Group leaders were playing what one later called "hardball" with the Columbia mother of 2 & other 400th
family members. "OK this has gone far enough!" they wrote. The message said that "certain people are getting their soldiers in trouble" and that the unit's e-mail list had been sent to the Pentagon "for possible security violations and will be closely monitored."
Days earlier, Peacock heard a news report about an explosion outside Baghdad, near where the 400th, her
husband's unit, was based. Since he'd left this spring, she'd grown skeptical of the military's unfailingly rosy
accounts of the 400th's status.
Worried, she tried to get information about the blast from family support staff and Army officials at Ft Meade, where the 400th is based. After 3 days of inquiries, Peacock said she still knew nothing. She decided other 400th wives might want to know about the incident. She sent an e-mail telling everyone what she'd heard. "Evidently everything is not fine," she said she wrote.
Military families always walk a difficult path in wartime, balancing loyalty, hunger for information about loved ones
and sometimes misgivings about the mission. The military try to quell dissent with appeals to spouses' sense of
patriotism, urging them to button up because "loose lips sink ships." With e-mail & satellite phones,
information spreads instantaneously as military tries to keep public opinion from souring on Iraq conflict.
"You have a situation over there where everybody ain't happy; that's just the way it is," said Army Reserve's 99th
Regional Readiness Command spokesman Jack Gordon. "Being a soldier has always entailed not being happy all the time. There are going to be grumbles & complaints as this continues. The difference is now grumbles
& complaints become public almost immediately."
Afraid such publicity affects morale, his office recently posted an article for soldiers on its web site with headline:
"Got a Gripe? Watch Where You Air Your Frustrations; It Just Might Make News." The posting was fallout from a
7.16.03 ABC News report in which Spec. Clinton Dietz of the 3rd Infantry Div. said: "If [DefSec] Rumsfeld was
here, I'd ask him for his resignation."
¹
220th Military Police Brigade Family pgm coordinator Lisa Torey oversees the 400th; in interview she said there
were no injuries in the blast Peacock was asking about. Peacock's e-mail, she said, was distressing to many
families who don't watch the news and don't want bits of information dripping in from unofficial sources. They have a right, she said, not to be disturbed with troubling news.
She added that there had been several other "violations" regarding use of the e-mail chain. Torey, civilian volunteer whose husband is deployed in Iraq, wouldn't specify what those were, but she said she had to put a stop to them. "We have 150,000 troops over there," she said. "Someone could say something, and that information could get to the wrong person. Worst-case scenario, we have a dead soldier on our hands."
In follow-up e-mail to the family members of the 400th on Tuesday, Torey backed off, writing that "no one is in
trouble with the Pentagon or Higher Headquarters." She wrote that she "had to play hardball and get you to stop
immediately because that fine line regarding breach of security was almost crossed." Finally, she added: "You also have to remember that your loved ones volunteered to do this, they may have done it with the impression that they would never go anywhere because they are 'Reservists,' but they knew that was a possibility when they signed that dotted line."
400th is not the only unit whose families have recently received e-mails encouraging them to put a lid on their
complaints. Army's 3rd Infantry Div. commander Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III's wife Anita Blount wrote she shared their frustration about the length of the division's deployment to Iraq. She went on to say that she knows "many of you believe you should embark on a campaign to raise awareness of the need for the [3rd Infantry Div.] to return. We need to be aware of a possible outcome of our outcries that could backfire on us directly."
She said that "when the Iraqis see media coverage of disgruntled Americans, publicly campaigning for the return of our soldiers from Iraq, they are encouraged and believe their strategy is working. They believe that their continued attacks on American soldiers are having the desired affect and are diminishing the resolve of the American people to complete the task in Iraq."
Her letter was praised by acting Army secretary R.L. Brownlee, who wrote her an e-mail that said: "Your call to
endure continued separation and fight cynicism will encourage others to persevere." Despite tensions between
some spouses & family support personnel, many wives say the service is a valuable one. Noreen Knight of
Edgewood MD, whose husband Tim is sergeant with 443rd, said, "there's always a lot of helpful information" in the e-mails. Her group leader has sent out everything from how to send a care package, to notices about free child care and updates about the lengths of deployment.
That's how the family readiness groups should be used, Gordon said. They are there to help families negotiate
tough times, get them counseling if they need it or information about everything from health insurance to family
finances. The groups were "created in an attempt to lessen the stresses of the families at home by sharing
information," he said. Cathy Mullaney of Damascus, husband John captain with 443rd Military Police Co., said
encouragement she gets from her unit's family support leader helps lift her spirits on days when she's so weighted by worry she has to force herself out of bed in the morning.
What she really appreciates is when the group leader shows that she is also having a tough time. "It lets us know
that everything we're going through is normal," Mullaney said. "Some days, we're all Mr. & Mrs. Patriot," she
said. "Next day, we're like, 'How could govt take them from us?' "
Trust me, I'm British
¹
7.17.03 Tim Burt FT
The reception area at White City, BBC's sprawling TV complex in west London, is eerily silent, almost deserted. At this time of night, there is only one other visitor: govt minister Ben Bradshaw. The Labour politician cycled from
Westminster for grilling on Newsnight, BBC's current affairs flagship. He removes his bicycle clips & helmet, collects his security pass and sits in the corner, eyes closed, preparing for the ordeal ahead.
Bradshaw, a former BBC presenter, spent the past few weeks lambasting his one-time employer. The young
minister, perfectly groomed for the studio, has emerged as a govt rottweiler, condemning BBC Iraq war coverage, attacking presenters for lack of impartiality, demanding abject apologies over the "dodgy dossier". Some BBC executives would prefer Bradshaw to keep out of the studios. But the asst producer smiles when she arrives to collect him, ensuring his safe passage along the maze of corridors, up stairs, past empty cafeterias to the studio. If Bradshaw took a wrong turning he would miss Newsnight altogether, ending up in BBC World's cramped newsroom.
There, BBC World journalists & editors are still digesting the govt's criticism of its war coverage. Before the
furor, the intl newsroom was basking in plaudits from around the world, particularly from U.S. Ratings in America
have soared. BBC presenters such as Mishal Husain have a cult following. Whatever Downing Street's view, the
BBC has become a valued news source for liberal America.
In the studio, Julien Cousins is finalising his news list. The clock behind him reads 10.45pm, but the editor's mind is 5,000 miles and several time zones away. Cousins & his team are preparing the US nightly bulletin. At the top of the hour, 95% of America's public service stations will switch to BBC news, reaching almost 100m
households.
BBC is now the main provider of intl news for America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which is made up of 350 non-commercial TV stations. It is a natural outlet for the British broadcaster. PBS follows the same public service guidelines, no advertising and a mandate to inform.
Sitting at his desk in White City, Cousins says: "What the Americans really value from us is the broader agenda."
He picks up his news list, revealing a takeaway menu, for the New Palace Garden, amid the jumble of papers. "We have pieces that won't get on US networks. Tonight we're leading with the MidEast, with Blair on weapons of mass destruction lower down the show; his difficulties are still of interest in America. We'll close up with a piece on Berlusconi & the corruption allegations. I'm going to promote that for this audience because they won't get it anywhere else."
The output editor glances at his "arrivals board", a large plasma screen hanging from the ceiling. It lists the
incoming pictures & news stories. The items include: "Washington inserts for WTV. Guest Lloyd Grove of the Wash.Post." Cousins checks another screen. It's divided into 4 different pictures, simultaneously showing bulletins from CNN, Sky News, BBC World & News 24, the corporation's domestic news channel.
"We call it the screen of death, it shows what the competition is leading with, and I can instantly compare what
we're doing." In spite of Downing Street's recent attacks, the corporation is still enjoying war dividend in wake of Iraq conflict.
In America, several leading media commentators cited BBC as a TV news benchmark, heaping praise on its
coverage while condemning flag-waving rivals such as Fox, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. For many liberal intellectuals, the BBC provides a vital counterweight to mainstream US networks. Such intellectuals, incl leading Democrats & Ivy League professors, believe domestic stations cut intl coverage to the bone. In an industry chasing ratings & advertising, TV executives find it hard to make an economic case for foreign news.
There is another factor at work. Leading US media groups, among them News Corp, don't want their news coverage to upset Bush admin as it ponders long-waited media ownership reforms. BBC aims to exploit that trend, arguing there is an appetite for "long-form" journalism: a mixture of news and detailed analysis whether from Basra or Berlin.
In America, as at home, BBC has enemies. Hard-line Republicans echoed Downing St's concerns by condemning BBC's dogged coverage of friendly-fire incidents or the conspicuous absence of weapons of mass destruction. Chicago Sun-Times conservative commentator Robert Novak says: "Where BBC really hurt itself in political circles was the way it took a hostile position to their own troops and to the Americans." The syndicated political columnist, liberal Democrats' scourge, adds: "I think BBC appeals to certain elements of the American left, but it has a rather bad reputation with a lot of other people and that reputation dates back a long time; in the 1930s it took an appeasing & soft view on Hitler."
Speaking in Wash.DC, Novak argues that BBC's appeal is strictly limited by its "long-time orientation to the left".
Such criticism is not confined to American pundits. Some foreign govts share deep-rooted suspicions of BBC. In
June, Israel's right-wing coalition cut off contacts with BBC, accusing the corp. of the "worst of Nazi
propaganda" following critical coverage of its nuclear weapons pgm. In private, BBC executives regard such
attacks, incl recent Downing St offensive, as proof of its independence.
So far, the criticism has not dented audience in America, world's largest media market.
