“All Successful Democracies Need Freedom of Speech”: American Efforts to Create a Vibrant Free Press in Iraq and Afghanistan

Abstract

Over the last three years, the United States government has spent 215 million dollars on a sweeping effort to try to create a vibrant free press in Iraq and Afghanistan. The drive is part of President George W. Bush’s policy of spreading democracy across the globe to counter terrorism. In a May 2005 speech, the president said that all successful democracies are built on five common foundations, one of which is a “vibrant free press“ that “informs the public, ensures transparency and prevents authoritarian backsliding.”

This paper will examine American efforts to create a vibrant free press in Iraq and Afghanistan. A 200 million dollar project in Iraq was the largest attempt ever by the United States, or any country, to help create independent media in another nation. Run by the Pentagon, it was a near total failure in its first year, with Iraqi journalists, American trainers and U.S. government officials assailing it as wasteful, amateurish and counter‐productive. A far smaller, 15 dollars million State Department effort in Afghanistan, by comparison, appears to have been more effective.

In both countries, many local journalists have performed well, particularly when given proper resources and training. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as around the world, murder and violence is now the single largest threat to the creation of an independent news media. Government officials, criminals and terrorists are increasingly using assault and murder to silence the media. Supporting, respecting and, most of all, securing local journalists may be the most critical way the United States can foster the creation of a vibrant free press in Iraq and Afghanistan.