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Al-Hurra 'US propaganda tool' from The Australian 
Al-Hurra 'US propaganda tool' From correspondents in Dubai, United Arab Emirates 06may04 THE US-funded Arabic language news channel Al-Hurra, which aired an interview with US President George W Bush today, is considered by most of its target audience to be a propaganda tool of the US administration. Al-Hurra - "The Free One" - is based in Washington and was launched in February to counter broadcasts by Arab channels deemed anti-American. But it has failed to gain the popularity of its rivals, notably al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. The Dubai-based al-Arabiya, which also aired an interview with Bush today, is Saudi-funded and considered a credible news source by many Arabs. Al-Arabiya covered the war in Iraq aggressively. After the war, it often aired audiotapes purported to be from former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein until his capture. It also has aired tapes from senior al-Qaeda members. In November, the US-led occupation authority in Iraq banned the channel from reporting in the country after it aired a tape purported to be from Saddam Hussein, which the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council called "incitement to murder". Its coverage of the war in Iraq drew criticism from the United States, which accused it, along with the Qatar-based al-Jazeera, of being anti-American and aimed at inflaming Arab emotions. Bush snubbed al-Jazeera, the most popular Arabic-language news channel. Al-Jazeera did, however, interview US national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on Tuesday. "Apparently we weren't asked. Surely al-Jazeera has the widest reach, but the impact of the president's comments remains to be seen," said Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for al-Jazeera. Bush gave the interviews to al-Arabiya and al-Hurra as part of his administration's attempt at damage control following the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, notorious in Saddam's time as a place of torture and killing. Photographs first shown on the CBS News program 60 Minutes II showed Iraqis at the prison, just west of Baghdad, stripped naked and sexually humiliated by their guards. The photographs have drawn worldwide condemnation and outrage. |