By David Morgan
It is one of the most famous images of the war in Iraq - a United States soldier scaling a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and draping the Stars and Stripes over the black metal visage of the ousted Iraqi leader.
But for Harper's magazine publisher John MacArthur, that same image of US military victory is also indicative of a propaganda campaign being waged by the Bush administration.
"It was absolutely a photo-op created for (US President George) Bush's re-election campaign commercials," according to MacArthur. "CNN, MSNBC and Fox swallowed it whole."
'The concept of a self-governing US republic has been crippled' In 1992, MacArthur wrote Second Front: Censorship And Propaganda In The Gulf War, a withering critique of government and media actions that he says misled the public after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
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In MacArthur's opinion, little has changed during the latest Iraq war, prompting him to begin work on an updated edition of Second Front.
The US government's public relations specialists are still concocting bogus stories to serve government interests, he says, and credulous journalists stand ready to swallow it up.
"The concept of a self-governing US republic has been crippled by this propaganda," MacArthur says. "The whole idea that we can govern ourselves and have an intelligent debate, free of cant, free of disinformation, I think it's dead."
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan has denied the existence of any administration propaganda campaign and predicted the American public would reject such notions as ridiculous.
'This is not a particularly glowing moment for tough questions' A Pentagon spokesperson has also denied high-level planning in the appearance of the American flag in Baghdad. "It sure looked spontaneous to me," said Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Humm.
In fact, a survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press found that Americans were happy with Iraq war coverage, though many wanted less news coverage of anti-war activism and fewer television appearances by former military officers.
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