History is written by the victors. Already, before the Anglo-American conquest of Iraq is even complete, the creation of myths, the distortion of facts and the abuse of language is in full swing, with hacks, propagandists, "analysts" and politicians - some of whom cannot even pronounce the name "Iraq" - in the driving seat.

Conquest has become liberation. The heroic resistance fighters have become terrorists. Looters and outright criminals have become figures of admiration, their crimes symbols of their newly-found freedom, to be marvelled at rather than condemned. Genuine joy at the fall of a tyrant is being deliberately and misleadingly portrayed as an expression of welcome for the invaders.

Some of these misrepresentations may be the result of genuine ignorance and the lack of professionalism on the part of journalists, particularly the embedded ones, many of whom are poorly-trained and inexperienced but fiercely ambitious freelancers who have been temporarily hired by the big broadcasting networks specifically to cover the aggression against Iraq.

For these journalists, this is their "big break", their chance to "make it" to the national and global media with false scoops and the distortion of events which, for them, become "news" only when simplified beyond any recognition. They have little time to check their sources or corroborate their facts, let alone learn about the history and culture of Iraq and its neighbours. Here, the soundbite and the drama are far more important than the truth, which might not appeal to their bosses and the political elite back home.

But there are also more sinister forces at work - politicians in Washington and London with a specific political agenda to drive, and more senior journalists, some on the payroll of the British and US security services, others willing accomplices in the campaign of disinformation and propaganda conducted by the Anglo-American aggressors.

We shall restrict our comments to the British broadcast media - namely, the BBC and Independent Television News (ITN) - since we do not think that the US media is worthy of our comment, but what we have to say will also apply to the US media as well.

Perhaps the most oft-repeated distortion has been the reporting of Iraqi resistance in southern Iraq and elsewhere. Almost without exception, this was described in the British broadcast media as resistance by pro-Saddam Hussein die-hards, the presumption being that all Iraqis welcomed the invasion and those who fought against it must, therefore, be people whose fate is so intertwined with that of Saddam Hussein that they have no choice but to fight against the invaders.

But anyone who knows anything about the people who sustained Saddam Hussein's regime would know that these are the last people on earth who would fight for anything. They are time servers who take their cue from the direction of the wind. They are the people who have now mysteriously evaporated in their thousands and will undoubtedly re-emerge when the time is ripe to serve the US and Britain and whoever replaces Saddam.

To their eternal shame, not one British radio or television outlet, not one broadcast correspondent, referred to the Iraqi resistance simply as resistance to invasion and occupation. Not one single reporter had the grace or integrity to acknowledge what must have been obvious to all but the most ignorant and bigoted: that hatred of the Saddam regime does not equal support for invasion and occupation and that there are many Iraqis who are willing to lay down their lives in defence of their country. (One embedded American reporter, speaking on ITN news, even stooped to the level of describing resistance at Baghdad airport as "terrorism".)

It is hardly surprising, then, that these selfsame hacks were almost unanimous in describing scenes of joy in Baghdad as expressions of welcome for the British and American invaders.

One such scene, in a predominantly Shi'i eastern district of Baghdad, consisted of a demonstration by young men chanting "There is no god but God and Saddam is the enemy of God" (Arabic: "La ilah illa Allah wa Saddam aduw Allah"). This was described by both the BBC and ITN as a demonstration in support of the Anglo-American invaders. But anyone with a little Arabic (the reporters in question must have had Arabic translators) and a rudimentary knowledge of Iraq's religious make-up would know that this was (a) a demonstration against Saddam the tyrant, (b) a demonstration by Shi'i young men against Saddam the (nominally) Sunni and secular leader or (c) both of these. There was no expression of welcome for the invaders. The reporters must have been aware of this.

Other reports by the BBC and ITN showed smaller celebrations by crowds in the streets, which were similarly described as expressions of gratitude for the invading forces. But this was more a description of the reporters' wishful thinking than of an established fact. As one observer pointed out, these same crowds were celebrating Saddam Hussein's leadership just a few days earlier. So why have they suddenly become a vindication of Washington's and London's prediction that Iraqis would welcome the invaders with open arms? They may also have been expressing joy at the fact that the invaders had not murdered them, or they may have been joyful because they could now loot and create chaos.

The bringing down of Saddam Hussein's statue in central Baghdad, which was described by Robert Fisk of the Independent as "the most staged photo-opportunity since Iwo Jima", became an obsession by the BBC and ITN, which repeated the same footage of the event ad nauseum all day on 9 April 2003, as if the statue were Saddam Hussein himself. The event was described by these broadcasters as one where more or less the entire population of the Iraqi capital had come out to destroy the statue. The fact is, as this wide-angle photograph shows, only about 100 people took part in this act, and then went on to loot and pillage from public buildings and private shops. Most Baghdadis stayed at home, not because they loved Saddam, but because they feared for their lives. (You can also see a sequence of video grabs of the event. This will take a few minutes to download. After downloading, view the whole page, right to the end, in order to see all the grabs. You can view the video grabs by clicking here.)

This was a well-founded fear. Later on in the day US troops shot an old man in the head in front of two French journalists. On the following day, 10 April, an ITN Channel 4 film crew witnessed American troops shooting three civilians in a car, including a young girl, who was shot in the head. They also witnessed the murder by US soldiers of an old man who had gone out onto his balcony to see what was going on.

Another startling fact has been the failure of the British media, and of British politicians in general, to ask why British troops in Basra and American troops in Baghdad were doing nothing to stop the looting and wanton destruction and to bring about law and order in these cities, as they are obliged to do under the Fourth Geneva Convention. One possibility is that allowing the destruction of Iraqi institutions to take place, albeit by looters and criminals, is deliberate policy by the British and the Americans - just as the Israelis are deliberately destroying Palestinian institutions - in order to provide a pretext for a prolonged occupation of the country, and to deprive Iraq of the ability to stand up on its own feet without an Anglo-American presence. But this possibility was never raised by the British broadcast media.

Nor did the British media pick up on another bizarre but potentially very sinister act: the invitation by the British military of a tribal leader in southern Iraq to help them govern the Basra district. Here was a case where Britain was empowering long-dormant reactionary forces and preparing them to govern Iraq. Here was an example of the kind of "democracy" which George W. Bush and his vassal, Tony Blair, had in mind for the long-suffering Iraqi people. The BBC and ITN reported the matter without comment. And they asked no questions.

Last but not least is the issue of weapons of mass destruction, that raison d'etre for the aggression. Bush and Blair and their cronies said they knew precisely where they were, though they would not share this knowledge with the UN inspectors. Alas, the inspectors are no longer there, and Iraq is now under occupation. But where are the feared weapons? And why are not the BBC and ITN, which hitherto frequently referred to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as though their existence were an established fact, asking this question, again and again? Instead, the issue is rapidly slipping out of the news agenda and is seldom referred to, as if it were a minor footnotes to the worst act of aggression since the days of Adolf Hitler.

History is, indeed, being written by the victors. But we have also become victims of the victors' propaganda. We criticize the BBC and ITN because we unwittingly believed British - indeed, Western - propaganda, which says that, in the so-called "democracies", the media is free and keeps a watchful eye over the behaviour of the state. We believed that, in "democracies", as opposed to dictatorships, the role of the media is to question, criticize and report the truth, no matter how unpalatable to the state. In so doing, we have forgotten that, in the final analysis, the media is just another arm of the ruling elite. In the case of the BBC, the state-owned broadcaster in Britain, it is quite simply an arm of the state and a mouthpiece for its propaganda.