Hugh Hewitt conducted one of the best interviews of all time in any format this week and aired it today on his radio show. Hugh interviewed Michael Ware (Time Magazine’s Baghdad bureau chief). The questions were probing. The answers were forthright and revealing.
If you missed it you can read the transcript and play the audio clip at radio blogger . The interview will also air again Thursday in the first hour.
Before I start to parse the interview I think it should be said that Michael Ware goes places most reporters never dare. He has put his life on the line numerous times for a story. Spending a year in Afghanistan beginning with the invasion and through operation Anaconda and has now been living in Baghdad for the better part of the last 3 years. He also needs to be commended for agreeing to the interview and answering so candidly. The questions arise with his choice of stories and the perspective from which he writes them.
As Michael says very early on he has spent extensive amounts of time with former Baathists (including Generals and other high ranking officials in Saddam’s army and government) and with the Al Qaeda killers.
Hugh asked Mr. Ware if fear could possibly cloud his reporting and analysis during the interview and followed up on the theory when discussing the interview afterwards.
I told Hugh I didn’t get that impression but after reading this exchange it seems undeniable that Ware admits at the very least it does have some impact.
HH: And so, is it easy for you to do good journalism with the threat of reprisal hanging over your head, perhaps even greater, because you’ve been given access over and over again to the bad guys?
MW: Well, I certainly…I mean, one has to be careful that as the Islamic army of Iraq reminded just last week on Al Jazeera, the insurgent groups study very closely everything that we hear, say and write. And given that we’re within their grasp, one always must be diplomatic. Suffice to say, it’s very hard to relate to the goals or tactics that the hard-line Islamists employ.
Now that is an explicit admission that he chooses his words carefully. In fact he does so in the interview when answering one of Hugh’s questions. Now his motivation could be fear for his own safety or that of his employees (Iraqi’s who translate or help track down sources, set up meetings etc); or what I believe is the more likely motivation, his ability to continue to have access to these individuals and the story lines they provide him.
Michael Ware certainly comes across to me as a man who likes to get the scoop and is quite proud of his achievements. For this somewhat exclusive source of his (at least as a member of the western media) to dry up would be a blow to his career and his claim to fame. Hugh takes this much farther but I would like to talk about a few other aspects of the interview.
At one point Ware admits after reciting how bad things are in Iraq now and that he has no context which to compare it to.
HH: Because we talked about this on CNN. Do you think Iraq is better off today, just…than it was under Saddam? Do you think that…
MW: Well, I was never here under Saddam. My period during Saddam’s regime was in the Kurdish North, where with U.S. air cover, they’ve forged their own autonomous sanctuaries. So I never lived under Saddam, and I can only imagine what the horrors were like, and what the restrictions were like. All I can tell you that life here right now is extraordinarily difficult, and there’s a lot of killing going on, and there’s a lot of deprivation going on, and to be able to compare that to something I never saw is a bit difficult for me.
That’s not entirely true. We know from first had witnesses, from scores of mass graves, from official Iraqi government documents, and video footage what the horrors in Iraq were like. For whatever reason Mr. Ware chooses to ignore this context and fails to allow that context to enter in to his opinions on Iraq’s progress to date.
I will get dig deeper into where Mr. Ware sees himself in the “US” vs. “THEM†reality of war later but one last point tonight.
Ware says:
MW: Absolutely, and I think that’s really the reason that a lot of us are doing what we’re doing. I mean, it’s because of that horror that so much has ensued. It is because of this fight that these people came and picked, that so much has happened. But I mean, what I’m saying to you is that if you think anyone would have the right to complain or to take umbrage at what I do, it would be the troops here on the ground. It would be U.S. military intelligence. It would be the U.S. military. You’d think that they wouldn’t give me embeds, wouldn’t you? You’d think that they wouldn’t grant me backgrounders, or wouldn’t take me out on special events. You’d think that they wouldn’t give me access to the generals,
So at some sub-conscientious level he realizes he is part of “US†and not “THEMâ€. However he completely misunderstands the nature of “US†which includes the American military, and transparent western democracy that tolerates and encourages people critical of its policies vs. the “THEM†of Zarqawi and the Islamofascists who threaten to kill him when he writes or says something on TV or radio that they take exception to.
He is completely free to report whatever he wishes about “OUR†side he is not free to do the same about “THEIR†side. I would love to hear Hugh follow this line of questioning with him the next time he has him on the program.
******Update*******
Just a bit more on my last point. Ware further exposes his motivations and demonstrates clearly the difference between us and them with this statement:
MW: Well, yeah, it’s still more than able to be done. Nothing is easy in this country. But it’s just like how when you’re writing about, let’s say, an American unit that you’re embedded with. You get into some very heavy, some very nasty combat. And I’ve done that so many times, I can’t even begin to count. And something happens, something that may not exactly play well back home. And yet, it’s something that you know, well, people outside of this experience would never understand that. I mean, how do you relay that without betraying the trust and the confidence of the troops? And for some journalists, they have to bear in mind well, if I write a negative story about the military on this embed, will they give me another embed?
