CHAPTER 4

The Post-invasion Propaganda Pitch

While the Bush administration was able to secure significant support for the initial invasion of Iraq, that support did not last long. On May 1, 2003, two weeks after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush declared that the invasion had accomplished its mission. However, that was just the beginning of the U.S. government’s occupation and the “rebuilding” of Iraq. The popular support displayed by the U.S. populace for the invasion soon dissipated. “From a high of 76% approval during the invasion itself, a majority disapproved of the president’s handling of the war by September 2003—just four months after the United States declared an end to major combat operations.”1 To provide some context, “support for the war in Iraq dropped faster than support for Vietnam between 1965 and 1971.”² The decline in popular support was driven by three factors—the U.S. public’s demand for fast and successful nation-building, the absence of WMDs, and worries about U.S. casualties.³ Bush administration officials knew that continuing the military occupation in Iraq required generating and maintaining popular support at home. The result was a massive domestic propaganda campaign aimed at reinvigorating support for the government’s occupation.

THE IRAQ PROPAGANDA MACHINE: TALKING POINTS, EMBEDDING, AND “UNBIASED” EXPERTS

Scott McClellan, who served as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006, was integral in painting the Iraq War in a positive light for the American public. Writing of his tenure on the White House communications staff, McClellan states that the goal of officials was to “win every news cycle.”⁴ “Our job,” he wrote, “was all about keeping the focus on national security and specifically the war on terrorism, which would become the central theme of the president’s re-election campaign. In this context, the war in Iraq was not only justifiable but essential.” He continues, “it was a determined campaign to seize the media offensive and shape or manipulate the narrative to our advantage.”5

As discussed in the previous chapter, government officials had actively employed an intense domestic “sales pitch” before the Iraq War. The public repetition of false information regarding things like uranium from Africa, aluminum tubes for supposed centrifuge construction, and Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of chemical and biological weapons were part of a larger coordinated effort by U.S. officials to garner support from the general public. While rallying the public’s support for the initial invasion of Iraq was one thing, maintaining that support was another and required a massive undertaking by government officials.

From the outset of the war, the information offered to the public was dictated not by a desire to present citizens with accurate reports but rather to paint government activities in a positive light and to serve the interests of officials in continuing the occupation. For example, the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), established in the summer of 2002 by chief of staff Andrew Card, met weekly to “coordinate the marketing of the war to the public.”⁶ What information would be released and when it would be made available to the public was carefully calculated. Historian Susan Brewer, emphasizing how the White House utilized patriotism to sway other officials, notes that “the timetable [for releasing information] would not be based on events in the Persian Gulf but on the upcoming November Congressional elections; its activities would be aimed at pressuring politicians to back the president or risk charges of weakness and disloyalty.”⁷ WHIG also worked with other official organizations to ensure that the same messages were being sent throughout the United States and around the world. Although officially charged to combat the “untruths and lies” coming from the opposing side within a global context, the Coalition Information Center (CIC), formed by Bush advisor Karen Hughes in 2001, joined WHIG in coordinating and disseminating talking points.⁸

These unified talking points were not the only method of coordinating the media surrounding the war in Iraq. Administration officials offered various new pieces of pro-occupation information to particular news outlets who would subsequently relay these new “leads” or “facts” to the public. In later discussions, officials would cite the press pieces as the source of their information, although officials generated and provided materials to the news outlets in the first place.

That this technique had worked well before the invasion is illustrated by the now infamous aluminum tubes Iraq supposedly sought for use in its nuclear program. The New York Times ran the original story on the tubes in September 2002 after receiving information from government officials.9 Speaking on this incident, Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute and founder and former director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, discussed the source of the Times story. “We now know that you had people on the vice president’s staff talking to Judy Miller, who was one of the key reporters doing these stories for the Times, leaking that material to her or helping her with her stories.”¹⁰ The same day the story appeared in the popular paper, Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice referenced the report on television. Speaking on Meet the Press, Cheney was careful to assert that the paper was the source of the information as an indication of independent credibility outside the administration. “There’s a story in the New York Times this morning,” he said, “and I want to attribute The Times.”¹¹

