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Rumsfeld criticises media coverage of Iraq

The News International, Pakistan
Tuesday December 06, 2005
-- Zeeqa'ad 03, 1426 A.H.ISSN 1563-9479
www.jang.com.pk/thenews/index.html

WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld criticised the media’s coverage of the war in Iraq on Monday, accusing it of a rush to report negative stories about the US military. He called on the media to hold themselves to account for coverage that he said has failed to provide the "full story" in Iraq by focusing on bombings and attacks or sensational allegations.

"We have arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact," he said.

Rumsfeld’s media critique in a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies was the latest salvo in an effort by the Bush administration to turn around eroding public support for the war.

In a question and answer session with students and faculty, Rumsfeld acknowledged that the war has not gone as planned and that the insurgency was larger than expected. "There is no question that there were people who believed they would be met as liberators, and indeed they were for a period, and still are in a number of parts of the country," he said. "But anyone who had an optimistic view has confronted reality.

It is clearly not easy. War is never easy. You never heard a word like that out of my mouth, I don’t believe," he said. But he said that just as the government has had to make adjustments so should the media, suggesting it was contributing to pessimism among elites over the war that is at odds with military’s more optimistic view.

"The media serves a valuable-indeed an indispensable-role in informing our society and holding government to account," he said.