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The Iraq War and the Media by IPI (Part 1 of 3) 
Caught in the Crossfire: THE IRAQ WAR AND THE MEDIA A Diary of Claims and Counterclaims by Glenn Leaper, Anthony Löwstedt and Husam Madhoun. International Press Institute, 28 May 2003 1) Introduction IPI monitored press freedom violations and other media-related stories during the war in Iraq, 18 March-14 April, 2003. We have compiled reports from news agencies, statements made by press freedom organisations and other sources in this document, which takes the form of a diary. Based upon the information provided, we conclude our findings with regard to the threats posed to press freedom in the present and in future conflicts. More than 3,000 journalists covered the Iraq War as war correspondents, more than have covered any war in the past. At least 15 journalists and media workers died while covering the war. On 3 March, the US Armed Forces announced that "About 800 members of the press - including 20 percent from non-U.S. media - will be assigned slots in specific ground units, aviation units, ships and headquarters throughout the combat zone. They will remain 'embedded' with those units as long as they wish and are supposed to have what these Pentagon ground rules describe as 'minimally restrictive' access to U.S. forces throughout their stay." Eventually, around 150 reporters were embedded with British forces, 660 with US forces. The assignment of journalists stretched across seven countries in the Gulf region and at least 50 cities. The BBC sent 200 of its staff to the region - its largest ever assignment. CNN sent a similar number. ITN sent several dozen reporters, and the major US networks - CBS, NBC and ABC - reportedly had 500 staff between them in Kuwait alone. Reuters assigned around 140 journalists to cover the conflict in text, TV and news pictures. 55 journalists and photographers from British national newspapers joined the Ministry-of-Defence embedded pool, with a further 120 "floating" in northern Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. The New York Times sent 30 people to the region. In a nod to the war industry, the "Hub", a mobile production facility set up by UK broadcasters, was in operation and sent all the footage from the embedded crews. Reporters collated their reports to send them via satellite trucks in the desert. The latest video phones, capable of providing high-quality digital images, were made available to reporters. The list of equipment used to cover the war was vast - bullet-proof vests, armoured land rovers, self-inoculation kits, chemical and biological warfare suits, Kevlar helmets, gas masks and even generators were all part of the inventory. CNN sent 500 people on hostile-environment courses costing 2,500 GBP per head. SKY spent 500,000 GBP on similar training and equipment. Both SKY and the BBC revealed that their budget for covering the war was "several millions." CNN was rumoured to have invested $1 billion in reporting on this war. It was estimated that the media would be carrying around $15 million in cash to pay its way to Baghdad. The Israeli media was banned from Kuwait, the ban preventing even foreign journalists based in Kuwait from passing information on to the Jewish state. In contrast to the 1991 Gulf war, Arab viewers now had three broadcasters to turn to for news which some said was packaged to appeal to regional fury at the US-British invasion. The networks - Dubai-based Al Arabiya, Qatar's Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV - had big operations in Iraq that broke news with footage and reports which were picked up by other news agencies and household names like CNN and the BBC. Precise figures are not known, but it was estimated that at least 100 million people had access to satellite networks that carry more credibility than the region's state-run media. Experts said that some of the Arab networks appeared to be treating the war as a conflict between the West and the Arab world, and often deliberately blurred the line between objective and subjective reporting. It is alleged by some that Al-Jazeera, one of the only networks that had an office in Baghdad long before the war started, was purposely airing Iraqi propaganda to win the ratings war. "We show news. We don't have an agenda," said Al-Jazeera news editor. Al-Alam (The World), a Tehran-based Arabic television news station opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq, drew increasing numbers of viewers in Baghdad, where it offered an alternative to the government's official propaganda on Iraqi state television. Al-Alam broadcasts on terrestrial air-waves, allowing Iraqis to watch the latest news. Satellite dishes were banned in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Iraqi state television only broadcasted heavily censored news reports and towed the official government line, showing military spokesmen and featuring nationalist and pro-Saddam songs. Al-Alam provided a news bulletin every hour round the clock, and hosted on its talk-shows dissidents and exiles opposed to President Saddam Hussein. It carried international agency reports and footage, including extensive clips of wounded Iraqi civilians in hospitals or lying dead in the streets. The coverage of the war operated under the slogan "War for Control," and portrayed US and British troops as invaders. 