations "Dealing with the Ministry of Defence is genuinely more stressful than coming under fire," says Harding. "We have been lied to and we have been censored." 

This is an issue about which we reported back in April, putting us once again ahead of the game – for what good it does us, as there is an almost universal lack of concern about what quite clearly is a deliberate and concerted programme of news management by the MoD, the depth of which is quite remarkable and pervasive.

This has got to the state now where journalists are taking the risk of being blacklisted and refused access to report from the frontline, and at last speaking out about the government's attempt to control the news agenda. 

It is "lamentable", says one Fleet Street foreign editor; The Timescorrespondent Anthony Loyd describes it as "outrageous" and Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times calls "indefensible". Even the fearless Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun joins in, branding the MoD's actions "redolent of Comical Ali", although why he should be complaining is anyone's guess as even when he is given a red hot story he does not publish it.

Nevertheless, we do get a little insight into how controls are exercised, with Grey noting that almost all journalists travelling with British forces are ordered to email their copy to the military's press officers in Helmand before publication. Many fear that negative coverage could mean trips back to the frontline are cancelled or delayed.

At the root of tensions between media and the MoD, we are told, is the nature of the conflict in southern Afghanistan. The war in Helmand is so intense, so dangerous and so rural that covering it independently is almost impossible for any white western journalist. Most reporters travel as "embeds" (there are only four or five slots available a month for national newspaper journalists); the way these trips are allocated, and the conditions imposed, contribute to fraught relations.

Harding – who speaks from personal experience – gives us more background: "They manipulate the parcelling-out of embeds to suit their own ends … They use it as a form of punishment to journalists who are off-message or critical of strategy or tactics."

Earlier this year, a trip of Harding's to Helmand was cancelled, he said, because of "helicopter shortages". He later heard privately from a press officer that it had more to do with his campaign against the army's continued use of the Snatch Land Rover, and his tough questions to the chief of joint operations. Another reporter had a trip blocked after writing a critical feature about conditions for army soldiers.

Newton Dunn does, however, add to our knowledge, telling us that the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and Cabinet Office - who all have members sitting on a committee called the Media Management Group, which regulates who gets what trips out to the battlegrounds - all "want coverage of (non-existent) reconstruction and tree-hugging", according to. "Downing Street and the Foreign Office are incredibly restrictive about what comes out of Afghanistan," he adds.

It goes without saying that Nick Gurr, the MoD's director of media and communications, denies there are penalties on journalists who write anything critical. "You only have to look at who we bring out to see how determined we are to engage with everyone," he says. 

Grey concedes he has something of a point - critics of army tactics including Harding, Loyd and even himself do get asked back. Even Al-Jazeera is offered occasional embeds. However, when a journalist manages to reach the war zone, many describe their frustration at the low priority given to getting them out to the frontline, as well as sometimes relentless control by "minders". 

Christina Lamb was one of the first to report close-up on fighting in Helmand, when she was caught in an ambush in the summer of 2006. She was "effectively blacked" for two years, only returning in September 2008. The new slot she was given meant she saw no frontline action. "I was told quite candidly the main priority was Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun, not me."

The Guardian's James Meek, embedded in Helmand in 2006, says he was allowed to speak freely, and had no problems with minders. However, he was sent to a relatively quiet zone, and his requests to visit bases where soldiers were engaged in combat were refused. "I was told quite candidly that the priority was the tabloids and television because it was important for recruitment," he says.

Grey cites a Fleet Street foreign editor who argues that the government's media strategy seems to be based mainly around "the Sun and an EastEnders actor". He is referring to Ross Kemp, who made two TV series in Helmand. Newton Dunn, however, says he is equally frustrated: "I can get out only once a year, and only through kicking and screaming."

If reporters do get a story, they are still controlled by the MoD, thanks to the Green Book - a contract drawn up jointly by the ministry and media organisations' editors, supposedly designed to give maximum press freedom while preserving operational security ("Opsec"). Its application, however, angers some reporters. In practice, they say, the Green Book is sometimes used to pressure them into removing facts that are merely embarrassing or politically inconvenient.

In Helmand, journalists say embeds are required to email their copy to the ministry's press information centre before sending it on to their own newsdesks, though Gurr insists there is no Green Book requirement that copy be sent to the centre; it could also, he says, be vetted by people in charge on the frontline. "There are no hard and fast rules here," Gurr adds.

You would expect an amount of self-justification from Gurr but, whatever he might claim, it is entirely true that the MoD is controlling jornalists in order to convey what senior officers refer to as the "official narrative" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This gets so bad that, in the absence of sufficient independent access to Helmand, news organisations are often willing to use interviews with soldiers gathered by army press officers, or video shot by the MoD's Combat Camera Team. Thus, while you read what might appear to be newspaper generated copy, some of the stories you see have been generated by MoD journalists.

The result, says Harding, is clear. "We have constantly been told that everything is fluffy and good - and we, and the public, have been lied to."

COMMENT THREAD

Helping yourself

We've mentioned that wonderful paragon of virtue, Tory (ex) MEP Den Doveronce or twice. Now, Bruno Waterfield has an update. Compared with the Kinnocks, though, he is a rank amateur.

COMMENT THREAD

Keep them separate

The expected announcement today by Gordon Brown of an inquiry into the Iraqi war is the wrong inquiry, into the wrong subject, for the wrong reasons. 

