(edited transcript via ChatGPT)
JULIAN ZELIZER
Welcome back to “Then and Now.” I’m Julian Zelizer of The Long View.
JONATHAN ALTER
And I’m Jon Alter of Old Goats.
JULIAN ZELIZER
So Jon, I was doing two things. I was teaching my class about the 1990s, and I touched on Operation Desert Storm, which is, of course, when the United States, under President George H. W. Bush, launched a military operation to remove Iraqi troops under Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, where they had invaded.
At the same time, I was reading the news recently about pressure on war coverage coming from the administration. And part of what happened in Operation Desert Storm, the first major conflict since Vietnam, is the government did try to find ways not to control the news, but certainly to limit some of the negative coverage. They had a pool system where reporters were confined to certain areas and escorted by military officials. There were security clearances before a lot of things could be published. There were those approved briefings, which were very choreographed in terms of what kinds of material from the conflict was being presented.
It became an issue of the war, of what kind of pressure was coming from the administration. So how do you think that compares to some of what we’ve been hearing about in the first few weeks here with Iran?
JONATHAN ALTER
Well, first, just a couple of quick differences.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, and President George H. W. Bush then began a campaign of several months to build public support and also to have the time to move a very large ground force into the region. The operation, which lasted only 100 hours, took place in February of 1991.
So people had had a long time to debate this. A lot of people were against it. Sam Nunn, a big hawk, was among those against it. A lot of Americans thought it was just a war for oil and that we shouldn’t risk lives to free Kuwait.
But they went ahead and did it, and at the time, the people in charge had more credibility than our leaders do today, not just at the presidential level. Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, and he was actually, at that time, pretty well regarded, this pre-Iraq. Colin Powell was the chair of the Joint Chiefs, and General Norman Schwarzkopf was the commander of U.S. forces.
He would give these briefings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that were very complete, very detailed, and far superior to what we’re getting now.
So while there were restrictions, and most wars do have restrictions of one kind or another on press coverage, you didn’t see these amateur attacks on the press like Hegseth and Trump are doing. And the press wasn’t sucking up, but they were operating within the restrictions to try to tell their readers and viewers as much as they could about a fast-moving situation.
So there are always tensions in war. The saying goes, truth is the first casualty in any war.
But I think the difference this time is that there are no ground troops to embed with or to get a closer look with. And also, you have just no confidence at all that you’re getting a straight story from this administration.
So when Schwarzkopf or Colin Powell would say something in those briefings, you couldn’t necessarily take it to the bank, but you could give them the benefit of the doubt that when they were describing the details of a military operation, they were basically giving you a pretty good sense of what happened. That’s not true nowadays.
JULIAN ZELIZER
And I’ll just add, then there was no context of the administration, as much as they might have distrusted or disliked the press, threatening them, threatening hosts, threatening stations, using the FCC as a weapon. That was not part of the Bush administration. It creates a really different context now.
JONATHAN ALTER
Correct. There was tension.
So Bush, when he ran for reelection and he lost to Bill Clinton, this is also quite interesting. He was at 90 percent support after the Gulf War, and a year and a half later, he’s beaten badly by Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. All of his support for that war just evaporated.
And Trump started well under 50 percent support for this war, so it’s not likely to go up.
So just one other thing. When Bush would complain about the press, it would be in the form of a campaign button: “Vote Bush, annoy the media.”
There’s a big difference between that and trying to shape coverage to your liking and trash anybody who dares criticize you.
JULIAN ZELIZER
This is “Then and Now.” Jon, talk to you next week.
