Dorrance, al Jazeera, and the Iraqi media

OK, thanks to praktike I've now had the chance to read Dorrance Smith's Wall Street Journal denunciation of al-Jazeera (for collaborating with terrorists) and the American media (for collaborating with al-Jazeera).  I'd pass over it without comment as just another, not particularly interesting, piece in the Jazeera-bashing genre, save one thing:  Dorrance Smith was a senior official responsible for the media in Paul Bremer's hopelessly dysfunctional Coalitional Provisional Authority, meaning that his views presumably reflect some of the thinking in that unmourned entity (he was the brains behind the idea of bypassing the networks in order to broadcast official news to the US directly from Iraq).   And that explains a lot about why American policy towards the media in Iraq was so disastrously unsuccessful.

Here's the gist:

The collaboration between the terrorists and Al-Jazeera is stronger than ever. While the precise terms of that relationship are virtually unknown, we do know this: Al-Jazeera and the terrorists have a working arrangement that extends beyond a modus vivendi. When the terrorists want to broadcast something that helps their cause, they have immediate and reliable access to Al-Jazeera.

The only important part of this paragraph is the second sentence:  "virtually unknown."  And Smith offers us no new information beyond a trail of insinuation and misdirection.  It's all smoke and vapor, with nary a fact in sight. In my own inquiries, I've heard that the US has proven unable to confirm a single allegation of al-Jazeera's complicity in insurgent attacks in Iraq, despite a serious effort to do so. You'd think that had there been such evidence, we'd have seen it by now given the intense hostility towards al-Jazeera among the CPA and the Iraqi government - and the serious national security implications if it were true -  but we haven't.   The absence of evidence doesn't mean that al-Jazeera is innocent - or that some stringers getting footage for al-Jazeera haven't done such things, especially since al-Jazeera's offices were shut down by the Iraqi interim government and they have to rely on such stringers -  but the absence of evidence certainly doesn't support claims of certain guilt.

That Smith feels comfortable simply progressing from al-Jazeera's ability to air footage of hostages or violence to the assumption of a "collaboration" (the terms of which, he confesses of his ignorance), to calls for treating Qatar as an enemy is astonishingly shoddy.    Do the insurgents have a media strategy?  Of course they do.  Does that make the media a "collaborator" in terrorism?  Of course not.   But Smith, who shaped America's policy towards the media in the new Iraq, can't or won't tell the difference.   

The sad thing about this is that Smith's warped view of the Arab media has had consequences far surpassing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.  His legacy in Iraq was an almost unbelievable record of failure in the realm of building a credible, independent, critical Iraqi media.  His view of the media as inherently political (he reportedly walked around the Green Zone wearing a "W 2004" hat, and his C-Span Baghdad project was a pure form of media as state propaganda, to "get the good news out") and his evident contempt for the contributions of the press to a functioning democracy, have had crippling legacies.  And his views no doubt contributed to the Iraqi government's unbridled hostility towards al-Jazeera, including kicking them out of the country and making their own unsubstantiated allegations about collaboration with the insurgency.   His views on al-Jazeera are of a piece with his views on the media as a whole.  Indeed, he actually says this:  "Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and al Qaeda have a partner in Al-Jazeera and, by extension, most networks in the U.S."  That a person with such views was responsible for the media in the new Iraq tells us a lot about why it failed.

(slightly updated)

Comments

[Ghurab al-Bain]

Everything Abu Aardvark says about Smith and his idiotic screed is true. The fact that totally unqualified and ignorant people like him, and there were lots of them, were in charge of anything in Iraq is a big reason why things are so screwed up in Iraq today. It is only the profound and utter failure of CPA and the kooks at Defense and the White House that led them to hand over the Iraqi tarbaby over to the poor State Department which has been playing catch up ever since. But let's be realistic, Dorrance's article has more to do with Dorrance looking for a job in the USG than with Al-Jazeera. Those folks do love to get a government paycheck.

[Penta]

GB: Maybe, but it does raise an interesting question.

Jazeera has had some pretty big scoops and exclusives re Bin Laden, the Iraqi insurgents, etc.

Once, OK. Everybody gets lucky once.

Twice, hm.

But this often? The only reasonable explanation would seem to be that they're in a quid pro quo with Bin Laden and the insurgents.

[Jamal]

Or maybe these guys just know that Jazeera will keep their sources confidential and has an audience. Once upon a time that was called journalism.

[David W]

it's not all that suprising--the WSJ op-ed page has a split personality from its parent publication--while the WSJ journalism operation is a solid, respected news organization, the op-ed page is closer in spirit and accuracy to FOX news--the op-ed page is basically a right-wing bully pulpit.

my thinking is that this is a convenient topic to help blunt the recent Republican controversies (Tom DeLay, et al), and put the conservatives back on the offensive...

[praktike]

If I'm not mistaken, the scoops in question are by Yusri Fouda and Taysir Alluni. So I think that you have to be specific if you want to level charges like that.

[Issandr El Amrani]

Aardvark, did you find in the research for your book on Al J that it had journalists on the Al Qaeda/Afghan Arab beat a long time before 9/11? My guess is that compared to any other news network, Al J was simply there covering the story way before anyone else found it interesting -- that and the obvious linguistic/ethnic affinity it would have with sources.

The only damning story I've heard about Al J's coverage of Iraq is by an Egyptian fixer who was working in Baghdad at the beginning of the war who told me that Al J was giving satphones to people who were organizing anti-US demonstrations so that they could warn them ahead of time. But yaani, it's not that bad...

[praktike]

actually, now that I think about it, Yusri Fouda probably played an inadvertent role in getting some of the big AQ honchos arrested in Pakistan.

[the aardvark]

praktike - yes, Fouda did (inadvertently) contribute to getting those guys arrested, from what I've heard.

Issandr - yes, AJ was the only station with people on the ground in Afghanistan pre-9/11, and Alouni in particular appears to have had good sources in the AQ base camps.

[donzelion]

How dare you question such a figure? We can be assured that though the details are "virtually unknown," they have been spelled out somewhere north, south, east, or west of Baghdad, and therefore, are knowable unknown knowns.

:)