2) Journalist and Media Worker Death Toll: 1. Paul Moran: 22 March, Gerdigo Checkpoint, Halabja, freelance cameraman on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2. Terry Lloyd: 22 March, Southern Iraq, Basra, ITV News correspondent 3. Gaby Rado: 30 March, Northern Iraq, Sulaimaniya, Channel 4 correspondent 4. Kaveh Golestan: 2 April, Kifri, freelance cameraman on assignment for BBC 5. Michael Kelly: 4 April, Baghdad Airport, editor at large of Atlantic Monthly, columnist with the Washington Post; the first embedded journalist to die in the war 6. Kamran Abdurazaq Muhamed: 6 April, Mosul, BBC translator 7. David Bloom: 6 April, Baghdad, embedded NBC correspondent 8. Christian Liebig: 7 April, Baghdad, Focus magazine (Germany) reporter 9. Julio Anguita Parrado: 7 April, Baghdad, El Mundo correspondent 10. Tarek Ayoub: 8 April, Baghdad, Al-Jazeera cameraman 11. Taras Protsyuk: 8 April, Baghdad, Reuters cameraman and journalist 12. José Cuoso: 8 April, Baghdad, Telecinco (Spain) cameraman 13. Iraqi interpreter (name as yet unknown): 12 April, Baghdad, The Sun (Malaysia), New Straits Times, Malaysian State Television 14. Mario Podesta: 14 April, Baghdad, America TV (Argentina) reporter 15. Veronica Cabrera: 14 April, Baghdad, America TV camerawoman Journalists Missing: 1. Fred Nerac: ITN cameraman - Missing since 22 March 2. Hussein Othmann: ITN translator - Missing since 22 March IRAQ WAR AND MEDIA DIARY Tuesday, 18 March, 2003 Having presented Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with an ultimatum to leave the country or face war, US President George W. Bush warned journalists to leave Baghdad "immediately" ahead of the attack. Baghdad was considered a more dangerous place to be for journalists than it was at the start of the first Gulf War, as the Iraqi capital had now become a primary military objective of US forces. Journalists operating in the area faced the risk of being taken hostage or falling victim to possible civil unrest that may erupt. ABC and NBC teams left Baghdad in a rush. Major US TV networks, including CBS, ABC, NBC, and the cable networks CNN, Fox News Network and MSNBC agreed to cooperate and to share video footage in the first 24 hours of war. This act of solidarity had been in evidence only once before, namely in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks. The Fox News correspondent, Greg Palkot, was expelled from Baghdad in February after the USA expelled the state-owned Iraqi News Agency INA's correspondent Mohammad Hassan Allawi, assigned to the United Nations, after accusing him of activities "considered harmful to US national security". Fox would get its access to news through Sky, its British affiliate satellite and cable network. The agreement applied to video feed only, and not to the correspondents, nor to footage shot by other British partners, such as the BBC or ITN. CNN spokeswoman Megan Mahoney said that CNN and other western news organisations were seeking permission from the Iraqi government to allow their reporters to do their jobs outside the Iraqi Ministry of Information building in central Baghdad, where they had been required to base their broadcasts. The building later became a target of US attacks. Wednesday, 19 March, 2003 The US named 30 countries which were prepared to be publicly associated with the US action against Iraq. In a press conference Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "We now have a coalition of the willing that includes some 30 nations." United States-led coalition forces in the Gulf took up battle positions for an invasion of Iraq. Huge convoys had been moving across the Kuwaiti desert towards Iraq, as President George W Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq by 0100 GMT on Thursday approached. Amid dramatic scenes in the Commons, Prime Minister Tony Blair won Commons backing to send UK forces into battle with Saddam Hussein - but also suffered a major backbench rebellion from within his own Labour party. Opponents of the use of force against Iraq, notably Germany and France - restated their objections at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York. UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix in a briefing to the Security Council expressed "sadness" that it had not been possible to produce the assurances needed about Iraq's arsenal. The secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said military action against Iraq would be in breach of international law. Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) called on the United States not to obstruct the media in its reporting on the war in Iraq. The organisation was concerned that the US military might censor those journalists officially "embedded", and others working independently that were not to be protected. Warnings by the US military and emphasised by the White House that journalists who chose not to be incorporated into US military operations would be in danger, induced RSF to ask for a guarantee that independent journalists would be permitted to do their job freely and safely, and that they would receive adequate access to military information. As military unit commanders retained the final word on whether something may be reported or not by the embedded journalists, US officials were also asked not to enforce these rules too strictly. RSF also called on the US to avoid targeting the transmitters of Iraqi radio stations and media offices, including