“The administration encouraged the public to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and forged a rhetorical link between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group. Much of the public and press accepted these false assertions and utilized these “facts” as justifications for war…Ideally, news media act as a filter, sifting and sorting information in a manner that ensures a reliable and accurate source from which citizens can base judgments about war. The news media fell far short of this ideal and exacerbated the spread of misinformation about Iraq. Major television news coverage of Iraq was overwhelmingly pro-war. Indeed, leading news organizations emphasized. Administration information over contrary information to the extent that two prestigious newspapers later apologized to their readers because they “lost focus on other voices.” The news media did not do their job protecting the public against political propaganda.” (Johansen & Joslyn, 2008, p.591)
Coming to media’s funding sources, we see that major advertisers are themselves business corporations whose profit-motive makes little allowance for issues of propriety and justice. This is why the business community largely remained silent in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Sourcing of news content is another key filter that aids propaganda efforts. Since the misinformation campaign about the presence of WMD in Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq was hosted by Bush Administration officials, the permanent presence of correspondents and reports in government offices like the White House, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon made it difficult for alternative views to be presented to the citizenry. (Kampfner, 2003, p.12) For example, while all major newsmedia outlets gave extensive coverage to the utterances of Bush Administration members such as Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, etc, none of them gave an iota of newstime to dissident views such as those offered by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, etc. From news production point of view, it is cost-efficient and less cumbersome to station correspondents in major government centers as opposed to places like academic departments and public squares. More importantly, getting information from such obscure places is not going to serve the interests of the government or media corporations; and hence editors reflexively avoid alternative or dissident points of view. (Edgley, 2000, p.78) It should also be observed that once myths and lies are established as noble truths, no amount of dissident activitism can eradicate its unsavoury effects. The power and lasting impact of initial impressions are nowhere more clearly evident than in those directly involved in the war, as they have emotionally invested in the justifications for the war. Even those who are only tangentially involved in the war become glued to the contexts in which they first assented to the war proposal. In other words,
“The efficiency of the myth and malevolence of the mythmakers become apparent when we consider the impact on those rendered most vulnerable by war: members of the military, veterans, and the families who have lost loved ones. After having experienced the moral ambiguity of guerilla or counterinsurgency warfare–in their efforts to maintain their moral integrity, self-esteem, and to recover from the trauma of war–many veterans feel compelled to staunchly defend the Iraq war. They find comfort in it and embrace the myth because of a dread, perhaps unconscious, that unless the war they fought be remembered as just, and the threat as real, readjustment-living with the memories of the horrors of combat–would be even more unendurable. Consequently, history must be changed to record the invasion of Iraq as a justifiable response to the attacks of 9/11. And this revisionism is as integral to the war against global terrorism and, of late, to the freedom and democracy of the Iraqi people.” (Bica, 2006, p.20)
This brings us to the manifestation of the notion of ‘flak’ in the build up to the Iraq War. Those criticising the government initiative were either branded as unpatriotic or trecherous or siding with the evil. This includes dissident intellectuals mentioned above. But prominent popular cultural icons are not excepted either, as the case of the shunning of Dixie Chicks clearly shows. Immediately after their open criticism of Bush Administration’s imperialist policy, Dixie Chicks band was ostracized and outcast in most of the radio and television stations; so much so that their music careers have been derailed in the process with little scope for a comeback. By making such outspoken icons into scapegoats, the government-media nexus deters such tendencies among prominent celebrities and intellectuals. So flak had proved to be a major disincentive for those who disapproved of the Iraq war. Consequently, the government was able to proceed with its plan to secure oil resources in Iraq at the cost of tax-payer funding and the cost of innocent civilian lives in Iraq. (Casey, 2010, p.565)