Photography as a Weapon

In the New York Times Errol Morris is exploring the notion of photography as a weapon. In classic Morris style, he explores the topic in great depth and breadth, using Iran’s faked missile launch photo as the hook, but tying into related topics, too:

The photographs presented by Colin Powell at the United Nations in 2003 provide several examples. Photographs that were used to justify a war. And yet, the actual photographs are low-res, muddy aerial surveillance photographs of buildings and vehicles on the ground in Iraq. I’m not an aerial intelligence expert. I could be looking at anything. It is the labels, the captions, and the surrounding text that turn the images from one thing into another.

We looked at this topic in the Summer 2007 issue, with Chris Hondros’ “A Window on Baghdad” and Carolyn Cole’s “Someone Won’t Be Coming Home Tonight.” Cole wrote of her role as a photojournalist in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

Were there photographs we missed, images that could possibly have signaled the disasters ahead? I remembered touring with Saddam’s Ministry of Information, photographing Iraqi missile factories, suspected mobile weapons labs, and the infamous chemical drone. Who would have guessed that the dictator’s propaganda department might be telling the truth when they said there were no weapons of mass destruction? That wasn’t for us to say—or to know. We shot the pictures and sent them.