those used to broadcast propaganda. The International Press Institute (IPI) published a press release concerning the US-led "Coalition of the Willing", in which IPI condemned the inclusion of countries deeply prejudicial to press freedom in the coalition for the impending war against Iraq. According to media reports, US State Department officials had identified 30 countries that lent their support to the war in Iraq - a so-called "coalition of the willing" whose sole criterion for inclusion was that the country wanted to be publicly associated with the idea that Iraq is immediately disarmed. The list included: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Britain and Uzbekistan. Based on the comments of State Department officials, an additional 15 countries, while willing to lend their support to the conflict, wished to remain anonymous. Commenting on the list, IPI said, "This is more a list of the 'coalition of the sinning' rather than of 'the willing'. It contains many governments that have done their utmost to suppress and stifle the independent media in their countries. They should not even be mentioned in the same breath as the other democratic countries named on the same list who continue to espouse the principles of a free press. Moreover, at a time when the United States and Great Britain are promising to introduce democracy to post-war Iraq, it is troubling to see them aligned with so many authoritarian states." Regarding the wider implications of such an alliance, including governments exhibiting flagrant and grave violations of press freedom, IPI stated, "This coalition appears similar to that created in the War against Terrorism. By lining up with such countries, the United States and Great Britain are not only damaging their own human rights records but also explicitly condoning the actions of these countries. It is extremely damaging for democratic countries to be seen acting in concert with repressive regimes and it will only serve to create the impression that Western countries are prepared to jettison human rights when it is expedient to do so." Day 1: Thursday, 20 March, 2003 At 0534 local time (0234 GMT), the start of the US-led campaign to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was marked by heavy explosions that rocked the capital, Baghdad. According to US officials 2000-pound (900-kilogram) precision-guided bombs were dropped from F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter-bombers. More than 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles were also fired from six US Navy vessels, stationed in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. As cable and broadcast networks began their coverage of the war against Iraq, returns showed that in the competition among the three major American cable news networks, Fox News Channel had been granted the early victory, claiming an average of 5.8 million total viewers between Wednesday and Thursday, as compared to 5 million for CNN and 2.3 million for MSNBC. Cable and broadcast networks agreed to extend for 24 hours an agreement to share their footage from Baghdad. Reporters like CNN's medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta in the Kuwaiti desert, and Fox News Channel's William LaJeunesse, were sighted frequently on air. Much of the reporting was done with satellite or video phones, which made possible a kind of mobile reporting that was not technologically feasible in the last Gulf conflict. Reuters reported that, "as the war began to accelerate, the networks conceded what many had already suspected, that their embedded reporters were not completely free to say what they liked." ABC's Peter Jennings said of the embedment procedure: "Our reporters do not say things on air that they do not clear with their local commanders." Dan Rather of CBS added "the essence of a free and democratic country is that citizens are entitled to information that might irritate them, in response to criticism that networks should not report news like Iraq's requests for assistance from the UN Security Council." Geraldo Rivera was on location, as was Iran Contra scandal figurehead Colonel Oliver North, both reporting for Fox News Channel. Day 2: Friday, 21 March, 2003 Bombs rained down on the Iraqi capital, as well as on Mosul and Kirkuk, as the US unleashed what it calls its "shock and awe" strategy. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the scale of the assault was intended to show the Iraqis that Saddam Hussein was finished. US-led ground forces advanced about 160 kilometres (100 miles) into Iraq, moving towards the second city of Iraq, Basra. The advance on the city came after US Marines reached Iraq's only deep-water port at Umm Qasr in the south-east. According to Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, "Umm Qasr has been overwhelmed by the US Marines and now is in coalition hands." Iraqi officials expelled the US news network CNN from the capital, Baghdad. Correspondents Nic Robertson and Rym Brahimi, as well as producer Ingrid Formanek and cameraman Brian Puchaty, were ordered to leave the country and departed in the evening for Jordan. CNN did not immediately release a comment about the reason for the expulsion. Meanwhile, the four-person CNN crew that Iraqi officials expelled arrived safely in Jordan on Saturday afternoon. Iraqi officials had complained that the network was "worse than the American