In BBC World studio, Julien Cousins admits: "Our news agenda is different. We're like the outsider looking through the window, and that can be of immense value to U.S. audiences." He motions towards a seat in the darkened control room. The pgm director & sound technician are talking to US broadcast anchor Mishal Husain. Husain adjusts her earpiece as the director warns: "Mishal, business is shorter than usual from New York, extremely short. It's about 8 seconds light. Will you be all right to do an extra long intro?"
She nods. A computerised voice begins a 10-second countdown. The director, faced by more than a dozen
screens, concentrates on just one. Beneath it, a digital sign reads: "World Output". Husain smiles: "Good evening, I'm Mishal Husain in Washington. You're watching BBC."
Even as she is broadcasting, the director briefs bulletin's co-anchor David Jessel in London. Jessel will introduce
the next item, already cued-up on another screen, nicknamed "Big Ted 3". While Jessell is on air, Husain chats to
the control room. "We can hear a lot of background chat in your newsroom," says the director. Husain laughs: "I
know who that is."
Within seconds she has composed herself and introduces the Berlusconi piece, filed by veteran BBC reporter Brian Barron. It follows a train tour of Italy, with Barron interviewing local officials & lawyers about the prime
minister's difficulties. The director barks at the sound technician: "You ready with your train whistle?" He is, the clip runs, the whistle sounds. Husain rounds up the programme. Back in London, Cousins says: "Thanks everyone. Doesn't Brian Barron look good for his age? Just right for Americans. They like what we give them."
U.S. appetite for such bulletins has lifted American ratings for BBC News by 80% this year, with an average
weekday audience of 840,000 viewers. BBC claims that it is closing in on CNN are dismissed by the ubiquitous
news network. It says the corp. remains a minnow in a crowded U.S. market place. "Any comparison with us is
fanciful," says CNN Intl pres. Chris Cramer. "We have 20 networks & services in America. There is only a
small audience that likes BBC programming."
BBC editors in London claim CNN is rattled. They say the audience figures, based on the evening news bulletin on
PBS, speak for themselves. After BBC bulletin, US viewers receive local news from their public service stations.
Some, such as Juli Hinds, switch off. The mother-of-two, a part-time radio host, counts herself as a typical BBC
convert. She prefers BBC news to CNN and British comedy to American rivals. Occasionally, she listens to BBC
radio. But the reception is patchy in Madison WI.
The Hinds household is one of 35m U.S. homes that subscribe to the corporation's dedicated cable channel BBC
America. "I think the war coverage was great. I love America, but our coverage was like an action show," says
Hinds. "When the kids go to sleep I watch BBC news with my husband. If you ask me, Fox is so black & white.
BBC is kind of grey. It's all about balance."
That sort of endorsement makes Mark Byford smile. The Yorkshireman, who heads both BBC World & the
World Service, is leading the charge into America. He oversees that strategy from a grand office at Bush House,
central-London landmark from where BBC broadcasts services in 43 languages.
"For me as the global news editor, if you like, I'm trying to position BBC World as the most authoritative intl news
channel, a showcase for BBC journalism." Byford stops.
In the corner of his office, 2 TVs are tuned to BBC World & CNN. Both are reporting another suicide attack in
Jerusalem. Byford rushes over and turns up the sound. "There's been another bomb and 6 dead in Gaza. I'm just
looking at CNN & us here. Hang on just a second. CNN is confirming 16 dead, we're saying 13."
He shakes his head and strolls back to the conference table. Around him, the walls are covered with pictures of
celebrities, politicians and economists, each accompanied with a quote praising BBC. Kofi Annan, the Prince of
Wales, Mick Jagger, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, George Best. It's like a famous, albeit static, studio
audience. A quote from Joseph Nye, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School, catches the eye. "I listen to
BBC World Service because I trust it to bring me broad & honest coverage of what is happening around the
globe," it says. "Some years ago, I coined the term 'soft power' to refer to the power that arises from
attraction rather than coercion. BBC World Service is a good example of soft power."
Byford is more of a plain speaker like his father, Sir Lawrence Byford, long-time president of Yorkshire Cricket Club.
Say something he doesn't like, and Byford jumps in: "Hang on, you're not listening." He doesn't often blink, either,
reinforcing the passion invested in every sentence. "I absolutely love this job. In a world of mistrust and
misunderstanding, where you're trying to provide trust and a global connection, and you have a brand with
resonance and you're responsible for BBC journalistic services around the world, you'd need your head testing if
you don't enjoy it."
Throughout the conversation, he folds & refolds a small piece of paper, concentrating intently as he compares
BBC to American rivals. "What is interesting for me is that our positioning was seen to be different & effective
in increasing our appeal to U.S. audiences," he adds. "What it says about U.S. networks is that their commitment to
balance and range of voice, as a part of their fundamental DNA, is not at the same level as it is for us."
Although he came to intl broadcasting only in 1998, after more than 20 years in other areas of BBC, Byford has
surrounded himself with the trappings of an overseas executive. There is a huge map of the world on one wall;
endorsements from foreign leaders; a globe tilted so that America faces his desk. Even his tie is covered in little
printed planets.
He sums up his ambitions for BBC in America, saying: "I don't want to be poncey, but I'd hope that people say I
lead by drive and being unbelievably competitive: I want to win. I like to raise the bar of expectations." In the U.S.,
raising that bar means achieving record ratings on TV & radio. Byford says the corp. has 3.9m American
listeners for World Service radio, which is carried on several hundred public radio stations.
There are more American visitors to BBC Online than from any other nation, incl British. "In terms of
audience reach, we've always quoted that 22% of opinion-formers in New York, Boston and Washington are
listening to the World Service," says Byford. "We now know that more than 40% are touching BBC. 40%!
That's good."
But he admits to certain limitations. BBC's American incursion is a niche move, not a challenge to the established
networks such as NBC or CBS. Nor does he plan to throw huge new resources at American coverage, arguing that
BBC's intl credibility does not extend to local stories in Chicago or Dallas. "America is a very, very important market
place, but we're not going to reach everyone. It's very important that we make an impact in the U.S.. But we're not
trying to get everyone to stop watching ABC or NBC. It's about a thrust from a different perspective."
Nevertheless, BBC hopes to reinforce its U.S. presence this year by launching a 24-hour news channel in the US. It
is now in talks with Universal TV about distributing BBC World, its intl news channel, as a cable service in addition
to its regular bulletins on PBS, BBC America and local stations such WGBH in Boston. It also wants to extend its
existing tie-up with ABC, the mainstream network that already carries some of its stories.
Until now, that effort has been hampered by complex rights agreements with American stations, which fund
swathes of BBC production in return for US rights to those programs. The Discovery network, in particular, has
rights over much of BBC's factual output, having co-financed blockbusters such as Walking with Dinosaurs &
Blue Planet. BBC is anxious not to alienate Discovery, given that the US network handles advertising sales &d
distribution for the corporation's light entertainment channel BBC America.
Such rights issues are currently being debated on the 11th floor of a bland office block in Wash.DC suburb
Bethesda, home to BBC America, second-fastest-growing cable channel in the country behind the Lifetime Movie
Network. The channel's ambitions are clear from the posters on display in reception. They depict American images,
in black & white, with a flash of Union Jacks. In one, a cowboy sits astride a Union Jack beach ball; in another,
a model flicks a Union Jack tongue.
Paul Lee can see all the way to Virginia from his office window. But the BBC America chief executive says: "I'll give
you a better view of what we're doing over lunch, French or Mexican?" Downstairs, he strides across Wisconsin
Ave, ignoring the "Don't Walk" lights, and chatting about the problems at U.S. networks. "They're going through
what BBC did a decade ago, they have to restructure & change."
Across another street, through a parking lot, he heads for a mock-Parisian restaurant. "No sign of a French
boycott," says Lee, surveying the tables crowded with Washington wives in padded jackets & heavy make-up.
He whispers: "That old lady over there, she used to be a spy with the CIA in Paris. She loves BBC."
Seated, picking at a salad, Lee describes BBC America as a shop-window for the corp. U.S. networks, fearful
of investing in anything that may flop, are buying tried & tested BBC "formats". Coupling, a British take on
the Friends genre, has just been acquired by NBC. Universal Studios this month signed a deal with BBC to develop
6 projects a year for U.S. networks.
Former TV producer Lee denies BBC America is a diversion from the corporation's core purpose. Nor, he says,
does it drain resources from the corporation's £2.6bn annual licence fee, which is raised from levies on every
TV household in Britain. According to Lee, the channel generates cash for its parent co. by helping to sell
programs. Discovery network bore all the start-up costs for BBC America, which is celebrating its 5th birthday.
"We linked up with Discovery because it has the best selling team in the country," says Lee. "There is no point
entering the most valuable TV market in the world without corporate backing. Discovery does all our ads &
affiliate distribution deals; we run the P&L, and press & programming."
Waving a fork around, Lee attributes BBC America's success partly to the mood among US viewers. "American
sitcoms are not doing very well. Look around you: Americans are not laughing at themselves. But there is a real
appetite for our comedy. It's not about Masterpiece Theatre any more." He points to the example set by HBO, the
cable arm of AOL Time Warner. "HBO identified a new audience of sophisticated, urban, college-educated viewers.
We're doing the same. We are prepared to take risks that American TV would never take. When we first came here
their biggest gamble was NYPD Blue."
Among those risks, he cites The Office & So Graham Norton, the high-camp chat show, as breakthroughs in
changing America's perception of BBC. Diminutive Irish comic Graham Norton agrees. Speaking in his Manhattan
hotel suite after completing his first U.S. series, Norton says: "The Americans like it that we break a lot of rules. TV
is so formulaic here and the things we say unthinkingly draw gasps from them." He giggles, a very famous giggle.
