Of global warming deniers, Iraq and WMD's at the Media Research Center

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When the oil-industry friendly Brett Bozell Media Research Center echo chamber isn’t spreading misinformation about the state of climate change science, it has other interests such as the war inย Iraq.

Here’s some archived quotes from the MRC concerning the Iraq war: (added emphasis inย italics)

Media Research Center, April 15, 2003:

โ€œWar is hell, but a short, successful war that ends with the natives dancing in the streets presents a particular hell for the ‘peace’ย movement.โ€

Media Research Center, Feb. 5,ย 2003:

โ€œAll the evidence of the last 12 years points to the fact that Saddam Hussein and his regime have continuously lied to the world about his manufacturing and concealment of weapons of massย destruction.โ€

Media Research Center, April 15,ย 2003:

โ€œNow it’s time for the conservative media critics to get our due. Now that the war is over and Iraqis are cheering in the streets, isn’t it high time to assess how all of the press’s negativity โ€“ especially before the war, if not just during โ€“ has made the Fourth Estate look positively goofy?โ€

Media Research Center, April 17,ย 2003:

โ€œGulf War II will be remembered for many things, not the least of them being another American victory that left the world in awe, just as America’s commanders predicted it would. It will also be remembered as having triggered another exercise in leftwing press agitation, with media armchair generalissimos making fools of themselves with one ridiculous pronouncement after another.โ€

Okay, so maybe Brett Bozell and the MRC team got a few things wrong on the outcome of the Iraq war, but hey, shouldn’t we trust them on climateย science?

Here’s some other like minded (and like-funded) global warming denying โ€œthinkโ€ tanks and their thoughts on the Iraqย war:

American Enterprise Institute, May 2,ย 2003:

โ€œFrom start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War IIโ€ฆ This was a war worth fighting. It ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq’s cities, towns or infrastructure. It ended without the Arab world rising up against us, as the war’s critics feared, without the quagmire they predicted, without the heavy losses in house-to-house fighting they warned us toย expect.โ€

Frontiers of Freedom, Feb 24,ย 2003:

โ€œIt’s about the oil that pumps out of Iraq’s oil wells and into Saddam Hussein’s pockets in the amount of $20B plus per year. It because of this estimated $20 – 25B that Saddam can develop and hide his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and continue to advance his plans to develop first-strike nuclearย capabilities.โ€

The Heritage Foundation, March 19,ย 2003:

โ€œIraq’s ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction means that the United States or its interests could be the targets of an attack with little or noย warning.โ€

But let’s just forget about all this. Surely, they’ve learned their lesson and are dead on when it comes to their interpretation of climateย science.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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