administration," according to CNN reporter Nic Robertson. Day 3: Saturday, 22 March, 2003 The US military said the vanguard of the coalition force was now beyond the city of Nasiriya, after taking control of two key crossing points on the Euphrates river and the nearby airfield of Tallill. Iraqi TV reported fighting with US troops on Saturday evening near the town of Najaf, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Baghdad. Despite coalition claims that up to 2,000 Iraqi soldiers had surrendered, American and British troops in and around both Basra and Nasiriya continued to meet stiff resistance in some areas. Paul Moran, an Australian freelance reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was killed by an alleged Kurdish suicide bomber in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack took place at a checkpoint outside the village of Khormal, close to the Iranian border. According to RSF, "the journalists were waiting to enter the village to talk to refugees, when a taxi appeared behind them and exploded." The area is allegedly a stronghold of the Kurdish Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam, and had been attacked by US missiles the previous evening. It is not known whether the car bomb was aimed at journalists in the area. ABC correspondent Eric Campbell, who accompanied Paul Moran, was wounded in the attack. A group of three journalists, including a photographer and a reporter from Newsweek magazine, were caught in gunfire on the way to Basra. No one was injured and they were escorted away from the scene by US forces. News reports emanated that three ITN journalists went missing during the allied incursion around Basra. Reuters reported that Terry Lloyd, the leading journalist of the British ITN team that went missing, was suspected, with his colleagues, of being the victim of US-British gunfire in Iman Anas near Basra, south Iraq. Cameraman Fred Nerac, a Frenchman, and Hussein Othman, a Lebanese translator, were also missing and were feared dead. Daniel Demoustier, a French cameraman travelling with the same group, was injured and hospitalised. He appeared, visibly shaken, in an interview broadcast across the spectrum of western media outlets and confirmed Lloyd's death. Demoustier said that the television team had been fired upon after they were approached by a group of Iraqi soldiers who were attempting to surrender. The group was allegedly mistakenly fired upon by American troops. Another account stated the mishap as being the result of being caught in the crossfire launched by British troops. The circumstances of the attack still remain unclear. Terry Lloyd was an award-winning journalist who had reported from Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Notably, Lloyd had reported from Halabja in 1988 after President Saddam Hussein's forces launched a chemical weapons attack. "I am sustained that he died doing what he did best, at the peak of his powers and at a time when he was personally and professionally the happiest I have seen him," said David Mannion, editor of ITV News. Day 4: Sunday, 23 March, 2003 In what commanders called the "sharpest engagement" of the war so far, US Marines, battling Iraqi forces in and around the southern city of Nasiriya, reported at least six of their soldiers dead and 14 wounded. The US military also confirmed that a six-vehicle supply convoy was ambushed in the area by Iraqi troops, and that 12 of its personnel were missing. US General Abizaid described the broadcast of footage of dead and captured American soldiers, carried round the world by the Arabic television news channel Al-Jazeera, as "disgusting". RSF sharply criticised the US government for what it called an "insufficient" response to demands for a probe into the disappearance of the two journalists who went missing on the previous day - French cameraman Fred Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Othman, both from the British television network ITN. RSF complained of a lack of respect for the victims in the replies sent by the Pentagon. Amnesty International urged Iraq not to mistreat its US prisoners of war, and called on the media to respect the dignity of captives on both sides of the conflict. Iraqi state television aired interviews with five US soldiers captured in southern Iraq and showed the bloodied remains of eight of their comrades. US President George W. Bush reacted immediately, saying that any Iraqis who mistreated Americans would be treated as war criminals. Amnesty International declared that the captured soldiers should be afforded protections under the Geneva Convention and "should not be subjected to any form of torture or ill treatment." Iraqi officials expelled a Croatian free-lance journalist from Baghdad after he conducted a live interview with CNN, which had been banished from Iraq two days earlier. Robert Valdec, who had been in Baghdad for three weeks reporting for the Croatian Commercial Network, the Serbian Independent Network, the Bosnian Independent Network, and a variety of other Balkan news outlets, was reprimanded and told to leave the city after speaking on air with CNN from his hotel room on 22 March. According to Valdec, armed Iraqi officials arrived at his Baghdad hotel room within 20 minutes of the CNN interview. Valdec said he was not in the room at the time but could see the armed guards at his door from an adjacent room. Day 5: Monday, 24 March, 2003 The US military commander, General Tommy Franks said there had been "rapid" and "dramatic" progress by coalition forces seeking to take control of Iraq. He also said that coalition forces had reached the holy city of Karabala. Iraqi elite Republican Guards between Karbala and Baghdad were subjected to sustained air attacks throughout Monday. Iraqi TV showed a videotape of two men it says were the crew of a US Apache helicopter forced down by Iraqi ground fire. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "the United States has credible evidence that Russian companies have provided assistance of prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime." The body of Terry Lloyd was being held in a Basra hospital under Iraqi control. The British daily The Independent carried a news report with a warning from the Pentagon that urged "media restraint", which gave as its reason that independent reporting increased the likelihood of casualties. More likely, however, as CPJ stated, was that the free relation of reporting and information was threatened under the standards imposed by "embedment". "It is not possible to get a complete picture relying solely on embeds. The non-embedded reporters are able to interact with Iraqi civilians and people on the other side", said CPJ. Newsday reporter Matt McAllester and photographer Moises Saman went missing, according to CPJ. Molly Bingham, a freelance photographer, was also missing. There were reports that Iraqi officials took the three journalists from the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, telling them they were being expelled from the country, allegedly because of visa problems. Some journalists in Baghdad reported that the journalists were put on buses headed for Damascus, Syria. Others said the bus was headed to Amman, Jordan. The US daily Newsday appealed to the Red Cross and the Vatican for help in finding its two Baghdad-based journalists, the newspaper's editor said. Matt McAllester, Newsday's reporter and former Middle East Bureau Chief, alongside photographer Moises Saman, were last heard from on Monday, prior to a witness statement that they were rounded up with eight other foreign-based journalists for expulsion from Iraq. As the Vatican and the Red Cross had offices in Baghdad, all available channels were being used in order to locate and retrieve the journalists. Iraqi officials at the United Nations agreed to help locate the two men through official channels, as the team was accredited by the Iraqi Ministry of Information. Both are experienced in war-torn environments, having spent time covering the war in Afghanistan in 2001-2. Day 6: Tuesday, 25 March, 2003 The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, acknowledged that bad weather was slowing down the advance, but vowed that it would not be stopped. However, the weather had not prevented US B-52 bombers from dropping huge payloads of bombs south of the capital, targeting the Medina division of the elite Republican Guards, digging in for what both sides agreed would probably be a decisive encounter. Major General Peter Wall, British chief of staff , said that it appeared an uprising had taken place in Basra, but that it was in its infancy and British troops were "keen to exploit its potential". From the outskirts of Basra, British troops bombarded Iraqi mortar positions in the city in an effort to support the uprising. Ali Montazeri, an Iranian journalist and Tehran correspondent for the Arabic LBC satellite channel and the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper, went missing in the Faw peninsula. It was suspected by Lebanese LBC television that he had been arrested, although reasons were not forthcoming as to why that may have been the case. "We don't know who arrested him. If he was truly arrested by security forces, whose security forces? We have absolutely no information," an LBC source told Reuters. "I am trying to raise all the contacts we have in the region to try to know at least what his fate is, where he is now." It was believed that Montazeri was arrested after he crossed into Iraq from Iran to cover hostilities in Faw, which controls access from the Gulf to Iraq's coast. The possibility that Montazeri had been turned over to British forces could not be confirmed. LBC/al-Hayat had about 10 journalists in Iraq and an additional number in the Gulf, including some who were embedded with US and British forces and others working independently. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) revoked the credentials of two reporters from the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera. According to NYSE spokesman Ray Pellecchia, the press accreditation of Al-Jazeera's Ammar Shankari and his colleague Ramzi Shiber was cancelled on 24 March. Pellecchia denied that the move was related to Al-Jazeera's recent war coverage but confirmed that Al-Jazeera was the only news organisation that had its accreditation revoked. He added that they might be able to reapply. "We are deeply troubled by this development," said CPJ. "The timing of this action raises concerns that it may have been taken in retaliation for Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Gulf war. Any effort by NYSE to prevent journalists from doing their jobs because of their news organisation's editorial policy damages the NYSE's standing as a forum for the open exchange of news and