It is yet to be seen
Aziza Sami looks at the coverage of the war in the Arab press
On the first day of the US-led war against Iraq, most Arab dailies delayed publishing their editions or printed extra issues. Over the course of the following four days, Al-Ahram and the widely circulating pan-Arab papers such as the London-based Al-Hayat, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and Al-Quds Al- Arabi devoted special pages to the war on Iraq. The political divisions between Arab countries supporting the war, albeit tacitly, and those virulently opposed have been reflected in a lop-sided split between the largely anti-war pan-Arab press and the Kuwaiti press, the editorials of which reflected stronger support for the US-led "war of liberation" in Iraq.
The editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyasa, Ahmed Al-Garallah, wrote on Tuesday that "it is yet to be seen what will happen on the battle-ground". He expressed skepticism about what he characterised as the Iraqi regime's self-defensive and misleading "propaganda". At the other end of the spectrum was Abdel-Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al Arabi, which is widely read in the Arab world and alleged by some to tend to adopt radical stances on pan-Arab issues. Atwan wrote two editorials entitled "An unjustified, unethical war" and "Baghdad burns, and there is no saviour". News bullets on Al-Quds' front page refuted reports, later proven to be erroneous, that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz, had defected to the Kurdish side. Al-Quds' headlines also relayed news of Turkey agreeing to open its air-space to US airplanes, potentially facilitating an attack on Iraq from the northern front. Political stances notwithstanding, the headlines of the greater part of the Arabic press initially reported rapid "advances" by the US and British coalition forces and the "fall" of the port city of Umm Qasr and the island of Al-Fao. More cautious headlines appeared later, however, as it became apparent that Iraqi resistance was stronger than expected and that there were contradictions in the statements issued by the US and British coalition forces' central command in Qatar.
On Thursday, the day war erupted, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram published the text of a speech delivered to television audiences on Wednesday by President Hosni Mubarak. Prominence in the headlines was given to the president's statement that "We must protect our internal front and our national security, and reinforce our march forward without anyone exploiting the situation negatively (muzayadat)." The headline for the transcript of the speech read as follows: "We demanded from the very start that the Iraqi crisis be resolved peacefully through international legitimacy, and we have refused a forced regime change." A lesser but nevertheless prominent headline read, "The Iraqi Government must realise the danger of the situation in which it has placed itself and all of us," referring to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
On Friday, Al-Ahram published an interview with US Vice-President Dick Cheney conducted by the paper's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Nafie. "The military operation will proceed very quickly, and we do not want to stay in Iraq more than is necessary," Cheney was quoted as saying in a broad, front-page headline.
In the following three days, Al-Ahram reported that a "land invasion starts from the south and Britain announces the fall of Umm Qasr and Al-Fao", "Baghdad burns under fires of the most violent air bombardment with the start of the massive attack", and "US Forces announce the fall of Nasiriya with fierce Iraqi resistance around Basra". On the fourth day, however, the headlines read: "Iraq insists it has killed 25 American and British soldiers and captured dozens. Washington admits the deaths of 22 and injuries of 50 of its forces."
Al-Ahram columnist El-Sayed Yassin wrote of "the 10 American commandments for the rule of Iraq". In his article, Yassin argued that "a critical review of studies issued by American think-tanks is of prime importance because this will illuminate the obscure aspects in American strategic thinking, which has been used by the Bush administration to rationalise war and ensure unequivocal American global hegemony".
The independent Egyptian weekly Al-Arabi, mouthpiece of the opposition Nasserist Party, ran a full, front- page photograph of the massive anti-war rally which took place in Tahrir Square on Thursday, the first day of the war. Its headlines read, "Hundreds arrested and injured in the streets of Cairo", and "Text of the protest by Egyptian intellectuals against the declaration by President Mubarak". This referred to a declaration issued by 40 Egyptian intellectuals, which was also reported in the pan-Arab newspapers, including Al-Hayat, in which the intellectuals briefly announced their position on the Iraq war. They explained that they "differ with the position presented by President Mubarak, which has placed the blame on Iraq for the current war". The US war is a "colonial one waged against Iraq and the Arab nation", said the statement.
In the Saudi-funded but editorially independent Al- Hayat, Jihad Al-Khazin wrote that "Saddam Hussein has committed crimes which cannot be denied by any [impartial] observer, but the US has responded to his crimes with a greater one. It is waging a war outside the bounds of international legitimacy with the purpose of serving the objectives of neo-colonialism and of Israel."
Al-Khazin wrote that "for Bush, war is the 'ultimate solution' to [the US's] economic problems. If successful, it will also guarantee his victory in the second presidential term elections, which his father, George Bush Senior, failed to do".
Al-Hayat's front page featured a diagram of "smart" American missiles and bombs, under which read, "America hopes to end the war within two weeks, and Baghdad is banking on exhausting guerilla warfare".
The anti-war protests that erupted across the world, including several Arab countries, also got their fair share of coverage. A contrast between protests in the Middle East and in Europe was made apparent with two photographs published in Al-Hayat showing an army of soldiers juxtaposed by protesters in Syria, and a peaceful march in Europe, replete with banners, one of which, carried by an American citizen, read "Shame on my America".
In the Saudi pan-Arab paper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Samir Atallah wrote that "war on Iraq has downed its first victims: the United Nations, its Security Council and the role of Kofi Annan". Atallah criticised the removal of UN peace-keeping troops along the Iraqi border with Kuwait and the withdrawal of the UN weapons inspectors in response to the US's war ultimatum.
Economic news sections in the Arab press highlighted the Saudi oil minister's statement that Saudi oil fields and facilities are still functioning "normally" and that his country is ready to produce more oil in order to attain stability in world oil prices. On the third day of the war, Al- Hayat reported that the price of Brent crude oil had receded to less than $25 per barrel, adding that, according to a Cambridge, Massachusetts (US) study, prices could decrease to $20 per barrel in the event of a speedy victory by the coalition forces and the "successful rehabilitation of Iraq's oil industry under a new regime".
The Egyptian economic daily Al-Alam Al-Yom reported a 40 per cent decline in hotel reservations and a projected loss in tourism revenues in the range of $3 billion. It also reported that the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) had refused a request by the US government to freeze the assets of the Iraqi government. NBE sources were cited as saying that this goes against "banking laws and conventions".
