Years later it turned out George W. Bush was completely wrong, but the truth of the matter is that the US president lied and America's major media outlets were most likely aware of it, US author and investigative historian Eric Zuesse underscores.
"[A] report came out of the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush claimed, as cited by the author.
However, the IAEA immediately rushed to inform the public that it had not released such a "new report" and that there was no WMD in Iraq.
"The American news media simply ignored the IAEA's denial, and we invaded Iraq, almost six months after that boldfaced lie, a lie the press refused to expose, at all — ever," Zuesse stressed in his article for Strategic Culture Foundation.
American media outlets have apparently forgotten that Bush cited the IAEA "report", not intelligence sources, Zuesse reminded.
"The American press hides the fact that the American President lied his nation into invading Iraq. The press lies that it was only ‘bad intelligence,' no lying President," the investigative historian noted.
Not much has changed since then. The US media is now narrating that the blatant coup of 2014 in Ukraine was not a US-instigated regime change but a "revolution" and an ultimate victory for democracy.
Needless to say, major American news outlets are actually applying censorship and getting rid of those reporters who try to expose an "inconvenient" truth.
"How can a democracy function with such a news media?" Zuesse asked rhetorically, and added: "It can't. And it doesn't."
"One can report in major American news media that democracy has ended in America, but one can't report that either Bush or Obama lied us into vile invasions, or that the overthrow of Yanukovych was a coup instead of a 'revolution'," the investigative historian remarked.
The American news media is owned by America's aristocracy, and it is the US aristocracy who finances political campaigns and thereby overwhelmingly determines who will end up in office.
"News media is selling minds; it's a form of PR. In a capitalist economy, there is no way to prevent the news business from becoming a branch of the PR-business. The dominance of propaganda over news reporting is inevitable in any type of economic system. That's reality — not 'Adam Smith'," the US author stressed.
Since the American news media is controlled by the national financial and political elites, US media objectivity leaves a lot to be desired.