"In my stand up, I do a thing about myself being in my 40s, and when I leave a club, the doorman shouts 'Taxi for
Mr Mutton'. You try explaining the concept of mutton dressed as lamb to a bunch of Americans. I say 'Think Goldie
Hawn' they're amazed I could be rude to Goldie. It gives you lots of mileage."
Norton says the mainstream networks have been "sniffing around" the show. But he thinks that an outing on NBC
or CBS is unlikely; "they would tone us down so much, so it's best to stay on cable". Nevertheless, the comedian
thinks that his formula of sexual innuendo and cringing audience participation has appeal far beyond the eastern
seaboard. "People can be very snobby about the Midwest. But I went out with someone from Detroit and he said:
'Don't make any assumptions about middle America.' He's so right. I get letters and they don't come from
New York or Boston, but from rural places where they're crazy for irreverent humour."
The success of shows such as Graham Norton's seems to rest on breaking away from ageing American formats.
Those formats are tired because cash-strapped US networks, most of them owned by much larger media groups,
dare not experiment with new programs, Instead, they pick up shows already popular in Britain. BBC is a clear
beneficiary of that trend. Just as BBC America has won a niche for its comedy & makeover shows, so BBC
World is capitalising on demand for different news coverage.
Recent attacks on the corp., whether from Downing St, American conservatives or the Knesset, have only
reinforced BBC's view that it is right to question policy and extend its coverage to the US & beyond.
Sitting in his office at Bush House, Mark Byford gives one more twist to the piece of paper in his hands. "BBC
World has come of age. In 1991, people said it was the coming of age of CNN. But in terms of distinctive coverage
& quality, BBC World is there."
He glances at the TVs beside his desk, still showing the latest carnage in Israel. "Our job in the US is not to provide
information about that country, but to enable Americans to connect with the position of the U.S. in the rest of the
world. Their networks have a certain perspective & standing. That's why BBC needs to be different." |
Pentagon threatens to kill independent reporters in Iraq
3.10.03 Fintan Dunne ed.GuluFuture
µ
The Pentagon threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to
veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the
consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a sr Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares … They've been
warned." According to Ms. Adie, who 12 years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely
hostile to the the free spread of information."
"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish
national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show." Ms. Adie made the startling revelations
during a discussion of media freedom issues in the likely upcoming war in Iraq.
She also warned that the Pentagon is vetting journalists according to their stance on the war, and intends to
take control of US journalists' satellite equipt in order to control access to the airwaves.
Phillip
Knightley reported that the Pentagon has also threatened they: "may
find it necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to report from the Iraqi side."
… " I was told by a sr officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Bhagdad,
for example-- were detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of the military above Bhagdad... they'd
be fired down on. Even if they were journalists ..' Who cares! ' said.. [inaudible] .."
He said: ' Well... they know this ...they've been warned.'
… The second thing is there was a massive news blackout imposed. In the last Gulf war, where I was one of
the pool correspondents with the British Army. We effectively had very, very light touch when it came to any kind of
censorship. We were told that anything which was going to endanger troops lives which we understood we
shouldn't broadcast. But other than that, we were relatively free.
Unlike our American colleagues, who immediately left their pool, after about 48 hours, having just had enough of it.
This time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists who go with them, whether they are... have feelings against
the war. And therefore if you have views that are skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable.
Secondly, they are intending to take control of the Americans technical equipt … uplinks & satellite
phones. In addition, there is now a blackout (which was imposed, during the last war, at the
beginning of the war), ...ordered by one Mr. Dick Cheney, who is in charge of this. …
Cameraman killed for filming U.S. graves: brother
8.19.03 Islam Online
al Khalil, West Bank The brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately
murdered for discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks. "U.S. troops killed my brother
in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told Islam Online.net in exclusivestatements. "U.S. occupation troops shot dead my
brother on purpose, although he was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was
driving," He also recalled that his brother obtained a prior permit from U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq to film in
the site.
On Sunday 8.17.03, U.S. troops shot dead the award winning Reuters cameraman while he was filming near U.S.
run Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad. His last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls,
several shots ring out from the tank and the camera falls to the ground.
"Mazen told me by phone few days before his death that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to
conceal bodies of fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks", Nazmi said. "He also told me that he found
U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty
sure American forces killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his finding."
Nazmi said that the U.S. occupation troops were slowing down transfer of his brother's body to his hometown city
of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the West Bank. "At thevery beginning, the Americans refused to transfer his body outside
Iraq. After Reuters intervened, they offered to allow us to take the body to Jordan by road but we refused because
of the state of insecurity in Iraq," he said.
"Thanks to Reuters international & diplomatic contacts, U.S. troops reluctantly agreed to transfer the body on
an army plane to Kuwait. From there, the body will be flown to Jordan and finally Palestine".
Mazen's wife, Umm Hamza, did not rule out that U.S. troops targeted her husband personally, noting they agreed
to give him a permit to film Abu Gharib prison and then he was directly shot dead by 2 U.S. tanks.
Resolved as she was, Umm Hamza said death of her husband came as a bombshell, esp. that she expected him to
be killed while covering developments in Palestine. "Filming Abu Gharib was his last mission; he was scheduled to
leave Baghdad after getting the job done.
Mazen's camera was Israeli settlers' archenemy, given that he exposed their terrorism against Palestinians and
their wildcat outposts sprawling in 4 Al-Khalil posts. His death cast a pall ove Palestinian territories; reporters
mourned him as "a matchless colleague."
All intl & local news agencies sent cables of condolences to his family, lauding his patriotism &
determination to uncove truth. The Palestinian information ministry & press syndicate issued 2 separate
statements, condemning the attack on Mazen and continued targeting of journalists.
The 2 statements demanded U.S. show some respect for human beings, particularly reporters, pointing out that
Mazen was a distinguished journalist who did his best to serve his country & cause. The ministry further urged
all Arab & intl press unions "to open a probe into this crime and expose the murderers and put them on
trial."
Dozens of Palestinian journalists protested on Tuesday morning in Al-Khalil re Mazen's killing.
The marchers put on a peaceful demonstration from the House of the Palestinian Press established by th
edeceased & other journalists. In Bethlehem, journalists held a mock funeral for Mazen, denouncing U.S.
occupation of Iraq and displaying placards condemning his "assassination."
U.S. military inquiry recently exonerated an American tank crew for firing on a Baghdad hotel
housing journalists, killing 2 foreignreporters andwounding 3 others.
At least 3 journalists die in blast at Baghdad hotel
¹
4.8.03 Jane Perlez NY Times
Kuwait City At least 3 journalists, incl an Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera reporter, were killed and
several wounded today during an American air raid & artillery barrage in Baghdad. Jordanian Al Jazeera
reporter Tariq Ayoub was standing on the roof of the station's office just after dawn, doing a live broadcast of the
warfare in Baghdad when the building was hit, by 2 air to surface missiles, officials at Al Jazeera HQ said. Ayoub,
in his mid-30's, was carried to a car by colleagues but died on the way to the hospital, said channel spokesman
Jihad Ballout.
Iraqi cameraman Zouhair al-Iraqi, who had started work with the station several days ago, was wounded, Mr.
Ballout said. 2 other journalists, both TV cameramen, were killed when a U.S. tank fired on a Baghdad hotel where
most intl journalists are based, according to witnesses.
Reuters reported its TV cameramen Taras Protsyuk, 35 yr old Ukrainian national based in Warsaw, died when a
single shell slammed into the Reuters office on the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel. At least 3 other employees of
the news agency were wounded. In Madrid, officials of Telecino Spanish TV station said today that same blast
fatally injured their cameramen Jose Couso, 37.
Officials at U.S. military's Central Command HQ in Doha, Qatar, said they regretted the deaths of the journalists.
"This coalition does not target journalists," Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks said during the daily briefing in a response
to a question about the attack on the Al Jazeera office. "We don't know every place journalists are operating on the
battlefield. It's a dangerous place indeed."
State Dept spokesman Nabil Khoury in Qatar said the strike on the Al Jazeera office was a "grave mistake."
Al Jazeera spokesman Ballout said officials of the Arab satellite channel had informed the Pentagon of the location
of its Baghdad office. In 2.24.03 letter to Pentagon asst sec. for public affairs Victoria Clarke, Al Jazeera gave the
co-ordinates of its building as latitude 33.19, longitude 44.24 and altitude 63 meters, Mr. Ballout said. The letter
was signed by channel GM Mohamed Jassem Al-Ali, he said. The house on the Al Kharkh Road served as working
space for the 6 Al Jazeera reporters, as well as cameramen & technical support staff, working in Baghdad for
the channel.
In the case of the attack on the Palestine Hotel, American military officials said that their forces had been fired on
first from the hotel. U.S. Army Third Infantry Div. commander Gen. Buford Blount was quoted by Reuters shortly
after the incident saying that an American tank had fired a single round at the hotel. "The tank was receiving small
arms & RPG fire from the hotel and engaged the target with one tank round," the general said
But some reporters challenged the military's account. A British reporter based at the Palestine Hotel said he saw a
U.S. tank aiming at the building before the explosion. Sky TV David Chater said he did not hear any shots coming
from within or around the hotel. Mr. Chater said he was on a hotel balcony directly before the explosion and noticed
the tank pointing its muzzle directly at the hotel. He said he turned away just before the blast.
"I noticed one of the tanks had its barrel pointed up at the building. We went inside, and there was an almighty
crash, a huge explosion that shook the hotel," he said in an on-air report, adding that he did not actually see the
tank fire.