information." Reuters reported "a Florida-based Web hosting company knocked a small news site off-line after it posted controversial photos of captured American soldiers, stoking accusations that private firms are censoring free speech. For several hours, was dark, carrying the message "Account for domain YellowTimes.org has been suspended." Later in the day there was sporadic access. The move stoked fears that as more grisly images and accounts of war surfaced, independent news sites trying to establish a name for themselves were forced to tone down their coverage so as not to alienate readers and the companies that keep their sites alive." Accordingly, Erich Marquardt, editor of YellowTimes, explained that "I think we were the first web site to show the images...But the site was down a few hours later, without any warning." He went on to say that Vortech Inc., an Orlando, Fla-based Web hosting company, had first grounded the site on Sunday night after he posted six photos of American Prisoners of War taken from news footage first aired by Al-Jazeera. "No TV station in the US is allowing any dead US soldiers of POWs to be displayed and we will not either. We understand free press and all that but we don't want someone's family member to see them on some site. It is disrespectful, tacky and disgusting," read the email explanation sent to Marquardt. Reuters also reported "small web-only news purveyors that promise a distinct brand of "unsanitised" news reporting are encountering more and more publishing constraints as their readership swells. Similarly, Israeli army censors said they were working with Web site publishers and the country's ISPs to ensure that sensitive, war-related information, including the whereabouts of potential missile landings, was not published online.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) demanded a "full and immediate inquiry" into allegations that three foreign journalists were arrested, accused of espionage, beaten up and detained for 48 hours by US forces in Iraq on 25 March. The journalists, Dan Scemama of Israel's Channel 1 TV, Boaz Bismuth of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Victor Silva and Louis de Castro of Radio Television Portugal were travelling alongside American convoys but were not officially "embedded" with the troops. Relatives and colleagues said that the journalists were forced to stop on Tuesday because of sandstorms beside six tanks. They were advised by the Americans not to move because they would be impossible to identify in the dust. Early on Wednesday morning, they were then woken up by US soldiers at gunpoint, taken away and accused of espionage. Accordingly, the reporters were told to lift their shirts and let down their pants to prove they were not carrying bombs. They were then kept in a closed jeep for 36 hours. The Portuguese journalist who asked to phone home was allegedly beaten; his bones were broken and he was later admitted to a hospital. One of the Israeli journalists was also beaten. Yediot Aharonot asked the Pentagon to help find the lost journalists. After 48 hours, a helicopter flew the reporters to an American military base in Kuwait, where they were returned their cell phones and released. The Sindicato dos Jornalistas, the IFJ affiliate in Portugal, protested over the incident. "This appears to be an outrageous failure of military discipline, and those responsible must be investigated," IFJ said. The Newspaper Guild in the United States said it was also taking up the case with the Pentagon. In a April 7 letter addressed to Gen. Tommy Franks, CPJ protested the incidents on 25 March concerning the mistreatment of the four journalists at the hands of US forces. The latter had accused the journalists of spying and detained them for more than 48 hours without food before flying them to a military base in Kuwait. In the letter CPJ described the incident as follows. "The journalists reported that men they believed to be military police ordered them to lie on the ground face down. Castro alleged that the police kicked the journalists' hands, kept them on the ground for more than 30 minutes, and accused them of being terrorists or spies. Their cameras, phones, and car were confiscated, and they were later forced to stay in their car for several hours. At one point, Castro asked the troops if the journalists could phone their families. In response, the soldiers threw him to the ground, placed their feet on his hands, neck, and back, and then one of the soldiers kicked him in the ribs. He was then handcuffed, brought near a truck in the troop encampment, and forced to sit on the ground before being returned to the group. Castro said a first lieutenant by the last name Shaw later apologised, saying, "Try to understand, my men are trained like dogs - they just know how to attack. No hard feelings. God bless you." When the journalists arrived in Kuwait, their material was returned to them and they were allowed to leave after several hours." CPJ protested: "While we recognize that embedded journalists have been given special access to coalition troops, we are extremely concerned by these reports of harassment and violence against independent journalists. As a non-partisan organization of journalists dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, we call on you to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into these incidents and to make the findings