A Lesson In U.S. Propaganda

Last week, a once-notorious Iraqi site made news again. Seeking evidence of biological weapons production, United Nations arms inspectors swooped into the closed industrial facility at Abu Ghreib, outside Baghdad -- the same plant that U.S. forces bombed on Jan. 23, 1991.

The Iraqis claimed in '91 that the site was a baby milk factory and nothing more, a charge reported by Peter Arnett on CNN and then denied by the U.S. government. "Numerous sources have indicated that [the factory] is associated with biological warfare production," an Air Force spokesman said at the time, a few hours after the bombing. "It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure," repeated Colin Powell later that same day.

"That factory is, in fact, a production facility for biological weapons," repeated White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. "The Iraqis have hidden this facility behind a façade of baby-milk production as a form of disinformation."

Baby Milk or Lethal Virus?

The U.S. claim seemed credible, especially because of the crude way in which Iraq had made its case. Arnett's report included shots of a tall red-lettered sign, "Baby Milk Plant," in Arabic and English, posted at the ruined factory's entrance. That makeshift piece of work was not convincing. CNN's coverage also included shots of an Iraqi technician in the factory, dressed in a lab coat with the legend, "BABY MILK PLANT IRAQ," stitched in English on the back.

Despite such comic hints of fraudulence and denials issued by Washington, Arnett stood firm. He had toured the factory in August (for a story on Iraq's response to the international sanctions), and again just after it was bombed. "Whatever else it did, it did produce infant formula," Arnett said at the time. Although the Pentagon had cast the factory as a veritable fortress, with "military guards around it, [a] barbed wire fence, a military garrison outside," Arnett saw only one guard at the gate and a lot of powdered baby milk. "That's as much as I could tell you about it," he added carefully. "It looked innocent enough from what we could see."

For his account, the journalist was accused of treason by the White House.

"Everything that Peter Arnett reports is approved by, censored by and reviewed -- on the spot -- by the Iraqi government," Fitzwater exploded the next day. "This is not a case of taking on the media. It's a case of correcting a public disclosure that is erroneous, that is false, that hurts our government, and that plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein."

Such repudiation from on high -- and those shots of the suspicious sign and lab coat -- appeared to settle the matter. The major media outlets unanimously jeered what Newsweek called Iraq's "ham-handed attempt to depict a bombed-out biological-weapons plant near Baghdad as a baby-formula factory." So pervasive was the merriment at the Iraqis' "little sham of baby milk" (as Time put it) that the phrase "baby milk factory" at once became expressive of the enemy's complete dishonesty.

The theme of Iraqi falseness quickly reemerged after the U.N. team revisited the site last week. "They are engaging in disinformation, propaganda," said one commentator on the Fox News Channel. "If you remember during the Gulf War, the Iraqis put out the sign that said 'Baby Milk Factory,' when we -- the United States, the Pentagon -- said, 'No, it was a military installation.'"

Disinformation Trumps Facts

Although it sounded credible enough in 1991, the U.S. claim was weak -- although you wouldn't know it from the TV coverage. After the bombing, Michel Wery, the plant's contractor, told the French daily Liberation that the factory was making baby milk when it first started up in 1979, and that its equipment was not built to breed or package viruses. In early February, he reconfirmed his story for the Washington Post, which also quoted two dairy technicians from New Zealand, Malcolm Seamark and Kevin Lowe, who had been inside the plant at least four times, to help another French crew make repairs. Both men corroborated Arnett's story.