Comment: 9 days to war, BBC
Masquerading as incisive political drama, this 10 minute piece pandered to, and reinforced, the lies about the UK in Iraq that the government and allied corporations have been spinning us since long before the war began.
Piece started showing on BBC March 13, 2008
The premise was a fictionalised account of one day - 13 March 2003 – in the life of General Tim Cross (UK deputy to the US led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid). The program documents visits the General paid to the MoD, the FCO and DFID, proclaiming that not enough planning had been done for post-war Iraq, and the result would be a humanitarian catastrophe. My problem with this programme is not so much with the the accuracy of the account, but with the selection of this account as a crucial and telling incident in the 10 days before the war, one which greatly illuminates the past, present and future.
For one thing, why only 10 days? The war was a lot longer in the making than 10 days. But inside the premise of the account the problems are more severe. On the surface this seems to be an instance of the mainstream media being less than usually supine and deferential to the government by making some criticisms. Indeed, it purports to ‘expose’ the inner workings of three government departments. The camera is constantly doing close-ups of Tim Cross’ face, as if to make the viewer feel like an intrusive, probing investigator. But the probing is, in reality, slight - so slight as to legitimise the Iraq war and reconstruction even through its criticisms.
The criticisms coming from the programme are basically that there was not enough planning, troops, money or staffing ascribed to the reconstruction before the war began. This approach strengthens several myths:
Firstly, the drama suggests that there were members of the government and the civil service who possessed the foresight and insight to highlight problems and mistakes, and to let them be known to the powers. The impression is created that robust and insightful criticisms can and do come from inside the corridors of power, suggesting that faults in the political order can be spotted and changed from within. But the criticisms are not robust or insightful; they amount to saying that the job wasn’t done properly, never suggesting that they shouldn’t have done the job at all - the programme’s basic message is that the destruction and ‘reconstruction’ of Iraqi is justified. Moreover, the suggestion is to do it better, with more troops and more staff, and that there rests a moral responsibility to amend the ‘mistakes’ The ‘reconstruction’ is not only implied to have been a good thing to do, but something which we should, morally, continue, and maybe repeat if the circumstances arise again in another country.
Further, even the criticisms are defended in ways which excuse and legitimise the invasion. A fictionalised Clare Short suggests that she was unwilling to commit resources before the war was decided upon, and that she wanted to ‘internationalise’ it by pushing the UN to become involved. This gives the impression that the issue of whether to go to war was still in the balance 8 days before the invasion, something that we all know to be untrue. It also suggests that the venture would be legitimate if more countries and institutions were involved. The defence offered by the Minister of Defence was even more misleading. He suggested that the ‘plan’ had been that Iraqis would run the reconstruction themselves. This gives the impression that the problems stemmed from allowing Iraq a level of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘democracy’, which they weren’t yet ready for, when they still needed us and the international effort. In fact, the ‘reconstruction’ was determined from before day one by external, occupying forces, rather than Iraqis. But according to the BBC, the ‘mistakes’ arose out of noble, just unrealistic, intentions of bringing democracy.
The underlying message of the programme is that Iraq needs the UK and that the UK has a moral responsibility to assist Iraq. That Iraqis are not capable of making decisions about the direction of their own country, that they need the UK's help to be ‘democratic’. This cultural supremacist contradiction owes a lot to the UK’s colonial past and has been a key ‘legitimisation’ of the invasion and occupation. It is not surprising to see the BBC repeat it on the anniversary of the invasion, when the legitimacy of the occupation is in dire need of moral resuscitation.