This pernicious feedback loop provided clear benefits to elected officials, who would cite trusted media sources as the origin of their information regarding the supposed realities of the Hussein regime. These government-manufactured feedback loops likewise created obvious problems for anyone seeking true information about the intelligence on Iraq. Simply put, even if someone was interested in investigating the origins of a particular claim, it would be an impossible task. The aluminum tubes were not the only case of officials offering data to journalists in such a scheme. “Those stories would appear [in the media],” said Tom Rosenstiel, “and then they [officials] would reference the very material that they’d given to her [media outlet reporters] and say, ‘See, this is coming from the New York Times, not just us.’”¹² He continued, “It had an echo effect. It had an echo effect that the administration was conscious of and employed.”¹³

Officials utilized other methods to influence the public’s perception of the war and occupation. For example, the Pentagon undertook a policy of “embedding” reporters with troops. Officials selected some six hundred journalists and assigned them to military units.¹⁴ Each journalist was intended to reach a different audience in an effort for officials to “dominate the information market.”15 In addition to sending journalists from major news networks and papers into the field, the Pentagon reached out to reporters from outlets like Rolling Stone, MTV, Men’s Health, and People.¹⁶ One frequent criticism of embedding as a journalistic method is that entrenched journalists can only offer a very limited perspective of a conflict. While a reporter away from the field may review information within a broader context, an embedded journalist reports from a “soda straw’s-eye view,” unable to provide any general context by virtue of their relatively narrow assignment.¹⁷

Another issue with using embedded reporters was that they were kept away from the front lines, thus further limiting their ability to accurately view and report from the war. Describing his research with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Tom Rosenstiel said of embedding,

The embedded program gave hundreds of reporters a very limited perspective. . . . You could only see what a grunt, what one soldier would see. . . . The studies we did of the embedded program suggested that the dominant use [of the reporters] was to just go live; that you’d see one embedded reporter doing a kind of extemporaneous, off-the-cuff report, and then they’d go to another embedded reporter whenever they were in a place where they could transmit.

It was very frustrating for the American public, because they were just getting these disconnected snippets of information. It was very difficult to know what they added up to.

It was also very sanitized, because the reporters were kept at a safe distance. We monitored the first week of embedded coverage, which was the heaviest week [of fighting] of the war. You would see bombs and artillery and weapons fired, and you would see, occasionally, where they would strike. But you didn’t see any video of the effect. . . . This stood in contrast, of course, to what people were seeing in the Middle East.¹⁸

In addition to these issues, the practice of embedding creates perverse incentives regarding objectivity. By embedding journalists in the field with active troops, field reporters face strong incentives to offer favorable reports toward those responsible for their physical safety and who control access to war-related information. Favorable reports are likely to be rewarded with information, stories, and visuals that make for good media, while unfavorable reporting is likely to be met with the opposite.

This point was articulated clearly by Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist known for, among many other stories, his exposés and reporting on the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Speaking at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference, he stated, “embedding is the worst single thing to happen to journalism in the last decade and a half.” He continued,

Ultimately, we are not partners of the government. And this is what happened too much after 9/11. Too many of the American reporters became jingoistic, they joined the team. We were embedded. We were embedded with military units. I’m very much against embedding, because that’s not our job—to be embedded. Our job it to report on them with no obligations, none whatsoever. . . . When you are embedded with a military unit, the inevitable instinct is not to report everything you see, because you get to know them, they are protecting you.19

Despite some concerns and objections to the practice, many media outlets were quick to embrace embedding and the flood of reports their journalists could send from the field, eager to report stories that would capture television audiences during the never-ending news cycle on the occupation.

Other entanglements between government, media, and special interests further created a false sense of objectivity about U.S.-government activities in Iraq and elsewhere. “Military analysts” appeared as frequent guests on all kinds of media—including television, radio, and print—offering their supposedly objective opinions on the war. What was unknown to the public, and in some cases to the media outlets themselves, was that many of these “objective experts” had direct ties to military contractors and lobbyists—companies whose financial bottom lines were directly linked to U.S. military operations. These same individuals had been included in hundreds of private meetings with senior military leaders, including those with influence over government contracts and military budgets.²⁰

Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist David Barstow described the practice as “a kind of media Trojan horse—an instrument intended to shape [the war on] terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.”21 Emails and other Pentagon documents referred to the analysts as “surrogates” or “message force multipliers,” individuals who could be counted on to further official talking points “in the form of their own opinions.”²² Although the Pentagon and many of these analysts deny any sort of conflict of interest, there is evidence that officials knew such relationships would be questioned if exposed. Those who attended meetings with government officials were instructed not to “quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.”²³