In another incident in Baghdad this morning, the office of another Arab satellite channel, Abu Dhabi Television, was
hit apparently by small arms fire, as its crew filmed 2 American tanks positioned on a bridge over the Tigris river,
the news editor of the station said. The cameras were on the roof of the Abu Dhabi office, which is also in a villa,
and is easy walking distance from the Al Jazeera house, said the editor, Nart Bouran.
The 2 cameras were taking live shots of the tanks on the bridge when one camera was hit and fell to the ground,
Mr. Bouran said in a phone interview from his office in Abu Dhabi. "We took small arms fire from that direction, our
correspondents left, ran away," Mr. Bouran said. A second camera was also hit. "All of a sudden we saw an
incoming shell that took out our office."
Mr. Bouran said after the Al Jazeera house was hit, his crew had helped the Al Jazeera correspondent, Mr. Ayoub,
into a car to go to the hospital. The Abu Dhabi correspondents & camera crew returned to their house to
resume work filming the 2 Abrams tanks for live shots. "We got a call from the guys that they had a feeling
something nasty was going to happen," Mr. Bouran said. "A few seconds after they were hit."
He said the strike against the Abu Dhabi house was "bizarre." "It's a stand alone villa, it has always been there, it is
not new," Mr. Bouran said. "I assume when you go into a sensitive area like that you know the targets." The
building had a "huge sign, Emirates Media" at the door."
Al Jazeera, most watched television channel in the Arab world, is generally considered by the Bush administration
to be hostile to the war in Iraq. But in an effort to get the American view point across to Arab viewers, the
administration has made its spokesmen available for interviews. An Al Jazeera correspondent attends the daily
briefings at Central Command headquarters in Doha, where the channel happens to have its head office, and the
Pentagon offered Al Jazeera the opportunity for its correspondents to travel with American troops during the
war.
Al Jazeera & Abu Dhabi Television were the only intl media organizations to operate in their HQ in Baghdad.
Since the war started, other intl media organizations moved their operations from the Ministry of Information to the
Palestine Hotel, some miles away. In this morning's news bulletin, Al Jazeera said: "We regret to inform you that
our cameraman & correspondent Tarek Ayoub was killed this morning during the U.S. missile strike on our
Baghdad office." The statement added: "He is a martyr." Since the war began, Al Jazeera has given close coverage
to Iraqi civilian casualties, and generally refers to them as "martyrs."
Iraq war deaths bring back memory of Pyle's grave
4.10.03 Bart Ripp Tacoma News Tribune
He was a newspaper guy so beloved that he's on U.S. postage. He was a typewriter commando read by 14 million
Americans, about 12% of the population, during World War II. Gen. Omar Bradley said, "There was no finer
soldier than Ernie Pyle." During a war in which several journalists, incl. Wash.Post's Michael Kelly & NBC TV
reporter David Bloom, have died, this seems a time to remember America's most celebrated war correspondent.
Ernest Taylor Pyle was an Indiana farm boy who, without a college degree, became a roving columnist for the
Scripps Howard newspaper chain.
1944 Pulitzer Prize recipient for his war stories in the foxholes of Europe, seen by regular guys who were American
soldiers, Pyle was syndicated by some 200 newspapers. While covering battle for Okinawa in April 1945, Pyle
visited tiny isle of Ie Shima, 5 miles west of Okinawa in the S.China Sea necklace of islands called the Ryukyus.
A Japanese machine gunner fired on the Jeep carrying Pyle & 4 four soldiers. They took cover in a ditch.
When Pyle, ever curious, peered over the sandy edge, he was shot in the left temple and fell dead. He was 44.
7th Infantry Div. soldiers buried Pyle, wearing his helmet pierced by a bullet. They placed a wooden cross on the
spot where he died and painted a sign: "On this spot, the 7th Infantry Division lost a buddy Ernie Pyle April 18,
1945." Less than 3 weeks later, Army aviation ordnance sgt Abe Coleman took a snapshot of Pyle's marker. Pyle's
body was later moved to hallowed grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Hawaii's Punchbowl
Crater. …
IU republishes Ernie Pyle's columns online
4.18.03 AP
Bloomington IN "In 3 or 4 months leading up to Iraq Iraq, many journalists were making reference to
Ernie Pyle and asking among themselves who was possibly going to be the Ernie Pyle of this war," said IU
assoc.prof. Owen Johnson. As U.S. military action in Iraq winds down, Pyle's columns from WWII front lines reach
new audience via Internet. Indiana Univ., where the Dana IN native studied journalism, is posting some of the war
reporter's columns on its Web site at www.journalism.indiana.edu.
First republished column posted Friday is Pyle's dscription of the 1940 German bombing of London, which he
watched from a hotel balcony. Pyle historian Johnson said he was struck by the similarities between Pyle's account
and the aerial attack that opened the U.S.-led war in Iraq. "He writes about magnificence & awfulness at the
same time," Johnson said. "He uses the word 'awe,' which really struck me because on the third day of the Iraqi
war this attack was going to be for 'shock & awe.' There was the same word."
… Pyle pounded out stories on a manual typewriter using his thumb & one finger. Readers waited weeks
or even months to read his accounts from the trenches, where he dug his own foxholes. " … Today, it's front-
line reporting as it happens," said Dana IN former Ernie Pyle State Historic Site curator Evelyn Hobson, 25 mi.
north of Terre Haute. …
Many of baby-boom generation may not know of Ernie Pyle but their parents most certainly do. … As
a young boy, he envied friends who went to serve in World War I, "The War to End all Wars." He had
envisioned it as an adventure, a path to glory and a chance to see the world. … As war
correspondent, Pyle was with inexperienced American troops during their retreat from Rommel's troops at
Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. He was with them at Anzio. He marched with the infantry in Africa, Italy,
France, Sicily and in the Pacific. Pyle went ashore on the second day of the invasion of Normandy.
Pyle was with America's citizen soldiers at the breakout from Saint-Lo when U.S. bombers mistakenly
dropped their ordinance on American positions, killing hundreds of our troops.
Pyle covered not so much the 'big picture', but rather individual soldiers' daily life. He lived among troops
in mud, rain, snow, slush and intense N.African desert heat. He risked his life and was exposed to the
same hazards incl artillery barrages, strafing and torrents of small-arms fire.
Pyle saw the suffering of these men first hand. He knew their elation & despair and shared their emotions. He
once wrote, "the war gets so complicated & confused; on sad days it's almost impossible to believe anything is
worth such mass slaughter & misery; and the after-war outlook seems to be so gloomy & pathetic for
everybody."
He hated the war and, like all of the troops, wanted to return to America. As a civilian, he could have, but
he felt to do so was tantamount to abandoning his comrades. "[At home] you feel like a deserter and a
heel, not so much to the war effort, but to your friends who are still over there freezing and getting shot
at." … Columns reflected horror & loss of war, graphic & explicit, although censored by
military for details that might aid the enemy. He described "the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered
over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedges throughout the world." and naive
young boys from America's heartland transformed into professional killers, hardened to carnage.
Describing unrelenting death of the war: "Dead men by mass production-in one country after another -
month after month and year after year. Dead men in winter and dead men in summer. Dead men in such
familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous.
Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come almost to hate them... These are the things that you at home
need not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns & figures …"
The army presented him with a Purple Heart and he won the Medal for Merit. Buildings were named for
him. He was greeted by throngs of cheering soldiers when he appeared at their posts. … That
democracy has changed.
Jessica Hodgson recently wrote an article for The Guardian entitled, "Journalists fight 'hidden war' in Afghanistan." She reported that "The U.S. military & the
Northern Alliance may have colluded to keep journalists away from areas in Afghanistan where special forces were
operating." She quoted Frontline TV director & cameraman, Vaughan Smith, who felt that journalists
may have intentionally been isolated from the battlefields and that the Afghanistan campaign was virtually unknown
by broadcast journalists. "This was a hidden war that we didn't see", he said, calling the coverage "misleading". He
described U.S. network coverage as "almost McCarthyist in approach." Hodgson also quotes BBC diplomatic
correspondent Bridget Kendell, who said that the coverage, at times, was a "farce".
Smith said that some journalists would ask Afghans to pose & fire their weapons then submit it as
war footage. Soldiers from the Northern Alliance claimed they had fired more bullets for the journalists
than they had in battle. One American journalist who approached a war zone to determine number of
civilian casualties encountered U.S. soldiers who threatened to kill him if he continued. It has been
reported that some American troops have encouraged soldiers from the Northern Alliance to menace
& thwart journalists trying to cover the war.
Reporters are not seeking any information that would compromise national security. The press historically
cooperated with military authorities to restrict information that could help the enemy. Virtually all spies &
traitors who betrayed U.S. secrets came not from the media, but from CIA, FBI or the military itself.
… Since Vietnam, all news coverage of America's war have been censored or stage-managed, pools
of selected reporters chosen to visit sites carefully picked by military brass. Often, reporters are forbidden
to cover battles until well after they have taken place. Disinformation is planted in the media for
consumption by our citizens.
This administration and the military know that the media coverage of events in Vietnam did undermine that war
effort and the Pentagon resolved to never have that happen again. Photos of the wounded Vietnamese children
fleeing the napalming of their village made Americans at home wonder how the war was being conducted. Pictures
of a South Vietnamese general summarily executing a Viet Cong prisoner in the street showed Americans the
realities of war. The footage of besieged U.S. compounds under fire by the Viet Cong during the Tet offensive
made civilians question whether they were being told the truth about the inevitability of our victory. Pentagon
Papers' publication made people realize their govt was lying to them.
Years later, some chief architects, such as Robert McNamara, said we made a mistake in going to war. Recently
released tapes of LBJ dramatically point out the precipitating event for our incursion there, supposed attacks on
U.S. ships at Tonkin Gulf, may have never taken place. Johnson is heard on the tapes confiding about his doubts
that we could ever win the war, even as he was escalating the hostilities.
