One of the more hotly debated topics of the Gulf War is, and will always be, the role of the media and how it was or was not allowed to cover the events in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and the other states involved. Pundits and critics tell us how the military imposed "censorship" on reporters and the military argues that Desert Storm was the best covered war in history. My purpose here is not to argue the pros or cons of coverage, but to tell the story of how Americans got their news and what they did once they had it.
Americans come from an information rich society. They have so much available to them that they take the "news" for granted. In addition, most people feel that the world is as they see it. Hence Americans tend to assume that because the have access to news, everyone else does as well. Americans overseas also believe that they have a right to the same access.
In Saudi Arabia the English language newspapers do a pretty good job reporting what makes the headlines in the United States. A juicy murder in New Hampshire, an earthquake in California or a hurricane in Louisiana make the front pages. In addition to stateside news provided by the major wire services, the papers carry a lot of international news since most of the foreign nationals in the Kingdom can read English and are not Americans. Americans in Saudi Arabia have more information available to them on politics in India, guerrillas in Sri Lanka and the latest coup attempt in the Philippines than the vast majority of readers in Peoria.
National news is largely restricted to material cleared by the Saudi Press Association (SPA). As far as news is concerned, it's pretty dry stuff. Reports of visitors to, or visits by the king and ministers, summaries of increased profits by the Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation, or the number of Hajj visitors expected are typical of locally released new items. The result of this strange imbalance -- good US and international coverage and little or new local news -- does not, or at least did not, place a particular strain on the American community in the Eastern Province. They got the news they were interested in, and in truth, few people really cared what the local Emir was doing since his activities had no impact on their lives.
Things changed August 2, 1990.
News? What News?
The Iraqi invasion was not at first covered by SPA nor was mention of it sanctioned by that body. Americans received news in the early days of the Gulf War (Desert Storm was the counterattack, not the start of the war) via telephone calls from worried relatives in the States. An efficient and active international telephone exchange became a blessing and a curse. Had "fact" as opposed to the "news" been passed on, the Americans in the Eastern Province might have been able to judge for themselves what was going on and what the dangers were. Unfortunately the major job of newspapers (and television) is to sell newspapers or air time. When the facts are lacking reporters quite happily use supposition and speculation to take their place. Here's what happened.
Fact: based on Soviet standards of maintenance and traveling over northern European terrain, the mean kilometers between failures for a T-72 tank is 100. This means that in the first 100 kilometers of an advance, the commander of a Soviet tank regiment can expect half of his tanks to have broken down. The distance from Dhahran to the Kuwait border is 274 kilometers. The odds of having tanks advance that far, even unopposed, would constitute a maintenance achievement of miraculous proportions.
News: "The West Germans (there still was a "West" Germany at the time) have reported that vehicles which MAY contain chemicals have been reported loading at Iraqi military airports. Information was gained via satellite photography. This COULD mean that Saddam is planning a nerve gas attack on Saudi Arabia."
Fact: Iraqi air attacks against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War were never delivered from less than 27,000 feet. This is 26,000 feet higher than the effective delivery altitude.
Whether fact or news, all this was reported to Americans in Saudi Arabia via the telephone from the States. The news was slightly confused, very twisted and occasionally wrong.
At one point a caller reported that the American Embassy in Dhahran was under attack by crowds. Dhahran is not Saudi Arabia's capital and later review showed that the caller had mistaken a report of a demonstration in Jordan for one in Saudi Arabia. All the information from the phone was the same -- "You are about to be attacked, GET OUT OF THERE!" Attempts to reason with those far from the scene, when attempted were trumped with the ultimate comment -- "Why are you willing to let my grandchildren die?"
Faced with all this is it any wonder that a large portion of the American community was brought to the edge of panic?
After the August 13th arrival of a media press pool, followed by the general press on August 19th, the level of hysteria generally fell. Now the home folks could see that Iraqi troops were not in possession of the airbase and tanks did not overlook the vast oil fields of Saudi Arabia. But bored reporters have a way of finding something to fill the time, so they did what they could to offset this net gain by concentrating on the possible use of poison gas. 60 Minutes ran a particularly effective piece about lethality: "A drop the size of the head of a pin can cause instant death." "US Army chemical suits are such that nerve gas droplets can soak through in four hours." Naturally they forgot to mention that a) Saddam had no way to deliver the gas to the cities of Saudi Arabia and b) in the 120 degree heat the gas would evaporate and be rendered useless in significantly less time than the four hours mentioned.
Here Comes The REAL News
The first real change came on or about October 9 when Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) radio began broadcasting from a local relay station on FM 107. AFRTS provides a mix of news and music to Armed Forces operating under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). In order to have AFRTS you have to have a SOFA. Both events came as news to the local community.
First, no one really expected the US and Saudi Arabia to sign such an agreement. Second, no one could believe the Saudis would allow an uncontrolled news source into the country. No matter how it was arranged, for the first time in history Americans had access to news via something other than the short wave broadcasts of Voice of America and the BBC. Rumors were rife that radio would be followed by television!
Passing on the rumors was good fun but no one really believed that it could happen. Wrong!
On November 26th an American Foreign Service Officer serving at the American Consulate in Dhahran was thanked by a local university professor for broadcasting the college football games over the Thanksgiving weekend. Without fanfare or announcement, AFRTS had begun television service in Saudi Arabia. For the first time Americans could watch American news, live from Saudi Arabia. The up-shot of all of the above was that while the majority of programming on AFRTS was not CNN, the majority of the news programming was. People began to refer to AFRTS not by its real name but by saying "I saw it on CNN" even though the report had been on another network. CNN became a mantra and assumed a mystical role as the source of all news. What the American community had forgotten was that news and fact are not the same. At times it appeared that CNN might be better named "Creative News Network."