According to Brent Krueger, an aide to the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s work with the military analysts, their strategy had the desired effect. “You could see that they were [using Pentagon] messaging.” He continued, “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over. We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’”²⁴

In addition to these “objective experts,” other individuals connected to the administration were “pushing [the] message” set forth by the White House.²⁵ Press Secretary McClellan pointed out that some groups were particularly useful in spreading the White House narrative. “Republicans in Congress and allies in the media, such as conservative columnists and talk radio personalities, would be given comprehensive talking points aimed at helping them pivot to the message [of the White House] whenever they could. Daily talking points and regular briefings for members and staff would be provided, and rapid, same news cycle response to any attacks or negative press would be a top priority.”²⁶

Between creating unified talking points for officials, providing messaging and insider information to “unbiased experts,” citing their own source material as objective journalism, and embedding reporters in the field, government officials sought to carefully control the information disseminated to the American public on the war in Iraq. This affected the nature of the information available to news consumers and influenced their perceptions of factors surrounding the government occupation.

A study of more than 3,300 survey responses found that some 80 percent of Americans tended to get their news from television and radio—particularly Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and PBS-NPR, while 19 percent reported print materials as their primary news source.27 When examining the “misperceptions” of the respondents, researchers found that 80 percent of Fox News viewers held at least one or more incorrect beliefs with regard to Iraq and WMDs, al Qaeda links, or foreign public opinion. This trend was consistent across other networks. Some 71 percent of CBS viewers surveyed, 61 percent of ABC viewers, 55 percent of NBC and CNN viewers had at least one misperception. Nearly half of those who received their news from print media had at least one or more misperceptions. The NPR/PBS audience had fewer individuals with incorrect insights about Iraq, though nearly a quarter still had at least one misperception.²⁸

One may conclude that such findings are a result of failure on the part of viewers. Such a high rate of misperception on the part of the public may be attributed, for instance, to a lack of attention or to individuals who do not consume a significant amount of news. Evidence indicates, however, that this was not true of those who received most of their news from television. Instead of becoming better informed about the state of affairs in Iraq as one consumed more news, those who watched more coverage of the Iraq War were just as likely, or more likely, to have misperceptions than those who watched less.

It would seem natural to assume that misperceptions are due to a failure to pay attention to the news and that those who have greater exposure to news would have fewer misperceptions. This was indeed the case with those who primarily get their news from print media. However, for most media outlets, increased attention did not reduce the likelihood of misperceptions. Most strikingly, in the case of those who primarily watched Fox News, greater attention to news modestly increases the likelihood of misperceptions.²⁹

While these propaganda tools were undeniably essential in advancing the agenda of the White House and rallying the support of the general public, they were not the only methods used by government officials. The Bush administration produced propaganda relying on patriotic appeals, ideas of international unity, and an “us versus them” mentality to cultivate support on the home front.

WITH US OR AGAINST US, LIBERATORS VERSUS DEATH SQUADS

During the buildup to and subsequent start of the Iraq War, the White House paid particular attention to convincing the U.S. public that military forces would be greeted as “liberators” who would bring peace, prosperity, and democracy to a people oppressed by malevolent, criminal leaders. Officials presented the proposed “regime change” as a well-planned, straightforward, and widely supported mission by Iraqis that would end quickly, cost little, and engender democratic change throughout the Middle East—an overall great deal for American taxpayers.

The idea that Iraqis would welcome U.S. forces and that the war would be quick and decisive was repeated in the public statements of administration officials. This sentiment is captured clearly in a speech delivered by Vice President Cheney to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) national convention in 2002.

Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving people of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab “street,” [experts predict] that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are “sure to erupt in joy the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.” Extremists in the region would take heart. . . . In other times the world saw how the United States defeated fierce enemies, then helped rebuild their countries. . . . Today in Afghanistan, the world is seeing that America acts not to conquer but to liberate. . . . We would act in the same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again.30

After the invasion began, administration officials were quick to spread messages to Americans of victory and positive reactions among the Iraqi people.

