Iraq and the sarin gas of spin: An extraordinary eyewitness account of the regiments of spin doctors sent to Baghdad

In the pre-dawn darkness of an April morning in 2003 an American C-130 Hercules transporter made a forced zig-zag descent through a potentially hostile sky and came to a screeching halt in an arc of armoured vehicles at Baghdad international airport.



On board – as well as me – was a human cargo of the first civilian administrators in post-Saddam Iraq led by Jay Garner, a retired US Army General.



It was nine days after a statue of Saddam Hussein had been pulled down in Firdos Square, an event staged for the cameras at the nearby international media village.



Looking around in the gloom of the Hercules’s hold I noted about 50 officials from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs (ORHA) and realised that a disproportionate number were spin doctors – not specialists in relief, reconstruction and sustainable development.

Front Line: Stephen Claypole with a young local boy in front of a tank in Iraq

They were not going to do much to overhaul Iraq’s creaking power stations. But the reality was that they were in control.



There was Larry Di Rita, one of the right-hand men of US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and later Pentagon chief spokesman; Margaret Tutwiler, a former State Department spokesman and Republican campaigner who helped to end the 2000 Florida recount impasse in George W. Bush’s favour; Dan Senor, a former White House assistant Press secretary; Emily Hands, a Downing Street Press officer; and Charles Heatly, a young Arabic-speaking British diplomat who was acting as a pair of eyes and ears for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).



Forget the oxygen of publicity. This was about the sarin gas of spin and ‘information operations’. It came to me that just as the Spanish-American War in 1898 had been a newspaper proprietors’ war, the invasion of Iraq was a spin doctors’ war.



Last week, the Chilcot Inquiry began and already there have been revelations about the way the decision to go to war was made. But I also think the way the war itself was presented from Baghdad should be an essential part of the inquiry’s brief.

Just a few weeks before I landed in Baghdad, I had been hiking across the South Downs near Brighton when Tim Cross, a British Major-General, came through on my mobile.



He was a deputy to Jay Garner and an outstanding specialist in relief operations. ‘We are worried about the “media piece” [a military term for media relations] at ORHA,’ said Maj-Gen Cross. ‘Can you drop everything and join us?’



Within a few days I had become a sub-contractor to a Pentagon contractor, a huge defence and technology company called SAIC – known in Washington for its agility in winning large government contracts.

I was assigned to the Iraqi Media Network whose mission was to set up TV and radio channels and a newspaper.



To begin with, I was asked to help out on what the Americans call ‘public affairs’. The ‘media piece’ was in a poor state.



Jay Garner, a fine but limited American who got more things right than his brainy successor Paul Bremer, had been given no training in making TV appearances. The Pentagon was already micro-managing him to oblivion.



Several other people were sent urgently to help out with the ‘media piece’ and in a few days I was shunted to one side by the contingent from the White House, the Pentagon, No10 and the FCO.



ORHA was already doomed before it arrived in Saddam’s foul-smelling Republican Palace in Baghdad – later the epicentre of the Green Zone – where black rats and sand fleas outnumbered the civilian administrators.



Apart from a reasonably effective non-governmental organisation (NGO) clearance centre and a contingent of US Army Corps of Engineers, there was not much to put behind the reconstruction effort.



Drifting around the vast Republican Palace with its marble walls and kitsch chandeliers, I saw and heard a lot of things.



The most revealing of all were the Secret Video Teleconferences (SIVITS) where Donald Rumsfeld with his popping eyes, Paul Wolfowitz, the author of the Iraq Strategy, and occasionally George W. Bush appeared on large screens to lower the morale of ORHA staff.



I did not have security clearance to sit in on these conferences – but in a large echoing palace with few doors nothing remained secret for long. For some weeks Washington was convinced that it could spin its way out of its abject failure to tackle the issue of nation-building.



The SIVITS often returned to this theme. Jay Garner was accused – not to his face – of failing to relate to the Iraqi people. This was a bit difficult given that the US Forces had knocked down virtually every TV and radio transmitter in the country.



In one SIVIT a giant brain at the Pentagon suggested that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should become the temporary Mayor of Baghdad. Another wondered whether Florida-style garbage collection could be brought to the streets of Baghdad.



On the British side, nobody appeared to be firmly in charge in London. Alastair Campbell seemed to be the most frequent caller, speaking from time to time with Tim Cross, Jay Garner and Emily Hands.



The FCO was, I think, holding itself back like the cavalry until No10 really needed it.



As things drifted, there was talk of the British taking on half the oversight roles at the Iraqi ministries. That quickly ended when John Sawers, the former No10 foreign policy adviser, arrived.



I shared a stale croissant or two with him in the mess hall at the Republican Palace and it was clear that the UK was on the way out of Iraq as soon as it could be achieved.



Sawers was very discreet, as you would expect of a future head of MI6, but his body language showed that he was truly appalled at what was going on in Baghdad.



Six years on I still agonise, like many others, about how our country got into Iraq without robust contingency plans for the aftermath of the invasion and a clear exit strategy.



Earlier this year, I offered myself as a witness to the Chilcot Inquiry. I thought I might be able to contribute significant insights into what went wrong with Tony Blair’s Iraq adventure.



Although a relatively minor player, I am one of the few people in the UK who has not rehearsed his/her evidence over and over again in the four previous Iraq inquiries, engaged in Civil Service backside covering, finger pointing, memoirs, off-the-record briefings, academic discussions and the other by-products of spin.



I got a snotty reply from the Iraq Inquiry in July, ending: ‘Please note that it will be at the discretion of the Inquiry as to whom they invite as witnesses and the Inquiry team will contact you in due course if they wish to do so.



I hope you find this useful.’ No!



Nevertheless, I hope that Chilcot manages to unearth the truth about Iraq. It was a spin doctors’ invasion, but the bombs and the bullets were real.



Now the voices of the dead – brave soldiers and civilians – cry out to be heard.



* Stephen Claypole is an international broadcasting consultant and former head of newsgathering at BBC News, who has worked for Reuters and The Associated Press.