News of War and Rumors of War
0300, 17 January 1991. Live from Baghdad. CNN. No one who was awake in Saudi Arabia during those early morning hours in Dhahran did anything but watch television, and the only thing on was CNN. (Actually it was AFRTS, but no one bothered to notice). CNN's Headline News were not the only thing on but the other networks with their standard evening coverage, were just minor disturbances in the total coverage. Because of its half hour news format, CNN could bring live updates of the action twice an hour. The other networks could do it twice a day. And only CNN had Baghdad.
A comment about Peter Arnett and his Baghdad reporting. Two images stand out. The first was that wonderful night sky shooting during the air raids. Wonderful to think that our planes could get through all that junk being hurled heavenward. We later learned, after it was all over, that only the F-117a's were used against Baghdad so all of the firing was into empty sky. But we didn't know that at the time. The second was of the Tomahawk cruise missiles passing over head. How the Iraqi censors let that one slip by is amazing.
Then all the reporting about baby milk factories, the civilian bomb shelter, and "collateral damage." The American community in the Eastern Province, pretty much pumped up and pro-military after months of hosting soldiers, was incensed by the obvious slant to the news. The reaction was visceral and little to no notice was taken of Arnett's statements that he was being controlled by Iraqi censors standing at his very elbow. CNN later maintained that the American people know the difference between hard facts and propaganda. Perhaps some Americans do, but the largest way to draw a good crowd, even months after the war, is to announce that you want to start a Peter Arnett Hate Club.
On January 19, the American Consulate General in Dhahran sent out notice through the local warden's network that American citizens who wished to depart the Eastern Province could do so using military aircraft. The announcement gave the details of how this was to be done. The program was called a "voluntary departure," not an "evacuation."
It was not long before the media heard what was going on and in a matter of hours CNN had aired news that the U.S. government had ordered an evacuation of all Americans from the Eastern Province. When a copy of the full text of the announcement was made available to them, they read all of it over the air acknowledging that they were doing so because they knew that most Americans in the area received their news over CNN. (AFRTS, but again, who's counting?)
Then came the SCUDs. The first attack came in the early morning hours of January 18 had caught everyone by surprise. Reactions were mixed. The Dhahran International Hotel, location of the Joint Information Bureau run by the military and the up-link location for all the networks, put everyone in a bomb shelter for two hours. It was a motley collection of individuals dressed in everything from full chemical weapons suits and gas masks down to guests in their pajamas. In other areas where the sirens could only be heard if the target was awake and sitting next to an open window, people slept through the attack all together.
One American was called the next morning by a relative whose reaction was "You slept through that thing while I was awake watching it live on TV!? (expletive deleted)"
Further attacks came on January 21, 22, 23 and 26. As they continued, locals began to run for the roof carrying video cameras rather then diving for their safe rooms. No one got hurt, and it was part of the game to watch the Patriots routinely swat the SCUDs out of the sky. Those who still felt a little uncomfortable about not being in shelter could always wheel the TV into the safe room to watch the action live. But then it began to dawn on people: "If we can watch it live, so can Saddam. If we are being told where the SCUDs impact, so is Saddam." First one, then another, then a whole party of people began to think that CNN was acting as a forward observer for Saddam. Their wrath was directed at Charles Jaco.
Jittery Jaco
For whatever reason, probably due to the process of pure dumb luck, Jaco managed to be CNN's, on-duty, stand-up person during several of the SCUD attacks. Once he even hastily masked on camera when he thought he smelled gas. That act earned him the name "Jittery Jaco" by the local westerners.
Since he was the man on the scene, he was the one who called the shots. As people began to realize that "Jaco"( his name had come to mean any stand-up reporter just as "CNN" had come to mean any news network) was adjusting fire for Saddam, the fun of watching SCUD attacks dropped off considerably. There was muttering heard in the land. "If he says that again, I'm going to kill that (expletive deleted)."
Apparently word got back to the media, and they became more sensitive to what they were doing . Meanwhile, an interesting phenomena was taking place in the United States. Calls to the Eastern Province from friends and relatives revealed how anxious they were about our health since Dhahran was under constant bombardment. It wasn't, but that was not their perception. If one SCUD were fired at Dhahran, two at Riyadh and three at Tel Aviv during the course of one night, they could watch all six every half hour on CNN. Television allows no concept of geography or time. It's all right there in front of you. All the time. TV could run a tape of a SCUD attack six hours ago and juxtapose that with a live shot of a stand-up in Dhahran, and give the whole show a sense of "now; here." The next shot could be wreckage in Tel Aviv complete with crumpled cars and sirens screaming into the night. Hard to explain to one's mother that things here were not as bad. "They're just not telling you the truth. I know. I saw it on CNN."
Reflecting On Life And The Tube
The people in the Eastern Province were transfixed by the news. It was the subject of all conversations. People had to watch constantly for the latest scrap, the smallest change in the situation. Heaven help you if you did not see the news at 6:00 or 7:00 AM. Ignorant, you would become the focus of scorn. "You mean you didn't see it ? It was on CNN this morning." After the air war began, whole luncheon or dinner parties would be conducted in silence as the diners sat on any level surface, eyes glued to the TV. Only when the newscast shifted to sports (and even this was no guarantee) or the weather would there be anything like normal conversation, and the subject was always what had just been seen.
For many, the only solution was to face social outrage and turn off the sets. "I don't care . I'll watch it twice a day and that's it!" Those liberated could turn to other things mostly the passing of rumors.
It was a strange period when the news was us and we were the news. Few American civilians ever appeared on the tube, but it was a strange phenomena to be able to get up in the morning, turn on the set, and find out what the weather was like by watching "CNN."
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© Copyright 1996 by David W. Tschanz.
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