-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.boneill.blogspot.com/2002_06_01_boneill_archive.html
}}}>Begin
26 June 2002
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The story about Iraq storing dead babies' bodies so that it then can parade them
through the streets in propagandistic mass funerals has united everyone from gore
merchants to right-wing journalists to supposedly left-wing bloggers. Many have
latched on to the dead baby claims as evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime is
wicked beyond belief, and probably in need of a good bombing to bring it to its
senses. But where does the story come from?
It originated in a report by British-based journalist John
Sweeney for the BBC, where Sweeney writes of '...the faking of the mass baby
funerals. You may have seen them on TV. Small white coffins parading through the
streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, an angry crowd of mourners, condemning
western sanctions for killing the children of Iraq'.
Sweeney points out that 'usefully, the ages of the dead
babies - "three days old", "four days old" - are written in English on the coffins',
before asking ominously 'I wonder who did that?'. He then quotes Iraqi sources
claiming that dead babies are stored until there are enough for a fake mass funeral.
So where did Sweeney get this information? From a man
called Ali, who recently fled central Iraq to the relative safety of the Kurdish north,
after being suspected of having a hand in the murder of Saddam Hussein's son
Uday. Even Sweeney admits that Ali doesn't look like the most trustworthy person in
the world (he's 'not exactly a contender to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury',
and has previously been involved in violence), but Sweeney half-reassures his
readers that 'I don't think he was lying to us'.
However, the 'evidence' for the fake funerals doesn't even
come directly from Ali, but from a friend of a friend of Ali's. Sweeney tells us that
Ali
is a friend of a taxi driver whose son has a position in the Iraqi regime - and the son
told his taxi driver dad who then told Ali who then told Sweeney that babies are
stored for mass funerals. Whatever happened to journalistic proof? Ali's story is
nothing more than hearsay presented as evidence. And it is now being presented by
some as further justification for bombing Iraq.
As it happens, Sweeney was embroiled in another
journalistic row earlier this year, when the BBC was accused by its own staff of
being 'colonial' in the way it reported the Zimbabwe elections in March 2002. As the
Guardian reported:
'Senior figures at the BBC World Service have expressed
concern to the domestic news division that coverage of the Zimbabwe elections has
been driven by a "colonial" agenda, potentially causing damage to the corporation's
reputation for impartiality. Particular anxieties have been expressed about the tone
of coverage on Radio 4's Today programme and about a Correspondent
documentary in which...Sweeney smuggled himself into Zimbabwe in the boot of a
car.'
The Guardian went on: 'Sweeney appeared to suggest it
was necessary to hide in a car to interview the opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai. In fact, Mr Tsvangirai has been interviewed many times by different
BBC outlets, even appearing in person at Bush House.'
Back to Iraq: why are so many willing to believe the dead
baby story without the same standards of proof we would normally demand -
especially for something so shocking? It seems that when it comes to Iraq, some
people will buy any story. Many on the right champion reason and rationality, but
Iraq is their blindspot, the issue on which they will trumpet anything that bolsters
their case for invading and bombing Iraq. And in the absence of any hard, coherent
evidence that Iraq poses a threat to the West, any old hearsay will do.
End<{{{
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