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Imperial Disinformation: The Guardian's Iran/Iraq Coverage

imc-uk-features | 28.05.2007 09:20 | Iraq | Other Press | Terror War | World

On 22nd May, 2007, the front page of The Guardian was taken up by pro-war propaganda, designed to prepare public opinion to accept that war with Iran is an inevitable next step in the Anglo-American 'war on terror'. Simon Tisdall's high-profile piece claimed that Iran has secret plans to do nothing less than wage war on, and defeat, American and British forces in Iraq by August.

Last February, Indymedia UK published a feature on MI6 Iran disinformation being run by The Telegraph and the BBC [ 1 | 2 ], "the British mainstream media are now reflexively boosting the US claim that Iran presents a threat to the West". The feature also contains more details about the looming war and what it's really about.

Guardian Disinfo Newswire Articles: Guardian promotes Bush administration war propaganda against Iran | Pentagon Propaganda Occupies the Guardian's Front Page | Guardian at the Gates: Surging Toward War With Iran | The Grauniad: An Unlimited Conduit for US-UK's War Propaganda | CASMII Strongly Criticises the Guardian for Anti-Iranian Article




Very blatant

29.05.2007 09:05

It clearly is very important to dissect the way the dominant media try to shape public opinion and perceptions.

This Guardian front page was particularly blatant. Two things shocked me most:

1) The obviously dubious provenance of the story. When a paper says information comes from "sources", this basically means the story is planted by someone in authority with an agenda.

2) The way that one of the key rules of journalism is jettisoned to make way for the propaganda impact. The headline states as fact (implicitly authenticated by the paper) the claims made by an anonymous source. This would not normally happen. At the very least there would be inverted commas around the claim, to distance the paper from it slightly, or it would be followed by the phrase " - claims source" or similar. This was obviously something rather special that had been cooked up.

Maybe someone who works on The Guardian could provide some more insight?


Manufacturing Consent

30.05.2007 19:06

There was a conference to mark the 20th Anniversary of the publishing of the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Communication by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky earlier this month, some text and audio from it has been posted here:


An "Avalanche" Of Complaints

08.06.2007 08:43




Butterworth summarised Tisdall‘s article:






The rules go on to advise:



“The New York Times policy on pejorative quotes is worth bearing in mind: ‘The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source.’” ( Guardian/documents/2005/02/25/code2005.pdf)


Butterworth continued:





A reader made the point in responding to Butterworth:


And as Noam Chomsky asked in response:







Cause For Concern

In her fearless, independent appraisal, Butterworth ruled merely:







Butterworth added:


In truth there was precious little information, just dubious claims.



But as one reader correctly observes:


Butterworth continued:



Butterworth though was clear:


In her closing statement, the readers’ editor asserted:


An In-House Media Lawyer







The day after publication of her column, Butterworth responded cursorily to some of the criticism levelled at her and the paper: (June 5,,,2094694,00.html) In essence, her approach was to repeat the same discredited points made in her column.


Write to Siobhain Butterworth, readers' editor of the Guardian

Write to Simon Tisdall

Write to Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor

Write to the letters page

Please send a copy of your emails to us


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The British Army Rebels Against Propaganda

08.06.2007 11:03









This article was first published by the new Statesman

John Pilger
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CASMII calls for ethical journalism in response to Observer article on Iran

13.06.2007 01:05

CASMII UK Press Release

12 June 2007

CASMII calls for ethical journalism in response to Observer article on Iran

The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) is greatly alarmed by the publication in the Observer 10.06.07 of an article "MI6 probes UK link to nuclear trade with Iran", by Mark Townsend, which propagates unfounded allegations and distortions against Iran, similar to the reports in 2003 that paved the way to the bloodbath in Iraq; nearly all of which now discredited.

The article alleges a nuclear conspiracy to transfer "weapons grade uranium" from Russia to Sudan as a "trans-shipment point." It goes on to claim, presenting no supporting evidence whatsoever, that the material was "destined" to Iran. The author further refers to Iran's "nuclear weapons programme", a claim not supported at all by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency which is overlooking Iran's nuclear programme under a Safeguards Agreement.

Despite admitting in the pen-ultimate paragraph that "the level of involvement, if any, of the governments in Khartoum and Tehran in the alleged nuclear plot is unclear", the paper has chosen to ignore the lack of evidence and by starting with an incriminating headline and first paragraph totally unsupported in the body of the article, it has produced yet another irresponsible journalistic work to be used by the warmongers in their attempts to soften up public opinion for an attack on Iran.

Mehrnaz Shahabi of CASMII UK said today:

"This propaganda piece follows up the article of 22nd March by Simon Tisdall splashed across the Guardian's front page entitled "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq" in which Tisdall claimed Iran's complicity with Al-Qaeda and Sunni Arab Militias in Iraq to wage war against the coalition forces, basing his evidence almost entirely on unsupported allegations from anonymous US officials".

She added: "The totally unsubstantiated allegations in the Observer about Iran's involvement in illegal procurement of enriched uranium and its collaboration with Al-Qaeda are almost exact repetition of now discredited stories about the transfer of uranium from "Niger" for Iraq's 'nuclear weapons programme', the Iraqi regime's '45 minutes capability' to strike European cities, and its complicity with 'Al-Qaeda', all designed to prepare the public opinion for the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003".

CASMII calls for ethical journalism on news coverage about Iran and asks on all responsible journalists to condemn the Observer for such a grossly unprofessional article which can only serve to pave the way for a military intervention against Iran and a new and even more horrifying catastrophe in the Middle East.

Complaints should be directed to the Observer's readers' editor Stephen Pritchard, on +44 20 7713 4656 (Mon-Fri) or

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