public. We reiterate our call that U.S. troops allow journalists to fulfil their professional duties freely, without hindrance." Day 7: Wednesday, 26 March, 2003 At least fourteen civilians died and another thirty were injured in Baghdad when a shopping area was hit during an air raid by US-led coalition forces, according to the BBC. Two days later, BBC confirmed that at least 50 people had in fact died in the attack. US Marines came under sporadic guerrilla attack around Nasiriya, with Iraqi snipers firing at them from the cover of buildings, trees and bushes. Iraqi guerrilla tactics and sandstorms slowed the advance of US Marines south of Baghdad. US forces were halted again - this time at the town of Ash Shatrah, about 40 km north of the city of Nasiriya. US Marines also came under sporadic guerrilla attacks around Nasiriya. US Central Command in Qatar said coalition cruise missiles and bombs struck Iraq's main television station in addition to key telecommunications targets. Steve Gorman reported in a Reuters article that veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett was back in Baghdad reporting the US bombing of Iraq's capital, but not censored and not with CNN as he was 12 years ago. Arnett gained international fame and notoriety in 1991 by remaining in Baghdad with his CNN crew after other reporters had left at the outset of the Gulf War. A Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting from Vietnam, Arnett was CNN's man in Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War, but left the network under a cloud four years ago in the fallout over the retracted documentary "Operation Tailwind." The documentary alleged that the US military used the nerve gas sarin against American defectors in the Vietnam War. It was strongly denied by the Pentagon. CNN then fired him after 18 years of service. While CNN was expelled from Baghdad last week, Arnett remained one of the few broadcast correspondents still working there for US networks, reporting for NBC and its cable outlet MSNBC, which is linked to his current employer, National Geographic Explorer. "Of course it is ironic, particularly that CNN is not here," he said in a call with a small group of reporters on Tuesday. "I do get a perverse pleasure out of it because, after all, CNN did dump me four years ago, I thought unfairly." "I think 'Tailwind' was almost a death blow to my career as a correspondent. I felt that being hit like that for 'Tailwind,' it was something I had to dig myself out of. And actually, in the four years since, I've been trying to find a way how best to redeem myself. About his role in Baghdad, he said: "They (The Iraqis) are requiring no censorship at all& There are no minders around us when we broadcast. I'm sitting here in the hotel and& we can talk on the phone freely." Although he assumed his calls were being monitored, Arnett said that at no time while in Baghdad had Iraqi officials questioned him about his telephone contacts or about the contents of his stories. Still, he said he and other correspondents in Baghdad worked under restrictions, being permitted only to transmit TV footage from Iraq's Ministry of Information building and expected to attend daily briefings by government officials. "The ministry has made it clear that if you do not attend those press briefings, they get very unhappy," he said. Having survived the "shock and awe" air assault on Baghdad unscathed - "it was thunderous, horrendous and frightening, but it was all half a mile away" - Arnett said his biggest worry was the ground invasion on its way. "The battle is coming right to the heart of Baghdad, so as far as I'm concerned the worst is yet to come," he said. "If it turns out to be a vicious battle here and many civilians are hurt, I don't think there will be much happiness about the Americans' arrival," he said. In a letter dated 28 March to US Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, IPI strongly protested the 26 March air and missile strikes against the main Iraqi state-run television station by the US and UK allied forces. As a result of the attacks, the station was forced to stop broadcasting, but it was later able to return to normal programming. Replying to questions by reporters about the attacks, military officials apparently claimed that the attack had been instigated because the television station was part of a "command and control center." Military officials said that the television station was housed in "a key telecommunications vault" for satellite communications. IPI stated that, irrespective of these claims, the attacks on Iraqi television were an unwarranted violation of Article 52 of the Geneva Convention, which states that "Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives", and in flagrant breach of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states it is the right of everyone to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." IPI said that the inevitable result of these attacks is to blur the distinction between civilian and military activities during conflict, thus making it more likely that in the future the destruction of a country's news-making facilities will become a central military aim in any conflict. If this were to happen, the media would face deliberate targeting from either side and the risks to journalists would be greatly increased. In a 16 May 2003 reply to IPI's protest, David Howard, Head