Already the left wing commentatorsare bemoaning the decision (as yet not officially confirmed) to hold the inquiry in private, headed by a high court judge, with at least two years elapsing before a report is produced.

But the more important point is the one that is being universally missed. The focus is to be an investigation into the reasons behind the government's involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq, which means that the conduct of the subsequent occupation is unlikely to be given the full attention of the inquiry.

In fact, with three inquiries having already been conducted into the lead-up to the war, it is unlikely that anything useful will emerge from such an inquiry, whereas the conduct of the entirely separate occupation is one on which little public light has been shed.

However, whereas the political reasons for the invasion are largely history, illuminating the conduct of the occupation is of vital and immediate importance, as the "lessons learned" – which can only emerge from an independent inquiry – have immediate application to the prosecution of the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan.

There, it has long been evident that some of the mistakes made in Iraq are being repeated in Afghanistan, and it is also very clear that the military are in denial over their performance in Iraq. Without detailed – and public – scrutiny of the operation, it is doubtful whether the military can be induced to confront its own mistakes, which means that our mission in Afghanistan could be in jeopardy.

Lumping what amounts to the distinct phase of the occupation into a general inquiry on the whole Iraqi episode ensures that too little attention will be given to the occupation and, with the proposed timescale, any "lessons learned" will be too late to influence the current conduct of operations in Iraq.

At the very least, therefore, there should be two separate inquiries. One should cover the lead-up to the war and the invasion itself – with the accent on the political dimensions – but the other should deal specifically with the occupation. That inquiry should be carried out in public, and should be carried out urgently, with the aim of completion within a year.

We cannot afford the situation where the lessons of the occupation are lost in a deluge of political recriminations on why we went to war in the first place.

UPDATE: Brown's full statement.

COMMENT THREAD

A waste of space

Gazing though the window at the torrential rain, interspersed with flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, we read also on the online edition of The Daily Telegraph that a month's rain is set to fall in a day in eastern England.

Yet the very same paper gives over valuable space in the print editionto an extraordinary "puff" for the Met Office – written, of course, by that airhead Louise Gray – heralding the production of "the most detailed set of climate change projections ever produced" that will "show the risks of sea level rise, droughts and floods in Britain over the next 80 years to within 16 miles of your front door." 

This is the Met Office which told us in early May that we are on track for "barbecue" weather this June, July and August, with rainfall be "near or below average". This was just at the time we were reporting that it was "snowing all over the world".

Even though this is the third year running the Met Office has got is spectacularly wrong, inviting comments from Booker in June about another planet, this did not stop The Sunday Times giving house room to the Met Office's attempts to offer an 80-year forecast, reporting this in glowing detail on 7 June.

That, however, invited a rejoinder from no less than The Daily Telegraphleader the following day, recording how preposterous it was, to issue a weather forecast for 71 years hence when the Met Office cannot guarantee getting it right 71 hours from now.

One ventures that Mz Gray and the editorial team on her paper should occasionally read their own leaders, although a newspaper that has just appointed Geoffrey Lean as environment editor is clearly not in the market for sensible coverage of climate change issues.

The great problem is that, apart from skewing the agenda, there is – as wepointed out earlier - a huge "opportunity cost" in devoting so much space and resource to the climate change obsession. The paper can ill-afford to waste its valuable space on such matters, when there is real news to report.

COMMENT THREAD

Why are we not surprised?

The Guardian - and others, including the BBC - are reporting that Ken Clarke has "softened" the Tory line on Lisbon treaty.

This was during the BBC's Politics Showyesterday, when he declared that, "If the Irish referendum endorses the treaty and ratification comes into effect, then our settled policy is quite clear – that the treaty will not be reopened ... I don't think anybody in Europe … is in the mood for any more tedious debates about treaties, which have gone on for far too long, which is why this needs to be resolved."

Clarke added that a Tory government would still seek to negotiate the return of some powers back to Britain, mainly in the employment field.

It was only last month, however, that David Cameron was telling us, "I believe the central objective of the new politics we need should be a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power ... from the EU to Britain ...". At the time, we were extremely dubious as to whether he meant what he said and, if Clarke is to be believed, it appears not. 

Interestingly, Booker yesterday expressed the same degree of cynicism over Cameron's good faith, telling us that the last thing Cameron wants is a referendum in which Britain would be likely to vote against the treaty by a huge margin. He knows this would provoke the most almighty row with the "colleagues".

With the way the Tory "top team" have been playing games on this issue, it thus comes as no surprise that Clarke should express himself the way he has, all the more so when a Tory spokesman said Clarke had not changed party policy. As always, we get the tired and entirely unconvincing mantra that, "if the Lisbon treaty is ratified and in force across the EU by the time of the election of a Conservative government, we would not let matters rest there." 

The Sunday Times was also yesterday suggesting that the cynicism was more than a little widespread. Its YouGov poll indicated that smaller parties were retaining the support of the electorate, up from 12 to 18 percent, pointing to a "significant backlash" against the main parties. 

With 2.5 million having voted for UKIP is the euros, Mr Cameron may be banking on many of those voters returning to the fold in the general election but, it seems, many might not. Whether he likes it or not, the EU does mean a great deal to a sizeable minority, who are not prepared to take "more of the same" from the Tories. They are going to take their votes elsewhere.

COMMENT THREAD