On April 9, 2003, a group of Iraqis attacked a statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in Baghdad. One man repeatedly hit the base of the statue with a hammer, but was unable to destroy the monument to the Iraqi leader. Marines eventually pulled down the statue after draping it with an American and then an Iraqi flag.31 The toppling of the statue quickly became one of the most iconic images of the war. American media repeatedly showed crowds of Iraqis cheering and the statue falling over. In fact, Fox and CNN news showed the footage an average of once every six minutes in the day following the event.³² Less than a month later, President Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a giant banner that read “Mission Accomplished.” Although he acknowledged there was still work to be done in Iraq, he assured the American people that major combat operations had concluded.

This could not have been further from reality. While some Iraqis were pleased that the U.S. military had managed to topple the Saddam regime, a fierce insurgency emerged almost immediately. While Rumsfeld described “the scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks” as “breathtaking,” others pointed to major problems, namely the administration’s naive plans for post-invasion Iraq.³³ Michael Gordon, the chief military correspondent for the New York Times, described officials’ plans for what to do after major combat operations ended as the “ding dong the witch is dead school of regime change,” referring to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. “You know, we go in, kill the wicked witch, the Munchkins jump up and they’re grateful. And then we get in the hot air balloon, and we’re out of there.”³⁴

Laith Kubba, an Iraqi opposition leader, described how Iraq descended into chaos. The behavior of the Iraqi people “was not normal. It’s not a sign of liberated people. I think it’s a sign of people who sense there is no authority. Iraqis are used to military coups. When they take place, they tune into their radios and they obey orders, and people know exactly how to respond to it. Instead, there was . . . no authority.”³⁵ In April 2003, U.S. officials sent Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi back into Iraq with the expectation that he would quickly rally the support of the Iraqis and usher in a new government. This did not occur. Speaking of the Iraqi reception of Chalabi and his cohort, General James Conway said, “My overarching observation is that these folks [Chalabi and his supporters] were generally not well received. People were not responding to them like we had hoped. They were never significantly engaged.”36

As opposed to the fall of Baghdad creating an environment of stability, crime was rampant. People took to looting and set fire to buildings. In the post-invasion chaos, any social services that may have worked to maintain law and order were absent. According to Michael Gordan, “the fires would have to burn themselves out because there was no fire department.”³⁷ Ambassador Clayton McManaway painted an even bleaker picture. “There was no government. There were no police. The army was gone.”³⁸

While U.S. government officials continued to publicly report that regime change in Iraq was under control, well planned, and succeeding, this did not reflect the known realities. In fact, intelligence assessments from January 2003 warned officials that establishing a stable democracy in Iraq would not be an easy task. A report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 2007 stated a variety of major obstacles.

The Intelligence Community assessed prior to the war that establishing a stable democratic government in post-war Iraq would be a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge. In January 2003, the Intelligence Community assessed that building “an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult and probably turbulent process, with potential for backsliding into Iraq’s tradition of authoritarianism.” . . . The Iraqi political culture did “not foster liberalism or democracy” and was “largely bereft of the social underpinnings that directly support development of broad-based participatory democracy.”³⁹

Others likewise had serious doubts about the plans to rebuild Iraq. Various government officials warned the White House that an insurgency was not only possible but likely, and that this would pose significant challenges to rebuilding Iraq.⁴⁰ Years of political turmoil and deep ethnic fractionalization further contributed to the problems. According to journalist Bob Woodward, Secretary Powell warned President Bush in summer 2002 about his military plans to Iraq.

You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. . . . You need to understand that this is not going to be a walk in the woods. It’s nice to say we can do this unilaterally, except you can’t. . . . You need to understand not just a military timeline but other things that are going to be facing you.41

Privately, Powell and others would refer to the above sentiments as the “Pottery Barn rule”—you invade it, you break it, you buy it.

Surveys of Iraqis during the war found that, indeed, Iraq was broken. When asked about the most urgent issue facing Iraq, a 2004 poll found that nearly 60 percent of Iraqis were primarily concerned about security. The same survey found an astounding 92 percent of Iraqis viewed coalition forces as “occupiers.” Only two percent identified them as “liberators.” Some 40 percent said that U.S. and British forces should leave immediately.⁴² More than half of those surveyed said they would feel “more safe” if the U.S. coalition left immediately.⁴³ When asked why they held their opinion regarding U.S. forces, the top two answers given were “CFs (coalition forces) are occupiers” and “they [coalition forces] have brought only death and destruction.”⁴⁴

