Iraq War Logs : Case Study

The end of the Cold war, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and then the dissolution of the USSR defined a new world order. This new world order saw the emergence of “new” wars that started with the first Gulf war and accelerated from the 9/11. As the global geopolitics was evolving, journalism was progressing with new technological devices and new ways of reporting (from 24h news channels to the advent of social media today). In this evolving context, there are some correlations between the new world, new media and new wars. Focusing on Iraq War Logs case, can data journalism affect war journalism ? How ? We will first have a brief look at war journalism, especially regarding Iraq war. Then, we will proceed in the content-analysis of Iraq war Logs, and discuss it.

LITERATURE REVIEW Some challenges are associated with war's newsworthiness. Media plays a central role since“ Modern wars cannot be fought without public support, and great efforts are made to get the public to accept, and preferably support their own side's actions in the conflict” (Nohrstedt, 2009). This leads, in the wars so-called against the terrorism, to situations where media seem to be embedded in a sort of propaganda. For example, the Gulf war's reporting of CNN as a “clinical war” hiding the “unworthy” Iraqis victims, or the construction of a discourse based on a US versus THEM dynamic since the 9/11 and the following war in Afghanistan. It also applies for the 2003 Iraq war since propaganda helped building and reporting the war. Through framing and agenda-setting, media spread some misperceptions encouraging American involvement. While the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction was exaggerated (Kull, Ramsay, Lewis 2002), the UN's weapons inspection teams were doubted (Melkote, 2009), once the war was launched, some of the journalists were part of the embedded program which affected their report. Editors of The New York Times confessed there were many journalistic flaws in the coverage of the war. Lack of criticism and reflexivity, mediated nationalism, spread of misinformation, omission of embarrassing situations and even the reporting language (good vs evil) are elements of war news as “a discourse em- bedded in propaganda” (Nohrstedt 2009). It applies even more with visual reporting material (Nohrstedt 2009).

ANALYSIS Wikileaks is a secretive site that publishes “leaks” from governments or high-profile organisations. These leaks can then, constitute a great source of datas which can be the base of journalistic use. Data journalism is the use of data in journalism to uncover, better explain and/or provide context to a news story. The sheer scale and range of digital information now available open up the possibilities. The flow of datas has to be filtered in order to bring some sense but it appears as a way to see things that would not have been seen otherwise and then to tell richer stories. It “presents information in a relevant way that enhance the tacit knowledge of humans about the subject matter”. We will proceed in the case study, through a content-analysis, of Iraq War Logs as an attempt to answer the research question. In 2010, Wikileaks disclosed around 400 000 US army Iraq field reports from 2004 to 2009. The biggest leak in the military history of the USA resulted in the open access to the reports through internet and in different projects, some notably lead by international media organizations (such as Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NY Times) who enjoyed a pre-release access. The reports, in military acronyms, are composed of a title, some tables presenting the dry data, the body or text of the report, then a part made of raw data (just codes) and then a map centred on the exact location reported. Some names may have been removed for security issues. For example, “IED EXPLOSION RPT (Vehicle-Borne IED (VBIED)) 1-9 CAV : 299 CIV KIA 402 CIV WIA = an explosive hazard in the north of iraq (MDN-N)” indicates the Ninth Cavalry's report of a vehicle-Borne improvised explosive device that made 701 civilians victims (299 were killed). The body of the report then details how the soldiers reporting perceived the event, its progress and consequences. These reports can then be sorted by type (criminal event, enemy action, friendly action, explosive hazard...), category (ambush, direct fire, demonstration, police action, raid...), region, affiliation (enemy, friend, neutral), date or severity. The datas record 109 032 deaths in the Iraq war with 66% of civilians (66 081), it is 15 000 deaths more than previously thought. Deaths among the enemies represent 23 984 people and 15 196 among the host nation (the iraqis allies), whereas the coalition's loss amounts 3 771. This striking gap between the losses , and the huge percentage of civilians victims allow to realize clearly how asymmetric this warfare was. Indeed, some logs show the ease with which US troops appeared to open fire on unarmed civilians who made the mistake to approach too close to the check point. These useless deaths are then reported as “friendly action” or “escalation of force”.

Some datas also highlighted the spread ignorance of US troops towards acts of torture or murders committed by Iraqi police or forces on detainees or civilians. For example, in one log it is reported that an Iraqi man was arrested by the police and shot in the leg by an officer. The report continues: "this detainee suffered abuse which amounted to cracked ribs, multiple lacerations and welts and bruises from being whipped with a large rod and hose across his back". The report, with stunning understatement, adds that these acts amount to "reasonable suspicion of abuse" but the outcome was: "No further Investigation Required". The Pentagon denied these allegations by stating that "[o]ur policy all along was if American soldiers encountered prisoner abuse, to stop it and report it immediately up the US chain of command and up the Iraqi chain of command.". Whereas, some UN emissaries made an appeal to investigation. The logs also evoke the implication of Iran with the reporting of the presence of Iranian agents or weapons helping the Iraqis militias. This Iranian involvement was one argument in favour of the launch of this war.

