This past weekend, U.S. troops uncovered a bunker’s worth of detainees in the basement of a government building outside of Baghdad. Over the past several days, various news outlets from the Christian Science Monitor to the New York Times to the Washington Post have reported that the prisoners, the majority of whom were Sunni Arabs, had apparently been tortured by their captors. In the aftermath of the discovery, Sunni leaders denounced the Shiite-led government.
This morning, in response, Iraqi government officials held a press conference to address the allegations. As it turns out, the country’s nascent spin machine is a lot like the rest of the country’s civil infrastructure — badly in need of improvement.
“In the press conference that lasted more than an hour, interior minister Bayan Jabr denied rumors strenuously that the interrogations were designed to intimidate and attack the Sunni community in Baghdad,” Nic Robertson reported today on CNN’s “American Morning.” “Those rumors have been ripe. He said that was untrue. … So he accepted responsibility for what was going on there, but denied acts of torture, and denied that the detentions were targeting Sunnis.”
Elsewhere, other members of the Iraqi government were tossing out the same talking point.
“A top Interior Ministry official said yesterday that the 173 malnourished prisoners found by U.S. forces included members of all Iraqi sects, playing down accusations of a campaign by Shiite-led security forces to suppress Sunni Arabs ahead of next month’s election,” the Washington Times reported today. “Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, deputy interior minister said the detainees also included Shiites, Kurds and Turkmen.”
Translation: No bias here. We’re equal opportunity torturers!
Shockingly, this clumsy bit of spin has yet to win much sympathy from the press. To date, we haven’t found anyone willing to praise the Iraqi government’s inclusive torture practices or give the interior ministry a pat on the back for including a Turkman or two in the torment.
Perhaps the Iraqi officials should take a lesson from their American counterparts, who have done a much better job at selling the upside of uncovering yet another pit of affliction in Baghdad.
“Army Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of U.S.-led troops in Baghdad, said he was getting positive responses from the Sunni community, which has been at the core of the anti-U.S. insurgency,” the Los Angeles Times reported today.
“We’re getting some feedback that this inquiry … has meant an awful lot to people in the Sunni community toward supporting the electoral process,” Webster told the Times. “We have new reporting from Sunnis telling us how wonderful it is to find out that we really meant what we said when we said, ‘Hey, we’re just trying to be fair here, we’re not supporting Shia or Sunni, we just want to support the rule of law.'”
So stopping the abuse of detainees can actually win Americans support among Iraqis? Go figure. Now if only that talking point would catch on among government officials in Washington.
Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.