Lies My BBC Told Me

Duckseason.com via AndrewSullivan.com

When I arrived at my friend's house, I set up my little test. I watched the TV while listening to the World Service on my hand-held radio. It was a startling multimedia event. I could listen to the BBC's Paul Wood telling me once again that there was no sign of the American incursion into Baghdad. Yet on the screen in front of me there was the 3rd Infantry. They were cruising through Baghdad, driving down the highway, turning into the streets. Along the sidewalks, there were waving children and adults, cheering them on. Men in passed by in trucks and cars crying out, "Saddam down!" and giving the soldiers big smiles and waves. I finally turned off the World Service and turned up the television. At the airport, a correspondent was asked about the Iraqi claim that the Americans had been driven out of the airport and were being "pounded" by Republican Guards. He looked around, mystified, then replied that he'd been at the airport for two days, that it was securely in Coalition hands, and that the only Iraqi challenge he had noticed had been a couple of small skirmishes that were quickly quelled by Coalition forces. "Maybe that's what he meant," he said, generously. Behind him, soldiers lounged around like the stranded tourists they were.

On the BBC News channel, the anchors got Wood on camera and very gently pointed out to him that they were getting a lot of video in showing the Americans had indeed taken a drive deep into Baghdad and that the information minister’s odd claims didn’t seem to be holding up. Wood was kind of chubby, younger than I expected. He seemed obviously pained. But he had his story - no Americans in Baghdad as far as he was concerned - and he was sticking to it.

But of course he didn’t have the story. One of the war’s turning points had taken place under his nose and he and the rest of his BBC colleagues in Baghdad had missed it, simply because they were convinced of American deceit and could not bring themselves to look for what they refused to believe had taken place. I turned off the TV, had a cup of coffee with my friend, and returned home. After a half hour or so – call me crazy – I once again tuned into the World Service. By now, I wasn’t so much interested in how the war was going. I knew American troops weren’t trapped anywhere. But the BBC had dug itself a big hole, and I wanted to see how they’d get out of it.

Jonathan Marcus, the BBC’s correspondent in Qatar, was being interviewed by a troubled World Service anchor, "Jonathan, who should we believe? The Americans? Or Saddam?" It’s obvious the Iraqis are lying, Marcus shot back, adding that the American incursion was not only real, it was significant and had gone deep into the capital. "Anybody who questions that can’t see the forest for the trees," he said. It was the only real-world comment I had heard in a full day of World Service listening. That was the last I heard of Marcus that day. The anchor instantly went to another, more trustworthy correspondent...