Rumsfeld touts progress in Iraq, criticizes media for coverage



WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Dec. 5 the American public should be optimistic about the situation in Iraq, and not judge progress based on the death toll or media reports alone.

"To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks," Rumsfeld said at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He said Iraqis are more upbeat because their country is on an improved political path and on the road to democracy.

Rumsfeld also delivered a broadside against the media, saying that in the present era of the 24-hour new cycle, events in Iraq may be reported too quickly and without context, and at times with little substantiation.

"A lie moves around the world at the speed of light," he said, stressing there is a "jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people."

He denounced as unsubstantiated recent reports out of Iraq, including allegations from two former Iraqi detainees who said they were thrust into a cage of lions in Baghdad and then pulled out as an interrogation technique.

Rumsfeld also questioned stories about a military propaganda program that secretly paid Iraqi newspapers and journalists to publish favorable articles about the war and rebuilding in Iraq. He said he didn't know if the allegations were true, and questioned whether a contractor properly implemented military policy, which was supposed to require the articles to be labeled as ads or opinion pieces.

U.S. military leaders in Iraq confirmed the existence of the propaganda program last week.

Rumsfeld said there were "intense discussions" within The Associated Press about whether its Iraq coverage had been fair or slanted. Kathleen Carroll, executive editor, said later that Associated Press editors "engage in conversations all the time with newspapers and broadcast outlets we serve on a lot of topics including Iraq, about whether our coverage is comprehensive and useful to readers."

"It's a classic case of blaming the messenger," said Steve Rendall, a senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group in New York. "When the news is bad, blame the journalists for ignoring the good news. Rumsfeld is confusing bias with bad news. Reporting bad news is not bias."

Rumsfeld acknowledged that the war has not gone according to plan, but said many things that were feared -- including destruction of oil fields -- have not happened.

Pressure on the administration over the war has grown as the number of U.S. military deaths has surpassed 2,100. Rumsfeld said a focus on that number would be as misleading as concentrating on the large numbers of deaths at battles like Iwo Jima during World War II -- without acknowledging the victories eventually achieved.