FINDINGS & DISCUSSION The Iraq War Logs did not reveal top-secret information concerning this conflict. Indeed, the death of civilians as some abuses were more or less known to happen. Moreover, as any source, datas have to be handle with skepticism. Even more so here, since the reports are one-sided, subjective, unverifiable and produced on the battlefield (which increases the probability of error). The reports have to be used without forgetting that they represent an American vision of an event and if some locals have been interviewed, their credibility can also be questioned. Some key events of the conflict such as the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib or the Fallujah battle do not appear in the documents. However, this leak still gave the journalists (and citizens) the “raw material of history” (David Leigh, investigation editor of The Guardian). This “unvarnished version” put a new light on a war called “operation Iraqi freedom” and its paradox since in the 400 000 documents released, the word democracy appears only 8 times (whereas IED appear 146 895 times). The data processing by media outlets (including some of countries not involved in the war), with the making of interactive stories (such as “A day in the war” by The Guardian) gives a closer, realistic and critical approach to the conflict. Indeed, the bloodbath (often civilian) and abuses directly reported from the field help raise question toward the authorities involved, the media coverage and may hurt war support.

Iraq War Logs show that the use of datas in war reporting seems to be, in some cases, a solution to some issues linked to war journalism. Indeed, datas, such as numbers, compose an objective material to use in comparison to the war reporting that can be biased in many ways (with the embedded journalists program for example). Even if the field reports transcript the American point of view, they are not affected by a will to hide or exaggerate something since they are not supposed to be revealed to the public. The data analysis process is then very long since the volume is huge and here, it deals with sensitive reporting. Afterwards, some key elements have to be selected in order to report a particular aspect and other sources may be used in order to confirm the datas. The data-journalism do not embody the whole reporting but the use of datas, with the help of visualization, allow a better story-telling and then understanding of war situations. This leak of Iraq war records was literally data-journalism in action since it enabled the journalists to get human stories from the huge amount of reports. It also confirmed the Iranian involvement (that was an argument to launch the war). But it mainly gave a global picture of the conflict and showed how war was really going. Indeed, a lot of the stories emerging from the war logs were not reported in the US traditional news when they happened. You would never have heard daily about Iraqi civilians killed or how the local forces, trained by the US troops were torturing detainees with impunity or imagine the coalition forces constant fear of IEDs. Though, it was how the war went and the war logs and their journalistic use, allow to get the citizens closer to the truth concerning this conflict.

SHORTCOMINGS OF THE STUDY As it is pointed out in the introduction, the context is in constant evolution and if the data journalism is actually more and more current, the journalism, and thus war journalism, has been subject to many changes since the Iraq war was launched. This paper tried to see if data-journalism affected the “traditional” coverage of this war (from newspapers and tv mainly) as a really particular case and not as a general statement. The short period of time devoted to this study does not allow a real deep understanding of the consequences of the release of war logs. It is only an assessment regarding this new ways of reporting war, allowed by actors such as Wikileaks and media outlets promoting data-journalism such as The Guardian. This assessment is only based on my research, through the logs in themselves but mainly on the NY Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel's devoted sections.

CONCLUSION Ten years after the invasion of Iraq by the coalition forces, it is possible to wonder about the American's covering of the conflict and the media faithfulness to its core principles. But the Iraq War Logs brought a solid and concrete base for journalistic work. The datas prevented the story telling from the issues that can alter war reporting, and thus, allow the citizen to have a more realistic vision of the conflict. In a way, that enhances democracy and invites to keep a critical mind towards the media in war times.

REFERENCES Kull-Ramsay-Lewis, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War” 2002.The Academy of Political Science

Melkote S., “News framing during a time of impeding war : an examination coverage in the New York Times prior to the 2003 Iraq war” 2009 International Communication Gazette 71: 547 Nohrstedt S., “New war journalism” 2009 Nordicom Review 30 1, pp.95-112

DemocracyNow “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs Expose US-Backed Iraqi Torture, 15 000 more civilians deaths, and contractors run amok” http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/25/wikileaks_iraq_war_logs_expose_us NYTIMES “The War Logs” http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html?_r=0 SPIEGEL ONLINE “The Wikileaks Iraq War Logs” http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-wikileaks-iraq-war-logs-greatest-data-leak-inus-military-history-a-724845.html The Guardian “Iraq : the War Logs” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs Wikileaks “Iraq War Logs” http://wikileaks.org/irq/