BBC and Iraq: When the Truth is the Enemy

Dear John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor

In your emails to ML you wrote: “you've lied about my reporting in the past” and “You’ve lied about me, and tried to cover up any information which undermined your accusations.”

I have just read the last Media Lens’ alert and it seems that your accusations against Media Lens’ editors were not supported by facts nor evidence. This is already a very grave fault for a journalist.

Will you (and the BBC) withdraw these serious but unsupported accusations? Will you (and the BBC) issue a formal apology? Above all, will you (and the BBC) address the main point made by ML, namely “'coalition' responsibility for the mass killing of Iraqis.” ?

On 29 May 2006, R.T.Keys (Father of the late Lcpl. Tom Keys RMP murdered Al Majarr al Kabir 2003) wrote a letter to PM Tony Blair. Among other things, Mr. Keys writes:

“Our forces deployed to Iraq short of one vital piece of equipment – the truth.”

Will you be able to address these serious concerns without further delay?

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini
P.S. By coincidence, I have just today read:

“The BBC journalist recently insisted that reporting in Iraq "isn't too dangerous" and argued that the dwindling numbers of western journalists in Iraq were still able to operate on the streets of Baghdad.” (Simpson takes aim at journalism's 'moral vacuum', Christopher Lamb, June 14, 2006, Guardian).

I found this very strange when just a few days ago BBC's Jim Muir (from Baghdad) wrote me:

"How safe that is, you can judge from the death of two CBS colleagues two weeks ago. Of course we cannot operate freely - there is a war going on, in which we are at definite risk from both sides."

P.P.S. Please, find below two emails I had sent you in the past. Since they too probably have “vanished into the ether” I am sending them again.

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Dear John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor

In “Iraq invasion: For better or worse?” (BBC News website, Monday, 20 March 2006), you write:

“The first thing that struck me about Baghdad when I saw it in April 2003, a few days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, was how poor it had become. I hadn't been allowed back there since 1991, after the first Gulf War.”

From your article it seems you have missed something since 1991. Please, let me help your memory.

In 1991, there were between 142,000 and 206,000 Iraqi deaths directly attributable to the Gulf War. (Source: U.N. 1991 the Ahtisaari report; Daponte 1993)

How many deaths as a result of the sanctions? Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1997-98) who resigned after thirty-four years with the United Nations, in protest over the effects of the embargo on the civilian population, said: “I had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that had effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.” (The New Rulers of the World, by John Pilger, Verso, 2002)

According to Les Roberts (Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of the world’s top epidemiologists and lead author of the Lancet report) there might be as many as 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?, By Les Roberts, AlterNet, February 8, 2006)

Since Hiroshima Day 1990, for the past fifteen years and with the complicity and silence of most of the so-called “international community” (and many Western intellectuals and journalists), Washington and London have waged a war against the people of Iraq that has slaughtered over 2,000,000 people. Most of them women and children.

Proportionally to its population, it’s as if a war against the United States had killed 23 million of innocent Americans.

“Iraq invasion: For better or worse?” Freedom! Freedom! Democracy! Democracy!

Oh yes, the photo used for your article portrays a PR show organized by the US army. Please congratulate with the person who chose it. The right choice for your article!

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

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Dear John Simpson,
BBC World Affairs Editor

In “Life-and-death struggle for Iraq” (BBC News website, Monday, 27 February 2006), you write:

“What happened was that US and British forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and smashed the state, causing an anger and bitterness which the Bush administration and the Blair government have never acknowledged.”

Actually, “what happened” was that the US and the UK launched an invasion that was judged by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.”

In 1946, in Nuremberg, an American Judge wrote: "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals - Nuremberg, Germany 1946)

In your piece, you write:

“But there were thoughtful, influential people who knew that the dash for democracy was potentially disastrous, and they warned him [Paul Bremer] about it - without success.”

Question: What do you mean with “dash for democracy” ? Are you suggesting that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have to do with the “building democracy” Mr Bush and Mr Blair talk about? If so, on which evidence do you suggest that?

You also write:

“Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that most Sunnis and Shia actively want to continue living alongside each other. (...)

Many moderate Iraqis now believe the US and British presence here is distinctly irrelevant.”

Opinion polls have also shown that:

82 per cent of Iraqis are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces;

67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

Question: Why didn’t you report this poll in your article?

You finally write:

“Yet all this is history now - just like the rights and wrongs of the original decision to invade Iraq, and the non-existence of the weapons of mass destruction, and the fact that there never were enough American troops to do the job properly, and all the rest of it.”

Question: When you write that “Yet all this is history now - just like the rights and wrongs of the original decision to invade Iraq, and the non-existence of the weapons of mass destruction (...)”, are you suggesting that we should simply forget and forgive “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter”, the “supreme international crime” in the words of the Nuremberg Trials? Don’t you think that the solution to the current situation in Iraq should instead be found exactly in that “rights and wrongs of the original decision to invade Iraq” and in upholding International law?

Thank you for your time and I look forward for your comments.