Another 2004 survey asked respondents a variety of questions regarding conditions in the neighborhood or village in which they lived and in Iraq as a whole. The majority said that their security situation, the availability of jobs, the supply of electricity, the availability of clean water, access to medical care and other basic needs, the local schools, their family’s protection from crime, freedom of movement, and the availability of fuel for cooking or driving were either “quite bad” or “very bad.”⁴⁵ When asked about how much confidence they had in occupation forces, more than half of Iraqis said they had “none at all” while another 20 percent responded “not very much confidence.”⁴⁶

As the war continued, Iraqi opinions continued to sour, and these majorities grew. By 2007, 80 percent of those surveyed said the availability of jobs was “quite bad” or “very bad.” Ninety-three percent had unfavorable views of their access to electricity and 75 percent said they did not have good access to clean drinking water.⁴⁷ Nearly 90 percent believed that the security situation in Iraq had become worse or remained the same in the past six months.⁴⁸ Some 85 percent of those surveyed said they had “not very much confidence” or “no confidence at all” in coalition forces.⁴⁹

Other surveys of predominantly Muslim countries found overwhelming opposition to the war as well. In summer 2002, six of the eight groups surveyed said they opposed a U.S. war with Iraq, with between 56 and 85 percent expressing their disapproval. By May 2003, these majorities ranged from 67 to 97 percent of those surveyed.50

Despite these drastic results and known problems with the plans to rebuild Iraq, a significant portion of the American public seemed to believe the narrative told by U.S.-government officials, a story opposite from the underlying realities. A poll from August/September of 2003 asked Americans whether they thought “a majority of people in the Islamic world favor or oppose US-led efforts to fight terrorism.” Some 48 percent responded that the Islamic world favored U.S. policy, while 46 percent responded, correctly, that opinions were unfavorable toward U.S. government policies.⁵¹ While the majority correctly believed that the Islamic world thought U.S. policies would destabilize the Middle East, more than a third of those surveyed thought “a majority of people in the Islamic world think U.S. policies make the Middle East more stable.”⁵²

In addition to downplaying or denying internal disputes about the ease with which Iraq could be rebuilt, the seriousness of the insurgency, and true global opinion, U.S.-government officials were careful to paint their actions in the best light possible while demonizing any and all resistance. Discussing how officials and media were careful to adopt framing that “sanitized American actions and dehumanized the enemy,” Susan Brewer notes the language used in discussing U.S. operations—“Americans ‘cleaned up,’ ‘mopped up pockets of resistance,’ launched ‘surgical strikes,’ hit ‘targets of opportunity,’ or ‘drained the swamp’ of ‘enemy thugs,’ ‘death squads,’ and ‘terrorists.’”⁵³

Nowhere is this sanitization of U.S.-government actions more apparent than in the handling of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In 2004, CBS News and the New Yorker published shocking reports and photos regarding the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In one photo, a naked Iraqi man cowers before two German shepherds restrained by smiling American soldiers. Other photos depict prisoners naked on the ground with dog collars attached to leashes around their necks. Still, other photos show soldiers smiling next to an inmate’s dead body, a variety of images of sexual assault, and other forms of humiliation.54

The photos caused an outcry both within the United States and globally. In response, the Bush administration assured the public that the abuse was the result of a few “bad apples,” low-ranking military personnel who failed to follow orders.⁵⁵ In reality, however, U.S. forces enacted a clear and systematic program of torture in Iraq (and elsewhere) in violation of international treaties and protocols on human rights. In 2014, the Senate Committee on Intelligence released 525 pages of its report on the use of torture in the war on terror, detailing tortures such as “rectal feeding,” sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding, and threats of rape, murder, and other physical violence against detainees’ children and mothers.⁵⁶

Domestically, the Bush administration and its supporters fostered public animosity against those who questioned or objected to the war, the actions of members of the military, or the larger war on terror. Statements questioning U.S. military activity were quickly equated to an affront to U.S. military personnel and deemed “un-American.” One such example involves a public exchange between Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). After the fighting had begun in Iraq, Daschle and other members of Congress publicly asked that President Bush and his administration clarify plans for the next part of the conflict because of doubts about the operations’ longterm success. In response, Senator Lott fumed, “How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field? He should not be trying to divide the country while we are united.”⁵⁷

Perhaps nowhere are the “us versus them” and “with us or against us” mentalities more on display than the sentiments displayed by members of the U.S. government and media toward France after the French government declined to support U.S. policy. Susan Brewer discusses how officials utilized the lack of French support to rally U.S. citizens around the conflict and the military, noting that

