WHAT THE MEDIA TOLD YOU ABOUT IRAQ

[Compiled by FAIR]

"Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?" (Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)

"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what
begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's
unrivaled power and how best to use it." (CBS reporter Joie Chen,
5/4/03)

"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from
the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over
and domestic issues are regaining attention." (NPR's Bob Edwards,
4/28/03)

"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom
that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless
victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered
skeptics' complaints." (Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside
liberals, and a few people here in Washington." (Charles Krauthammer,
Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)

"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the
country and brought the military back." (Newsweek's Howard
Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)

"We're all neo-cons now." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a
coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and
winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but
it is not as hard as winning a war." (Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes,
4/10/03)

"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we
had become inured to everything that we'd seen of this war over the past
three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that
it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I
think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure
emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so
many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking." - Washington
Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03,
discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an
event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation.

"The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. Part
Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes
the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific." (PBS's Gwen Ifill,
5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech)

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president,
a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated
guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys,
McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's
president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having
a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)

"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie
star, and one of the guys." (CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission
Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)

"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today.
He did well today." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"If image is everything, how can the Democratic presidential hopefuls
compete with a president fresh from a war victory?" (CNN's Judy
Woodruff, 5/5/03)

"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or
at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative
pronouncements were over the past four weeks." (MSNBC's Joe Scarborough,
4/9/03)

"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To
hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory
meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at
least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend.
Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and
for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a
defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened.
Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront
an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might
can set the world right." (New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)

"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless
military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack]
will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the
majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it
on." (Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer,
3/30/03)

"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?" (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)

"It won't take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine
will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it
will." (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

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