So the worst that can happen if Ware writes something negative about the US Military is he may not be given future access. If he says something negative about the Islamofascists he may end up dead. If that is not a stark contrast I don’t know what is.
Another point I wanted to address was the myth of the dispassionate objective observer. Mr. Ware relies on this myth to rationalize his meeting with the enemy, and reporting “Their side†of the story. Hugh bangs on this myth pretty often on his program stating flatly that there is no such thing and that everyone has their own inherent bias from which they view the world. I agree completely, and no where is this myth more glaringly exposed than in war time.
While claiming to be dispassionate and objective Ware goes on to show great passion for his positions. It is not just what he says but how he says it. You need to listen to the interview to get the full impact of these words:
MW: But let’s look at Iraq. Iraq is an entirely different kettle of fish. From the reasons publicly stated and privately expressed for the removal of this regime, to the manor of the planning, and then that execution itself. All of them, I believe, went awry, or were poorly done, the consequences of which we are now living with, three years down the track into this war, with more than 2,300 American men and women who have been killed here in uniform, with what? $250 billion dollars. At the end of the day, what do we have? We have the shakiest of governments here, which is more aligned to our stated enemy of the United States, a member of the axis of evil, than it is with the American forces who liberated them. So Iran has actually become stronger as a result of this invasion. Who else has become stronger? Well, al Qaeda. It’s got a whole new branch here in Iraq it never had, hundreds if not thousands of new members it never had, and Zarqawi, who was a nobody in Afghanistan, is now the superstar of international jihad, and that’s been acknowledged by the administration when they put a $25 million dollar price tag on his head, the same as Osama. The Iraq war stands markedly different to Afghanistan.
Now to me those are some very strong opinions from someone who purports to be objective. Again you need to listen to the interview to hear the passion he delivers them with. He is quite certain of his convictions.
As I have said before there is no such thing as a neutral party in war. There are fools who are used by one side or the other and there are ghouls who capitalize on the chaos and horror of war to enrich them selves by playing to both sides.
Here is another interesting exchange:
HH: Michael Ware, what is the difference between what you’ve been doing, especially with the jihadists, though to a certain extent with the insurgents as well, and say a World War II-era reporter making numerous trips to the German side to talk with the Nazis, and then coming back and being ambivalent about reporting on the Nazis, or being candid about the Nazis.
Ware replies that reporters in World War 2 just weren’t able to get the access that he has today.
MW: Well, I mean, I think we’re talking about very markedly different experiences. I mean, for example, during World War II, there was very clearly delineated front lines that simply were not crossed in a fashion like that. It wasn’t a guerilla war. It wasn’t an insurgency that’s fought amongst the mix of a civilian population. So that simply wasn’t able to be done. Plus, there was also a very great understanding about the nature of German expansionism, and German nationalism. Hitler had very much outlined his intentions for a decade before the war. So I don’t think there was any great mystery there. There was no great unknown to the extent that there is here, that people just don’t know what this war is really about. And getting to the bottom of that is extremely difficult, and requires you sifting through any number of filters that all of these players want to throw at you.
Now compare Wares reporting to headlines from World War 2. Like:
Japs Announce Surrender! Or Japs Quit, Tokyo Says
Any ambiguity about which side those reporters were on? Do you get the impression that the editors who wrote those headlines or the writers who wrote those stories would “couch their words†in order to get an interview with Hitler, or Goering, or Gerbils, or Rommel, or Emperor Hirohito, or Admiral Yamamoto?
I just don’t see it. In fact I would guess that most allied Word War 2 era reporters if given the chance would stick a knife in any of the aforementioned men if they ever got close enough for an interview.
Either Ware is intentionally aiding the enemy (as Buck Sargent believes) or he is a fool, or the third option (the least likely) I mentioned above a ghoulish opportunist who cares little which side wins.
Hugh has asked all of us commenting on the interview a series of questions. Here they are with my answers:
Is Michael Ware doing a good job as a journalist?
By my standards no. Compared to most other journalists in Iraq yes.
Is he helping or hurting the effort to pacify Iraq and help it towards stable democracy?
I think there is little doubt he is hurting Iraq’s chances for a stable democracy.
Should Time recall him?
Yes but who would they replace him with?
Should there be a time limit on all journalists in a theater of conflict like Iraq?
This is a much tougher question. I don’t know if there is an absolute here, or if all conflicts are the same. I think a soldier could much better answer this question, but they are much better trained to deal with the horrors of war and they are rotated out every year so It makes sense journalists should follow a similar system.
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