The issue of Iraq was pushed aside as officials and supporters of the war unleashed anger at France, America’s oldest and least loved ally. . . . Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as “old Europe,” while Fox commentators expressed outrage that in contrast to the United States’ moral approach to foreign policy, France based its on crass economic self-interest. . . . French fries became freedom fries and French toast became freedom toast. On Capitol Hill, House cafeteria workers put red, white, and blue freedom stickers on packets of French dressing. People . . . poured French champagne into the street. . . . Bumper stickers promised, “First Iraq, then France.” Dismissing “Euroweenies” and “EU-nuchs,” pro-war Americans proclaimed their toughness.58

While the American public was aware that some U.S. allies and others were opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq, polls indicate that many Americans were misled by official discussions of the “coalition of the willing.” One poll conducted shortly after the war began in March 2003 asked respondents, “How [do] all of the people in the world feel about the U.S. going to war with Iraq?” Thirty-one percent stated mistakenly that most people supported the United States’ military actions. Another 31 percent expressed the still-incorrect perception that views on the war were “evenly balanced.”⁵⁹ The same question was asked again in separate polls in June–September of that year, but opinions changed little. Between 30 and 33 percent believed that the international community’s opinions were “evenly balanced,” while 24–27 percent believed that most favored the war.⁶⁰

By putting forward a message of national and international unity toward regime change in Iraq, officials reinforced the notion of patriotic duty and an “us versus them” dynamic when it came to the war. These efforts worked to develop and maintain support for U.S. foreign policy after the conflict began while masking the underlying realities of both support for the intervention and its likelihood of success.

CONCLUSION

Today, many consider the war in Iraq to be, at best, a mistake. Some find fault with the initial decision to invade, while others take issue with the subsequent policies adopted by the U.S. government. A 2016 survey found that more than 50 percent of Americans think “the United States made a mistake sending troops to Iraq.”⁶¹ President Trump has stated multiple times, on record, that the Bush administration lied about WMDs and other intelligence to sell the war to the public.62 Despite the fact that no WMDs were ever found in Iraq, no links were ever uncovered between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and stories about a nuclear program proved to be unfounded, the stories offered to the American public by U.S. officials have had a lasting effect. In 2011 some 38 percent of Americans believed that the U.S. government had found “clear evidence” that Hussein was working closely with al-Qaeda. Another 15 percent believed that Iraq was directly involved in carrying out the 9/11 attacks.⁶³ As recently as 2015, four out of ten Americans, and more than half of Republicans, believed that the U.S. government found WMDs in Iraq.⁶⁴

United States government officials were able to sell the continued occupation of Iraq by framing and disseminating select information to the American public. This propaganda, which was intentionally designed to present a biased picture, was distributed through public statements and repeatedly aired by the media, reaching hundreds of millions of people. We now know that much of this information did not comport with the underlying realities. Government officials were aware of this disconnect and intentionally framed information to shape public perception in support of their goals.

The monopoly on war-related information possessed by a small group within the U.S. government allowed officials to develop a narrative that served their interests during the pre-invasion period (as discussed in the previous chapter) and after the invasion began. Following the commencement of the war, without immediate evidence to support what officials had sold to the public as justification for the conflict, and in the face of military casualties, the Bush administration used its control of information to yet again mislead the American public.

Government officials purposefully excluded details and facts that would have called into question the feasibility and desirability of the occupation. Interested citizens and watchdog groups were unable to access and consider crucial information that would have allowed them to weigh the true costs and risks of intervening in Iraq. Given the fiscal implications of war and, more importantly, the fact that human lives were (and continue to be) at stake, being able to consider information, which was readily available, is of the utmost importance to checking government power. The result of the U.S. government’s Iraq propaganda campaign continues to be felt to this day as the United States remains entrenched in Iraq.

While certainly one of the most long-lasting and obvious illustrations of post-9/11 propaganda in the United States, the selling of the invasion of Iraq and the war itself are not the only examples of officials utilizing their monopoly on information to garner support for their policies. United States government propaganda associated with the war on terror permeates America through sports, air travel, and popular entertainment. In the following chapters, we explore how propaganda has become a normalized part of American life and the perverse effects it poses for individual freedom and democracy.