(It was recently revealed that Richard Nixon went behind Lyndon Johnson's back to sabotage his peace
negotiations with N.Vietnam in order to undermine LBJ's reelection. By the time Nixon withdrew American troops
with no more favorable terms than those Johnson had secured, around 20.000 more U.S. troops had been killed.)
Disastrous French rout at Dien Bien Phu told military planners their strategy was flawed, saving 59,000 U.S. troops'
lives, perhaps 3million Vietnamese and billions of dollars of the taxpayer's money. Opponents of the war were
vindicated by history, but this would not keep the military from censoring the rest of our bad wars.
When U.S. invaded Grenada and vanquished their somewhat leftist leader, the military purposely tried to
stifle coverage. Accurate reporting of that tremendous victory would have undoubtedly shown it to be the
one-sided, fish-in-the-barrel, turkey shoot that it was. When the Pentagon ousted dictator (former U.S.
ally, Bush crony and CIA asset) Manuel Noriega from Panama, reporters were blocked from covering the
campaign. The number of civilian deaths was impossible to calculate, although estimated between 2000
& 3000. Military planners' ineptitude resulting in needless American deaths went unreported.
Reagan/Bush Nicaraguan secret war in violation of the Boland Amendment … launched massive
cover-up & propaganda campaign.
Current Bush administration rehired several officials from his father's administration who lied to the press, American
people and elected representatives about that campaign, esp. Otto Reich. Negroponte lied and tried to cover up
atrocities committed by soldiers supported by Reagan's secret warriors. Elliott Abrahms, involved in planned
Venezuela coup , was convicted of lying to congress. Poindexter was also convicted, all pardoned by elder Bush to
avoid implicating himself.
Gulf War was another Pentagon whitewash. Iraq-gate scandal involved arming Iraq with sophisticated weapons
& equipt for manufacture of weapons of mass destruction by Bush & cronies until shortly before Gulf War
began. Reagan/Bush govt told Hussein it was of no consequence to U.S. if he invaded Kuwait. Bush provoked the
war by urging Kuwait to poach Iraqi oil by slant drilling.
The campaign was hailed as a great victory and Bush as conquering hero in spite of Hussein still in power,
autocratic rulers of Kuwait & Saudi Arabia still in place, failure to protect Kurdish allies from massacred by
Saddam and tens of thousands of U.S. troops debilitated by Gulf War Syndrome.
In Afghanistan war , … Pentagon recently announced then disavowed plans to create an office to
plant propaganda & misinformation in media of both friendly & antagonistic foreign countries.
… Americans now find it necessary to read foreign newspapers to get accurate reporting on this
country's 'War on Terrorism'. U.S. citizens … might question conduct of war if they knew about Bush
administration's overtures to the Taliban before 9.11.01 on behalf of U.S. oil companies, to install a
pipeline that they threatened to go to war if they didn't receive cooperation, reports in European papers
that World Trade Center bombing was convenient excuse to begin a war already planned …
This is a 'hidden war' is because, like Vietnam, Grenada and Panama, there are many aspects of this war
that are not just and the Pentagon fears accurate media coverage would show this to be the case. Search
for murderous terrorists morphed into worldwide war is disproportionate. … More innocent Afghan
civilians died from U.S. 'surgical strikes' than the number of people who died in the World Trade Center.
Americans are now in an undeclared, open-ended war with no exit strategy that is channeling billions of dollars to
defense contractors with close ties to the administration. … Viewers watching 'surgical strikes' on bunkers,
trenches and hospitals, hearing of civilians' mangled bodies referred to as 'collateral damage' makes war less
gruesome. Labeling buildings, dams, schools and power plants as 'infrastructure', war becomes more palatable.
Pentagon briefers' images of pinpoint accurate, laser-guided, smart bombs destroying planes & fortresses
seem less graphic than the same visuals simulated in computers games manipulate via joystick to annihilate
endless virtual enemies. We're numb to war.
Historian Howard Zinn described disconnect between dropping bombs from his plane over WWII
Germany and realization that they were leaving dismembered bodies in their wake. … By not
witnessing violence & consequences of war, it is as if it's not happening. Ernie Pyle friend Bill
Mauldin said of him, "The only difference between Ernie's death and the death of any other good guy is
that the other guy is mourned by his company. Ernie is mourned by his army."
After his death, some people wanted to construct a multi-million dollar cemetery with memorials & lakes. His
wife adamantly opposed the idea. It was "entirely out of keeping with everything Ernie did or said or thought or
was", she stated. He had been buried with the other war dead on the island where he was killed. His remains were
eventually relocated to the Punch Bowl National Cemetery for veterans in Honolulu. She said, "Ernie is lying where
he would wish to be, with the men he loved."
Today, the modest Pyle house in Albuquerque is a library. Neighbors come to visit with the staff and
exchange books. Dogs wait patiently on the porch for their masters. Book clubs meet regularly. Children
come for 'story time' on Fridays. They are on a first name basis with the librarians. The garden is well
tended by volunteers. There is a tombstone that was erected on the side of the house for Ernie's dog,
Cheeta.
Graying, stooped veterans make the pilgrimage to the Pyle home which they revere as a shrine. He is remembered
by these old soldiers. They speak in awe of the man and they try to impress upon listeners just how important Ernie
was to the war effort. After more than half a century, they talk in hushed tones about what he meant to the unity
and morale of this country in dark hours. In his book Brave Men, Pyle's death of a well loved officer was reporting
on a 'Democracy at War'. There is no reason to censor a just war conducted on behalf of that form of govt.
[ Nonsense. WWII censorship of munitions profiteering
was far greater than currently practiced ]
Accumulated blur: Ernie Pyle & Iraq
4.30.03 Douglas Savage IC
While U. S. cable networks exalted the successes of coalition forces on the ground and celebrated
the liberation of the Iraqi people, precious little of the carnage of battle was shown. 60 years ago,
Americans rushed home to read Ernie Pyle's columns written from the battlefields of Europe &
Pacific. 700 daily & weekly newspapers carried his war reports to 14 million. His combat
reporting won him a Pulitzer Prize and the cover of Time magazine in July 1944. Saturday Evening
Post called him "the most prayed-for man with the American troops." But the ghastly carnage he saw
on land, sea, and air, sickened him to the soul.
"The enormity of all these newly dead strikes me like a living nightmare," he wrote from Tunisia in a
column datelined 4.22.43. "And there are times when I feel that I can't stand it all and will have to
leave."
Sunday, 3.23.03, Arabic Al-Jazeera cable TV network aired video of captured & dead, perhaps
executed, U.S. servicemen & women. Founded & funded by the emir of Qatar in 1996 and
owned by Qatar govt, the English-online & Arabic-language, satellite network aired the video to
its 65 million, worldwide subscribers, 8 million of whom live in Europe. 135,000 U. S. homes
subscribe to Al-Jazeera. The video was horrific and it was aired days before the families of the captured
& dead servicepersons could be properly notified. No U.S. network broadcast the video scenes,
although some showed still photographs of the video frames with the faces edited out.
DefSec Rumsfeld on CBS TV declared Al-Jazeera is "part of Iraqi propaganda and responding to Iraqi
propaganda." U. S. Lt. Gen. John Abizaid called the video "absolutely unacceptable" and "disgusting."
After Al-Jazeera showed English dead, British Air Marshall Brian Burridge cautioned that "all media
must be aware of the limits of taste & decency."
Jihad Ali Ballout, speaking for Al-Jazeera, defended his network by declaring that "the reality of war is
horrible." Among U. S. condemnations of Al-Jazeera was banishment from NYSE & NASDAQ
coverage. Al-Jazeera has been accused in this country of overplaying Iraqi civilian casualties.
Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal said 3.28.03 "War has victims from both sides." Al-Jazeera's
Wash.D.C. bureau chief is Egyptian-born, naturalized U. S. citizen Hafez Mirazi, w/ master's from
Washington's Catholic University, and worked for Voice of America for 12 years. "If you leave it to
politicians," he warned, "you won't see anything."
3.23.03 Sec.State Powell accused Al-Jazeera of "portray[ing] our efforts in a negative light." This is
often true in so far as Al-Jazeera caters to its constituency as U. S. networks court theirs. But something
must be said about Al-Jazeera's effort to be fair when the Arabic network had its office in Amman,
Jordan, closed by govt, had 2 reporters expelled from Baghdad by the Saddam Hussein govt, and had
reporters denied visas in pro-coalition Bahrain & Kuwait.
Hafez Mirazi said that the "Bahraini information minister accused Al-Jazeera of being infiltrated by
Zionist elements."
While U. S. cable networks exalt coalition forces' successes in Iraq and celebrate liberation of Iraqi
people, precious little battle carnage is shown. When networks agonized about broadcasting Al-
Jazeera's grotesque images of coalition prisoners & dead, CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted "There is
always a delicate balance that has to be made." ABC News' Charles Gibson grieved on air "Any time
that you show bodies, it is simply disrespectful."
Ernie Pyle would have disagreed about sanitizing the horrors of war. 4.27.43, after being bombed in
Tunisia, Pyle described what he felt to his readers back home: "Some nights, the air becomes sick and
there is an unspoken contagion of spiritual dread, and you are little boys again, lost in the dark."
Although he rode bombers and sailed with USN, Pyle's heart was always with the infantry. Writing
fromNormandy D-Day beaches 8.5.44, Pyle confessed in his column "I went with the infantry because
it is my love."