Kind regards,
Gabriele Zamparini

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Hi Gabriele - Thanks for taking the time to write. I'm sorry I didn't see your other emails before. I've just finished another immensely long screed to Media Lens about the subject of your latest message, which they'll post soon, I'm sure. To be honest, I'm going to have to pass up on replying to the others, for various reasons -- I'm in charge of our 5-month-old baby tonight, I get a serious form of verbal diarrhoeia when it comes to these things, and I've got lots of other emails from ML readers to reply to (the majority of them nice ones, I have to say). But just let me make one point: I've rarely passed up an opportunity to talk about the appalling damage done to Iraq by the sanctions which Britain and the US forced on the UN. I doubt if you and I disagree as much as you think we do. But I'm afraid the baby's starting to cry.

All the best,

John.

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Thanks John.

Please, could you reply my points when the baby stop crying? I would much appreciate it.

Thank you.

Best wishes,
Gabriele

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Hi Gabriele,

Sorry -- the heart just sank at being the Aunt Sally for someone's frustrations about Iraq, when there were more immediate things to be looked after. The only good thing is that I've had such a flow of kind and encouraging emails from Media Lens readers, which has cheered me up immensely.

The first point I would like you to consider is that I'm not a spokesman for the British or US governments, nor even for the BBC. I find all this stuff from you about 'withdrawing serious allegations' and so on a bit overheated. Media Lens said some untrue things about me, and I'd like them to take them back. That seems perfectly reasonable; I'm sure you don't believe that Media Lens should be beyond criticism itself, if it isn't as honest with its readers as it should be.

As for my work, I'm just a single individual who goes to Baghdad every six weeks or so, stays there for ten days at a time, and reports back what he sees. I have found that it is perfectly possible to get out onto the streets of Baghdad and say what is going on, if you're careful. I didn't say it was safe, because it obviously isn't. There's no conflict between Jim Muir and me. He is a colleague and good personal friend of mine, and we were just talking about slightly different aspects of doing our job there.

You seem to want to make me into a defender of UN sanctions against Iraq. You should check with the main pressure-group campaigning to help Iraqis against the effect of sanctions, and you'll find they used to quote one of my reports in their adverts. And in the days when I was a real editor, and was barred by Saddam from going to Iraq, I always used to insist that they reported on the shocking effects of sanctions. The BBC's reporting of the subject was, I'm proud to say, much praised.


You also seem to think I'm not interested in the bitterness and anger reflected in the various opinion polls in Iraq. You should check out my reporting on the BBC's own polls over the past three years.


Do I think we should forgive and forget internationally illegal acts? No, I certainly don't.


Do I think the solution in Iraq is to make sure that international law is upheld? Absolutely.


I think that's all. Now can I go and look after the baby?


All the best,

John.

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Thanks John.

I understand the time factor and the baby issue, so I will focus just on one point.

You write:

On 6/15/06 4:39 PM, "John Simpson" wrote:


Do I think we should forgive and forget internationally illegal acts? No, I certainly don't.


Do I think the solution in Iraq is to make sure that international law is upheld? Absolutely.

That’s really great news! As BBC World Affairs Editor, will you keep your word and report on the World Tribunal on Iraq?

PRESS RELEASE about JURY STATEMENT
27 Jun 2005

‘The attack on Iraq is an attack on justice, on liberty, on our safety, on our future, on us all’ – The Jury of Conscience

Istanbul, 27 June, 2005 - With a Jury of Conscience from 10 different countries hearing the testimonies of 54 members of the Panel of Advocates who came from across the world, including Iraq, the United States and the United Kingdom, this global civil initiative came to an end with a press conference at the Hotel Armada where the chair of the Jury of Conscience, Arundathi Roy, announced the Jury’s conclusions. (...) The Istanbul session of the WTI lasted three days and presented testimony on the illegality and criminal violations in the U.S. pretexts for and conduct of this war. The expert opinion, witness testimony, video and image evidence addressed the impact of war on civilians, the torture of prisoners, the unlawful imprisonment of Iraqis without charges or legal defence, the use of depleted uranium weapons, the effects of the war on Iraq’s infrastructure, the destruction of Iraqi cultural institutions and the liability of the invaders in international law for failing to protect these treasures of humanity.

The session in Istanbul was the culminating session of commissions of inquiry and hearings held around the world over the past two years. Sessions on different topics related to the war on Iraq were held in London, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Brussels, New York, Japan, Stockholm, South Korea, Rome, Frankfurt, Geneva, Lisbon and Spain.

Media Lens wrote about this last year:

At a press conference after the tribunal, jury chairperson Arundathi Roy said: “If there is one thing that has come out clearly in the last few days, it is not that the corporate media supports the global corporate project; it +is+ the global corporate project.” (THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE VANISHING WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ, July 6, 2005)

Will the BBC’s audience be able to know – even though after one year – about the World Tribunal on Iraq? Will you keep your word?

Do I think we should forgive and forget internationally illegal acts? No, I certainly don't.

Do I think the solution in Iraq is to make sure that international law is upheld? Absolutely.

Please, this is not about personal ego. I entreat you! Will you keep your word and let the BBC audience know about the World Tribunal on Iraq?

Please, think of the Iraqi babies while you are looking after yours!

Thank you.

With much hope,
Gabriele Zamparini

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TAKE ACTION: BBC and World Tribunal on Iraq