Playing With Symbols in the Mideast Crisis

The Persian Gulf arsenal of conflict now includes people as symbols and props.

There was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Thursday morning on his nation’s TV in a taped broadcast carried live on CNN.

There he was, in a gray business suit, smiling broadly.

There he was, using hostages--apparently from Britain--as a human backdrop for a message to his own people and to the West.

The message: Hussein is kindly. Hussein is fatherly. Hussein is reasonable. Hussein is peaceful. Hussein is warm, not warmongering.

What an incredible TV spectacle, a seated Hussein in a large, sparsely furnished room with white walls, using an English-speaking interpreter to facilitate exchanges with perhaps two dozen of his “guests,” who have become tragic pawns in the gulf crisis. About half of them were children.

In the room with Hussein were also military men, one of whom stood behind him taking notes. The Westerners appeared to be mostly families.

The “show” began with a small boy in athletic shorts being summoned forward by Hussein, who spoke to him and patted his head. The boy appeared terrified. Then an older boy in athletic shorts came forward.

Through his interpreter, Hussein claimed that the Westerners were not being held in Iraq as a human “shield” against U.S. attack, but to “prevent” war.

“We are truly concerned about your welfare,” he said. To prove it, he asked for questions.

One woman worried about kids missing school. Hussein promised to send for “experts” from his own Education Ministry. Using the woman as a matriarchal metaphor, he explained that Kuwait was part of the Iraqi “motherland” and had now been returned “like a child to its mother.”

Another woman worried about families of the hostages not knowing their whereabouts. Hussein said his “guests” would be allowed to send mail and photographs home.

And from a male hostage, himself smiling: “We know Mr. Bush is a stubborn man, and the last initiative (from Hussein) was quite reasonable, we think. Will the President (Hussein) be issuing another initiative soon?” Hussein replied: “There is always something new.”

Finally it was time for what Hussein called “a collective photograph to remember.” And his “guests” gathered around him as still cameras clicked away. They continued to click as a smiling Hussein shook hands with everyone and patted children on their heads. He did everything but hand out suckers.

A photograph to remember, indeed. And what Hussein obviously wants perceived as an example of his benevolence.

As if the gulf crisis were not already colored by enough symbols.

We not only have Hussein’s carefully cultivated domestic image as a benign patriarch and protector, we have Bush’s contrasting verbal symbols, including his labeling of Hussein as a neo-Hitler.

We have television’s own symbols: the mosque in the background as the anchorman speaks to America; Saudi Arabia as a prop for Bryant Gumbel on NBC’s “Today” program; nightly use of military strategy maps on local newscasts, conveying the media’s own war footing.

Moreover, now comes the flap over Bush continuing to vacation and golf in Kennebunkport, Me. This asinine debate is a dramatic example of how at least some in the media seem almost to prefer symbols over substance.

You see it in the questions thrown at Bush and his aides, in media polls asking Americans their opinions about Bush refusing to relinquish his vacation trappings during the gulf crisis.

The President calls up the reserves and continues to play golf?

“Wasn’t that the right time for George Bush to say, purely symbolically, ‘My vacation is over now’?” suggested “Crossfire” co-host Michael Kinsley Wednesday night. “Crossfire,” the CNN series whose broadcast mission is to inflate every issue into a Goodyear blimp of hot gaseousness, devoted an entire program to the momentous Bush-plays-golf controversy.

How hypocritical that some in the media who so strenuously have objected to politicians using symbols to fool the public should now, in effect, advocate that Bush use even more props than he has during the crisis.

Maybe he should golf in his business suit? Maybe he should set up photo opportunities with his advisers in the Oval Office or in the War Room? Maybe he should ride around in a tank a la Michael Dukakis?

As long as he’s in touch--and he surely is--let him golf already.

Meanwhile, there’s irony in more indignation being expressed about Bush remaining at Kennebunkport than about reports of traditionally secretive Saudi Arabia planning to evict Western reporters, thereby placing the U.S. war machine outside the view of U.S. media.

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney seemed to dismiss the subject almost cavalierly at a Kennebunkport press conference Wednesday, saying that the U.S. had to respect the wishes of its “host” country.

A consortium of media has asked the Bush Administration “to help us arrange some kind of continuing coverage” of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, said Ed Turner, CNN executive vice president for newsgathering.

Turner said that CNN Washington Bureau Chief Bill Headline, for one, “believes that the Pentagon wants coverage by the U.S. networks of troops in the field.” Turner predicted some accommodation will be worked out, adding: “We will not be in the dark in the desert.”

What a loss it would be to the public--and what an embarrassment to the Bush Administration-- should Western media be excluded from Saudi Arabia while being allowed to operate, at least in a limited away, inside Iraq.

ABC and CBS have already had stints in Baghdad during the gulf crisis, and now the Iraqis have approved visas for CNN, the global news service Visnews and Britain’s BBC and ITV as well.

On Thursday, CNN sent in correspondent Jim Clancy and commentator Roland Evans, who immediately proclaimed that Hussein’s video with the hostages proved Bush’s get-tough policy with Iraq was “really paying off.”

Why could CNN assign an ideologue (in this case a rigid conservative) like Evans to the Baghdad story? Turner said Evans applied for a visa to interview Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz “and it came through.” ABC’s Ted Koppel interviewed Aziz in Baghdad, CBS’ Dan Rather interviewed Aziz in Baghdad, and now, it’s CNN’s turn.

One person who apparently won’t be interviewing Aziz there is NBC’s Tom Brokaw. That’s because NBC has been denied entry by Iraq, prompting the network to charge Wednesday that it was being “singled out” and “censored by the Iraq government” because of its past reporting on the country.

It’s not fair. How will it look, Brokaw not being able to go to Baghdad, interview Aziz and then get kicked out like everyone else?

Symbols.