Ernie Pyle's columns about death, pain and broken spirits would be called unpatriotic today. By fall
1944, he had seen enough. He returned to U.S. to recover. "The hurt has finally become too great," he
apologized to readers 9.5.44 from Europe. Ernie Pyle won his Pulitzer for 1.10.44 column, "The Death
of Captain Waskow." Henry T. Waskow (Belton TX) was killed in action in Italy. His men loved the
captain who was not out of his twenties. Captain Waskow was brought down the mountain on the back
of a mule.
"Dead men," wrote Pyle, " had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of
mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the
left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side." Has Al-Jazeera
videotaped anything worse than what Ernie Pyle wrote?
Pyle watched the captain's men bend over his body. "I sure am sorry, sir," one boy said. "God damn it
to hell anyway," another soldier grieved. "You feel small in the presence of dead men and ashamed at
being alive," Pyle said of the scene, "and you don't ask silly questions." 8.19.44 Pyle wrote from
Europe "worst experience of all is just the accumulated blur and the hurting vagueness of too long in
the lines … and the constant march into eternity of your own small quota of chances for
survival."
After his recuperation at home, Pyle sailed west to cover the war in the Pacific. He waded ashore 4.1.45
Easter Sunday in USMC invasion of Okinawa. 4.18.45 on tiny island Ie Shima, a Japanese sniper blew
Ernie Pyle's brains out. In Pyles pocket, splattered with blood & brain tissue, Marines found an
unfinished column. Pyle had scribbled random thoughts about his generation's war:
"Dead men by mass production … Dead men in winter and dead men in summer …
Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous … Dead men in such
monstrous infinity that you come almost to hate them."
They say truth is the first casualty of war, and I have no trouble believing this. The inaccuracies about the war with
Iraq began even before the war itself. Thomas Friedman, esteemed Pulitzer-winning NY Times columnist, wrote
early last week that he's worried about the size of the coalition behind U.S.' efforts to disarm Iraq and remove its
leader, Saddam Hussein.
"In most cowboy movies," he wrote, "the good guys round up a posse before they ride into town and take on the
black hats. We're doing just the opposite. We're riding into Baghdad pretty much alone and hoping to round up a
posse after we get there. I hope we do, because it may be the only way we can get out with ourselves, and the
town, in one piece."
As for the getting-out-of-town-in-one-piece part, Friedman also predicted U.S. and its coalition would be hard-
pressed to win the first Gulf War, that Iraq's army (then regarded as one of the world's largest) would be a much
tougher opponent than we expected, and that it might take years, if even then, before we prevailed. View his
capacity for handicapping wars in that context.
But his capacity for assessing the depth & breadth of U.S.' "posse" is another matter. There, it's not a matter
of gazing into a crystal ball. It's a matter of recognizing the facts. We have 30 publicly declared allies, more
than we had in 1991, and 15 others that, for now, do not wish to be identified as such.
We'll do most of the fighting with help from Great Britain. Sec.State Powell said he secured promises of support
from Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, which also will send troops, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey
and Uzbekistan.
In addition, my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation have identified 16 more countries that aren't on Powell's list
but have "publicly offered either political or military support for the war": Bahrain, Canada, Croatia, Greece, Jordan,
Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates, even
Germany & France.
The French have sought to "clarify" remarks by their ambassador to U.S. that they would help if Saddam unleashed
chemical or biological weapons. Not withdraw. "Clarify." If our troops are attacked by chemical or biological
weapons, we can count on their help.
The anti-war crowd, which, to be fair, doesn't include Friedman, who advocated removal of Saddam & his
weapons of mass destruction but insisted the president do so only with U.N. support, has been good at controlling
the flow of information. Protests around the world involving a few million of the world's nearly 6 billion people have
been turned into worldwide disapproval of U.S. actions. The slightest reservations by long-time allies have been
presented as full-scale condemnation despite, in most cases, those allies taking great care to say they shared our
aims, if not our methods.
You'd never know Germany had sent decontamination specialists to the region and provided AWACS &
Patriot missile systems to Turkey for its protection. Or that Canada had helped with military planners, a frigate and
2 other ships to help protect our Navy.
Iraqi governing council closes al-Jazeera
9.23.03 Reuters
Baghdad Iraq's U.S. backed Governing Council said Tuesday it planned to temporarily close the Iraqi
operations of 2 Arab satellite channels it accused of promoting violence. Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for council
chair Ahmed Chalabi, said broadcasts by Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Dubai-based Al Arabiya encouraged
resistance to U.S.-led occupation.
U.S. forces face daily attacks from guerrilla fighters seeking to drive them from Iraq. "Yesterday the council issued
a resolution … to close Al Jazeera & Al Arabiya satellite stations for violations and promoting sectarian
differences in Iraq," Qanbar told a news conference in Baghdad. "For promoting political violence, promoting killing
of members of the Governing Council, promoting killing of members of the U.S. coalition, putting on their screens
videotapes of terrorists."
It was not clear whether the U.S.-led administration in Iraq, which has overall decision-making authority, would
approve the move. The administration has promised media freedom in Iraq, and says it will close media outlets only
if they are guilty of inciting violence. Jazeera & Arabiya said they had received no official notification and were
still operating normally.
"We are trying to cover all aspects of the situation in Iraq as objectively as possible and that includes allowing our
channel to be a forum for everyone in Iraqi society, be they opposition, the Americans or the govt," Al Arabiya
program editor Abdul Sattar Ellaz told Reuters. Both stations are widely watched in Iraq. Both have aired
videotapes of ex-President Saddam Hussein encouraging Iraqis to fight the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Qanbar said the council wanted to close the stations for a "relatively short" time. It would then issue regulations for
them to follow, and punishments to be applied if they did not. He said the move was intended as a clear message
to other channels whose broadcasts could be seen as spurring on an Iraqi public increasingly frustrated by the
foreign occupation. "Our belief is that Iraq, in such a critical situation, cannot afford to sustain such attacks and
promotion of sectarianism & political violence," he said.
Qanbar said the Governing Council was meeting with the U.S. civil administration to discuss how to pursue the
matter legally.
U.S. closes paper it says prints lies
3.29.04 Jeffrey Gettleman NY Times
Baghdad, Iraq U.S. soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper yesterday and padlocked the
doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence. Thousands of outraged Iraqis
protested the closing as an act of U.S. hypocrisy, laying bare the hostility many feel toward U.S. a year after the
invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. "No, no, America!" and "Where is democracy now?" screamed protesters
who hoisted banners and shook clenched fists in a hastily organized rally against the closing of the newspaper, Al
Hawza, a radical Shiite weekly.
The rally drew hundreds and then thousands by nightfall in central Baghdad, where masses of angry Shiite men
squared off against a line of U.S. soldiers who arrived to seal off the area. U.S. authorities said Al Hawza may
reopen in 60 days. The paper's editors, however, said they essentially had been put out of business.
"We have been evicted from our offices and we have no jobs," said news editor Saadoon Mohsen Thamad, as he
stared at a meaty padlock hanging from the front gate. "How are we going to continue?"
Closing of newspaper reflected the struggle by U.S. authorities to strike a balance between their 2 main goals,
encouraging democracy while maintaining stability, as the days wind down to 6.30.04 target date for handing
sovereignty back to the Iraqi people. Many Iraqis said that closing down a popular newspaper at such a critical time
would not curtail anti-occupation feelings but only inflame them.
"When you repress the repressed, they only get stronger," said prominent Shiite political party Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq spokesman Hamid al-Bayati. "Punishing this newspaper will only increase the passion for
those who speak out against the Americans."
Among Iraqi journalists, Al Hawza was known for printing wild rumors, esp. anti-American ones. The paper is
considered a mouthpiece for fiery young Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
one of most outspoken U.S. critics. The letter ordering the paper closed, signed by L. Paul Bremer, the top
administrator in Iraq, cited what U.S. authorities called several examples of false reports in Al Hawza, incl. Feb.
2004 dispatch that said the cause of an explosion that killed more than 50 Iraqi police recruits was not a car bomb,
as occupation officials had said, but a U.S. missile.
Under a law passed by occupying authorities last June, a news organization's license can be revoked if it publishes
or broadcasts material that incites violence or civil disorder or "advocates alterations to Iraq's borders by violent
means." But the letter outlining the reasons for taking action against Al Hawza did not cite any material that
directly advocated violence. Several Iraqi journalists said that meant there was no basis to shut down Al
Hawza.
"That paper might have been anti-American but it should be free to express its opinion," said of the Azzaman daily
night editor Kamal Abdul Karim. Freelance reporter Omar Jassem said he thought democracy meant many
viewpoints and many newspapers. "I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy," Jassem said.
Wash.D.C. nonprofit organization Committee of Concerned Journalists vice chair Tom Rosenstiel said there was a
basic irony in Americans practicing censorship in Iraq. "If you're trying to promote democracy in a country that has
never had it, you have to lead by example," Rosenstiel said. "I'm not in Iraq. But it's hard for me to see how the
suppression of information, even false information, is going to help our cause."
Many Iraqi journalists said they feared that closing Al Hawza would only increase the support for Sadr, 31-year-old
son of a revered Shiite cleric who was assassinated in 1999 by hit men working for Saddam Hussein. In the run-up
to 6.30.04 transfer of power, Sadr has been increasingly abrasive, issuing statements denouncing Americans and
any Iraqis who work with them. He is one of many powerful Shiite clerics calling for an Islamic govt, though his
following seems esp. cult-like. Unlike Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, influential Shiite cleric who has also criticized
the occupation but not in militant terms, Sadr has threatened to form his own militia.
|
Weapons of mass stupidity
¹
Fox News a new lowest common
denominator
6.4.03 Hal Crowther Creative Loafing
²
Inviolable first rule of democracy that all politicians praise wisdom of the people, flattery that intensifies when they
ask "the people" to swallow something exceptional. … To leave the stage forever, a sound strategy for public
figures is to offer fellow citizens candid & disparaging assessment of their intelligence. … French novelist
Gustave Flaubert, according to W.G. Sebald, became convinced his own work & his own brain had been
infected by a national epidemic of stupidity, a relentless tide of gullibility & muddled thinking which made him
feel, he said, as if he were sinking into sand
At his low point, Flaubert convinced himself that everything he had written had been contaminated and
"consisted solely of a string of the most abysmal errors & lies." Sometimes he lay on his couch for months,
frozen with the dread that anything he wrote would only extend Stupidity's domain. Flaubert became a scholar of
moronic utterances, painstakingly collecting hundreds of what he called betises, stupidities, and arranging
them in his "Dictionary of Received Opinions."
America's chroniclers of contagious stupidity, Mark Twain & H.L. Mencken, died without imagining Fox News.
It's easy to laugh at Rupert Murdoch's outrageous mongrel, impossible offspring of supermarket tabloids, sitcom
news spoofs, police-state propaganda mills and the World Wrestling Federation.
Fox News is an oxymoron. Cheech & Chong make more credible team of war correspondents than Geraldo
Rivera & Ollie North. Neither Saturday Night Live nor the 1973 film Network, Paddy Chayefsky's corrosive
satire of TV news, could even approach the comic impact of Geraldo embedded, or of Fox's pariah parade, its
mothball fleet of experts who always turn out to be disgraced or indicted Republican refugees.
[ To be expected from an information corp. with RReagan
puppetteer Roger Ailes in charge. ]
With red faced hyperventilating reactionaries' slapstick abuse of "liberal" foils as crash dummies, Fox News is
easily taken as pure entertainment, inspired burlesque of rightwing. The serious problem is that Fox isn't kidding;
brownshirts aren't funny.
Harper's reports that Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly became so infuriated by the son of a 9.11.01 victim who
opposed the war, "I'm against it and my father would have been against it, too", that he cursed the man and even
threatened him off-camera. Fox TV anchor Neil Cavuto celebrated fall of Baghdad by informing all of us who
opposed the war in March, "You were sickening then, you are sickening now."
… partisan belligerence … all fear & no fun in a time of national crisis, they channel for Bush admin
as faithfully as if on White House payroll. Like no other substantial media outlet in American history, Fox serves,
voluntarily, as the propaganda arm …
Fox's truculent patriotism is misleading. Rupert Murdoch … became an American citizen in 1985 to qualify,
under US law, as a TV network owner. Australian Murdoch was 54; his tabloid formula already polluted media
mainstreams in Australia & Great Britain.
Murdoch is an insatiable parasite, … . Rabid patriotism is a product he sells with celebrity gossip, naked
women and smirky bedroom humor in every country he contaminates. A little "white rage" racism has always gone
into his mix for good measure. "He tried so hard to use race to sell his newspapers that he became known as "Tar
Baby' Murdoch," Jimmy Breslin once charged.
From Melbourne to Manhattan, Murdoch's repulsive formula, now by satellite, (is slated for) Beijing. His great
fortune rests on his wager a huge unevolved minority is stupid, bigoted, prurient, nasty to the core. In America
today, it's hard to say whether Rupert Murdoch is agent or merely beneficiary of cultural leprosy. Fox News'
conspicuous success, lamentable in the best of times, devastates a shell-shocked nation at war.
… Samuel Johnson's famous words "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" as political & rhetorical
weapon, not as a private emotion. Belittling other 's patriotism to achieve political leverage is low road where neo-
conservative meets neo-fascist. In flag-frenzied Fox, unscrupulous administration found blunt object ready-made to
hammer critics.
Years ago in Moscow, at dawn of perestroika, a pair of Russian journalists showed me headlines from the NY Post
that made Kruschchev's "We will bury you" sound like "Have a nice day." How can there ever be peace, they asked
me, if America hates us so much? Handicapped by yawning gap between respective press traditions, I tried to
explain that the Post had nothing to do with our govt or even the American media machine, that it was owned by an
Australian whose Red-baiting & saber-rattling was an act designed to sell newspapers to morons. That he was
unconnected to our govt was something I believed about Murdoch in 1984, though no doubt Ronald Reagan was
eager to naturalize a lonely immigrant with billions to invest in right-wing media.
President stage manager Greg Jenkins, responsible for flight-suit landing on USS Abraham Lincoln and posing
George Bush against Mt. Rushmore & Statue of Liberty, was recently Fox News producer. Elaborate tableaus
Jenkins choreographs … clumsy, tasteless, condescending and insulting to your intelligence … bear
resemblance to red-white-and-blue Fox News; heavy-handedness never harmed its ratings, nor the president's.
Fox News is run by Roger Ailes, Nixon, Reagan and Bush Sr image merchant, Rush
Limbaugh producer, newsman never. Fox is not what it seems to be. It's not a news service, certainly, nor even
sincere voice of low-rent nationalism. It's calculated fraud, like a president who ducked Vietnam draft by welsh on National Guard
commitment but put on flight suit stenciled "Commander-in-chief" to play Douglas MacArthur on network TV.
"I almost choked," said my mother's friend Doris, who's 90. "I had to lie down." Invasion of Iraq was in no way what
it seemed to be, either. Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the U.S. "Weapons of mass destruction" remain
invisible, terrorist connections remain unproven, most cynical was the "liberation" lie, sudden concern for helpless
citizens of Iraq. "Liberators" like Donald Rumsfeld & Dick Cheney were doing brisk business with Saddam in
his murderous, citizen-eating prime, in Cheney's case as recently as 1999.
… US-sanctioned dictators, … Liars with secret agendas treat Americans like frightened children. …
Nobody's liberal by any stretch of the imagination Sen. Robert Byrd's WV 5.21.03 remarks to the Senate accuses
the White House of constructing "a house of cards, built on deceit," to justify its war on Iraq.
One lie Bush never dared tell us except by implication: Hussein responsible 9.11.01. According to CNN poll,
51% believe this. "The Moron Majority," declares The Progressive Populist headline. Like Flaubert, I feel sand
around my ankles.
"Tyranny of ignoramuses is insurmountable and assured for all time" Albert Einstein
"Perhaps the universe is nothing but an equilibrium of idiocies." George Santayana
It violates democratic etiquette to call your fellow citizens "idiots." "We all agree that liberals are stupid," writes
Charles Krauthammer. PC word works coined new euphemism to replace the ugly word "retarded." It's
"intellectually disabled,". How else describe a majority that accepts logic of "supporting the troops"? Protest as I
might, a local columnist explained to me, once the soldiers are "locked and cocked" I owe them not only my prayers
for their safe deliverance but unqualified endorsement of their mission, no matter how immoral and ill-advised it
may seem to me.
According to this woeful logic, whoever controls the armed forces in the country where you live owns your
conscience & soul. It mandates unanimous civilian support for Herod's soldiers smashing Hebrew babies
against doorposts. It holds our soldiers hostage to silence our common sense, independent judgment and moral
autonomy, foundations of each thinking individual's self-respect, foundations of every theory of democratic
govt.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic & servile,
but is morally treasonable to the American public," said president Theodore Roosevelt. They don't make
Republicans like they used to. Troop-support doctrine conceded is logic for the intellectually disabled …
stupidity of those who buy it is no more astonishing than hypocrisy of those who sell it.
GOP preaching sacred duty to army morale simultaneously cancel $15 billion in veteran's benefits & 60%
of federal education subsidies for servicemen's children. When is it too late to wake the sleeping masses? When a
Fox TV show for amateur entertainers turns up more voters than Congressional elections?
Marriage of TV & propaganda a funeral of reason. … new play in Paris titled George W. Bush, or God's
Sad Cowboy. Another in London is called The Madness of George Dubya. … Al-Qaeda … quite naturally
gaining recruits. Major architects of current foreign policy are insane. Bush adviser Richard Perle, known since his
Reagan years as the Prince of Darkness: "If we let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and
we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, (my italics) our children will sing great songs
about us years from now."
… between liberal or conservative, Democrat or GOP is inconsequential compared to fracture between
Americans who try to think clearly and those who will not or cannot. What hope, a cynical friend teased me, for a
country where 70% believe in angels, 60% believe in literal, biblical, blazing Armageddon, and more than
half reject Charles Darwin?
Whether the president is that dumb or merely that dishonest is beside the point. He knows his constituency. New
research published by the National Academy of Sciences asserts that human beings and chimpanzees share
99.4% of their DNA. Would the polls (or the elections) change if subjects had to submit to DNA tests to prove
they possess the qualifying .6%? American readers have purchased 50 million copies of Tim LaHaye's gonzo
Apocalypse novels, still more evidence that what awaits the U.S. is not a physical but an intellectual
Armageddon
Was it dry, desert sand or quicksand that the despairing Flaubert imagined? When we look down, can we still see
our knees? Novelist Michael Malone offered hope urging me to ignore all the polls; if govt has intimidated most
media, he argued, what makes you think the polls are credible?
Anecdotal evidence the polls could be wrong. Brownshirts targeted the Dixie Chicks, and they survived
handsomely. At the Merle Watson bluegrass festival in rural Wilkes County, singer Laura Love ridiculed President
Bush from the main stage and harvested thousands of cheers to perhaps a hundred catcalls. At a crowded
bookstore in Charlottesville last month, I tossed aside the book I hoped to sell and read a white-knuckled antiwar
essay I wrote in 1991. One woman walked out, but everyone else applauded and grinned at me. Come to think of
it, nearly everyone I know hates these wars and these lies as much as I do.
Are we so few, or are numbers we see Bush-Fox disinformation campaign like Saddam's missing uranium and his
25,000 liters of anthrax? Hope will be tested in 2004 presidential election. If the polls are right, a long sandy century
of U.S. children singing.
L.A. NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield ripped TV news networks, incl her own, for their
"glorious" coverage of the Iraqi war and a lack of focus on intl news overall. In a speech Thursday at Kansas State
Univ., she also attacked NBC News for hiring right-wing radio talk-show host Michael Savage to do a show on
MSNBC. Savage recently called Banfield a "slut" after her reports portraying the radical Arab point of view.
Banfield, who won her first notoriety for her coverage from the World Trade Center on 9.11.01, might be in some
trouble for her comments. In a statement issued on Friday, NBC News said, "Ms. Banfield does not speak for NBC
News. We are deeply disappointed and troubled by her remarks, and will review her comments with her. In the
meantime, we want to emphasize how proud we are of the journalism produced by NBC News and of the men
& women who worked around the clock, even risking their lives, to bring this story to the American public."
War coverage is an especially sensitive subject inside NBC News, whose embedded reporter David Bloom died in
Iraq.
Her comments, coincidentally, came same day that BBCdir. general Greg Dyke ripped American radio & TV
networks for "shocking" "gung-ho" coverage of Iraqi war, according to British newspaper reports. Banfield, who
hosted an unsuccessful talk show on MSNBC last year and is now reporting for both MSNBC & NBC News,
criticized the networks for showing a bloodless war that gave a skewed picture which glossed over the horrors
of battle. She did not report from Iraq during the war, but has been stationed overseas in the past.
"It was a glorious wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable
news," she said at the college's annual Landon Lecture in Manhattan. "But it wasn't journalism because I'm not so
sure we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war … because it looked like a glorious,
courageous and so successfully terrific endeavor."
"You did not see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortars landed. A puff of
smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me," Banfield said.
She ripped NBC for putting Savage on the air saying, "He was so taken aback by my daring to speak to martyrs
… for being prepared to sacrifice themselves, he chose to label me a slut on the air, and that's not all, as a
porn star and an accessory to the murder of Jewish children. These are the ramifications for simply bringing the
message in the Arab world."
Banfield said it was vital to present the Arabs' viewpoint because of a lack of understanding among them and
Americans in what has driven them to such violence. She blamed the networks for failing to air enough intl news
except after 9.11.01 & during wars and pointed to the lack of stories emanating from Afghanistan these days
as an example of the networks' lack of focus overseas. She said NBC was preparing to close its Kabul bureau, a
statement that NBC News denied. "If we had paid more attention to Afghanistan in the '80s, we might not have
had 9.11.01," she said.
In the past week, she noted, cable networks with an eye on their declining ratings since the war has wound down
have devoted extensive coverage to the Laci Peterson murder case and less to the chaotic situation in Iraq. But
Banfield also exonerated the networks to some degree by blaming viewers for being more interested in titillating
crime stories than vital intl news. "It's critical to our security that you be interested in this," Banfield urged the
audience. "Because when you are interested, I can respond. If I put this on the air right now, you'll turn it off and
we'll lose our numbers as we're finding out now."
Banfield also criticized Fox News Channel for merging entertainment value with news, saying the network has risen
to the top by targeting conservative viewers. "Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN & MSNBC
because of their agenda and because of their target marketing of cable news viewers. I'm afraid there's not a really
big place in cable for news," she said. She added that networks like MSNBC have tried to compete by
aping Fox's format. "You can see the big hires on other networks, right-wing hires to try and chase after
this effect," she added. Fox declined to comment on Banfield's comments.
Massive military contractor's media mess
¹
8.16.03 Katrin Dauenhauer & Jim Lobe Asia Times
Wash.DC It is no secret U.S. defense & construction companies, particularly those with close
ties to Pres. GWBush admin, are making a lot of money in the post-war rush for contracts in Iraq. Firms whose
directors held membership in DefSec Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB) or in "Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq" (CLI) did not appear to suffer any handicap, either.
2 big winners, of course, were Halliburton, whose last CEO was VP Cheney, and engineering giant Bechtel, whose
sr vp Jack Sheehan serves on the DPB. Former Sec. State George Shultz, Bechtel board member & former
top executive, also chaired CLI, supposedly a non-govtal body that helped lead the march to war and
dissolved itself late last month.
Less well known is San Diego based Scientific Applications Intl Corp. (SAIC), one of Pentagon's largest, most
lucrative and politically connected contractors. Of $6 billion it earned in revenue last year, about two thirds came
from the U.S. Treasury, mostly from the defense budget.
SAIC is among the most mysterious & feared of the big 10 defense giants, feared because of its ruthlessness
in procuring contracts, says Wash.Post; mysterious, in part because, as an employee owned co., it does not have
to file with SEC, and because its press officers are notorious for not providing information. Indeed, for this article,
SAIC press officers referred all questions to the Pentagon's general press office.
SAIC, which specializes in advanced technologies that can be applied to the battlefield, particularly in command
& control systems, is now deeply involved in the Pentagon's most important operations in Iraq. That it should
be is really no surprise, taking into account its various connections. Among Rumsfeld's mini-think tank DPB hawks
is retired Admiral William Owens, former vice chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff who also served as SAIC's president
& CEO and is currently its vice chair.
Another member of SAIC's board is retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing, who until last summer served as chief
counter-terrorism expert on the National Security Council (NSC) staff. Before that, Downing also served as a
lobbyist for the Iraqi National Congress (INC) led by Ahmad Chalabi, controversial Iraqi expatriate long championed
by the neo-conservatives in the administration and the DPB. Like Shultz, Downing was also on the board of the
CLI, which, not coincidentally, worked closely with the INC.
Another prominent SAIC executive & former vp also has long-standing connection with Iraq: former UN
weapons inspector David Kay, hired by CIA in June 2003 to head the effort to track down Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). A Reagan admin sr science official, Kay argued forcefully last fall against relying on UN
weapons inspections to "contain" Iraq and for removing Saddam Hussein from power.
These connections may account for some of SAIC's success in landing Iraqi-related contracts. For example, it has
been running the Iraqi Reconstruction & Development Council (IRDC) since the body was established
by the Pentagon in Feb. 2003. According to press accounts, the 150 mostly expatriate Iraqis employed in the
program, most of whom have been in Baghdad since May 2003, are to serve as the "Iraqi face" of the occupation
authority. Sr IRDC members, many closely associated with the INC, hold posts at each of Iraq's 23 ministries with a
mandate to rebuild them.
Perhaps not coincidentally, SAIC's corporate vp for strategic assessment & development Christopher Ryan
Henry joined the Pentagon as deputy undersecretary of defense for policy at the same time as the IRDC got
underway, serving with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who was in overall charge of preparing for post-war Iraq.
SAIC is also a subcontractor under Vinnell Corporation, another big defense contractor long in charge of training
Saudi National Guard, hired to reconstitute & train a new Iraqi army. Not much is known about the progress
that is being made in either of those projects, but a third has become, by all accounts, a major disaster.
The Iraqi (sometimes referred to as "Indigenous") Media Network (IMN) project, valued initially at a minimum of $25
million, was formally launched in mid-April 2003 as successor to a psychological warfare program that beamed radio broadcasts before & during the war
into Iraq from a C130 cargo plane called "Commando Solo".
But IMN was considerably more ambitious in scope, since its aim, as outgrowth of IRDC, was to put together a new
information ministry, complete with TV, radio and a newspaper, and the content that would make all 3 attractive to
average Iraqis.
To oversee the job, SAIC hired away Voice of America dir. Robert Reilly, outspoken right-wing ideologue who
began his public career in the 1980s as White House propagandist for the Nicaraguan contras. Reilly tangled
immediately with his deputy Mike Furlong, Pentagon contractor who worked on media issues in Kosovo. Both men
were out of the project by the end of June, according to knowledgeable sources.
"SAIC didn't have any suitable qualification to run a media network," according to Rohan Jayasekera, who has kept
an eye on media developments in Iraq for London-based Index on Censorship. "The whole thing was so incredibly
badly planned by them that no one could make sense of what they were doing," he said. Jayasekera noted, for
example, that SAIC ordered equipt incompatible with existing systems in Iraq and that it had made no plans for TV
programming.
When it asked for help from VOA, which considers itself a professional news organization, SAIC was forced to rely
on hastily patched together & dubbed network news programs, much of which would appeal only to a
domestic audience. "Increasingly, the newscasts became irrelevant for Iraqis," one source told Wash. Post in May
2003. "They're not really interested in the Laci Peterson [murder] case."
A page reserved for the project on the website of the US provisional authority in Iraq said Wednesday, "There is no
information available at this time." 3 months into the project, highly-regarded Iraqi expatriate Ahmad Rikabi brought
in to help manage the operation abruptly quit, apparently frustrated at the lack of planning, resources and
investment that SAIC put in the project and the hemorrhaging of his professional staff, some of whom had not been
paid for weeks.
"Saddam Hussein is doing better at marketing himself, through al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya Gulf channels," Rikabi
told reporters. One of the project's principal trainers, Don North, who worked with media in Afghanistan, has also
quit, complaining to NY Times that the Pentagon was not interested in professional journalism.
"Its role was envisioned to be an information conduit," he said, "and not just rubberstamp flacking for the CPA",
acronym of occupation authority run by L Paul Bremer. The Pentagon itself has kept the project stumbling along on
short-term contracts with SAIC, but, according to Jayasekera, is actively looking for an alternative. The fact that that
SAIC was hired in the first place, however, "appears to have been a serious mistake".
|