of Communication Planning at the Royal Ministry of Defence, wrote: "You suggest that attacking Iraqi Television was an unwarranted violation of Article 52 of the Geneva Convention which states that attacks should be limited to military objectives. International law defines such attacks as those which, by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action. It is common knowledge that Saddam's regime used the TV network for military command and control purposes. The network thus became a legitimate military target. . . Finally, I can assure you that the UK fully supports the free press and all that it stands for." IFJ said that the US/UK bomb and missile attack on Iraqi television was "an attempt at censorship and may have breached the Geneva Conventions." "We have every reason to believe this is an act of censorship against media that US politicians and military strategists don't like," IFJ said. It added that that there was no military justification for the raid, which was a timely reminder of NATO's bombing of Radio Television Serbia during the Kosovo war four years ago, which left 16 media workers dead. Amnesty International suggested the raid may even constitute a war crime, stating that "the bombing of a television station simply because it is being used for the purposes of propaganda is unacceptable and illegal under international law&attacking a civilian object and carrying out a disproportionate attack are war crimes". Human Rights Watch chimed in, stating that, "although stopping enemy propaganda may serve to demoralize the Iraqi population and to undermine the government's political support, neither purpose offers the "concrete and direct" military advantage necessary under international law to make civilian broadcast facilities a legitimate military target." RSF condemned the US bombing of Iraq's television station and accused Washington of violating the Geneva Convention by targeting it. "Military bombing must be limited to strictly military targets&The Americans cite the Geneva conventions when it comes to pictures of US Prisoners of War in Iraq but then immediately forget them when they bomb a TV building which is civil property and therefore protected under those conventions," RSF said in a statement. "In 2001, the US army bombed the offices of Al-Jazeera in Kabul. It should be careful not to give the impression of routinely targeting media that oppose it," it added. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reported that American media had a distinctly different perspective on matters: prior to the bombing, Fox News Channel's John Gibson wondering aloud on air that not enough concern was being shown concerning the targeting of Iraqi journalists: "should we take Iraqi TV off the air? Should we put one down the stove pipe there?", to which Fox colleague Bill O'Reilly agreed: "why haven't they taken out the Iraqi television towers yet?" Andrea Mitchell of NBC Nightly News provided the insight that "the television headquarters is in a civilian area. Bombing it would infuriate the Arab world," without referring to the Geneva Conventions. Reporters, such as CNN's Aaron Brown, displayed satisfaction after the facility was struck, and CNN correspondent Nic Robertson defended the attack by stating that bombing the TV station would "take away a very important tool from the Iraqi leadership - that of showing their face and getting their message across to the Iraqi people, and really telling them they're still in control." Fox's Gibson even claimed credit for the bombing, suggesting that "Fox's criticism about allowing Saddam Hussein to talk to his citizens and lie to them has had an effect." Against the odds, Iraqi television began broadcasting verses from the Koran as usual on air at around 9 AM (0600 GMT), and state radio was also broadcasting, before Information Minister Mohammad Saeed Al Sahaf took to the stand to announce Iraq's success in defending herself and to take questions from foreign journalists. FAIR raised the issue that reporters should be sceptical about the Pentagon's claims concerning "precision bombing." Reports such as that of Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski routinely included comments such as "More than a thousand bombs and missiles were dropped on Baghdad (in the first two evenings of the war), three times the entire number from the entire Gulf War. And this time, they're all precision-guided, deadly accurate, designed to kill only the targets, not innocent civilians." FAIR pointed out that when allegations were made about civilian deaths and destruction from the bombing, they were treated with extreme scepticism by the US media and were attributed to manufactured items by Iraqi officials. "Yet it is plain that some bombs are going off course. Syrian civilians in a bus in Northern Iraq were killed in one attack, two cruise missiles have landed in Turkey and several missiles have reportedly hit south-western Iran," FAIR said. Reporters working from within Baghdad supported this claim. John Daniszewski of the Los Angeles Times, for instance, reported that "the deaths and injuries from misdirected or errant bombs, or from shrapnel and fragments that spray into nearby homes even when the munitions find their intended target, are making more and more people believe that the United States is heedless of the Iraqi public." FAIR also expressed concerns about Associated Press' interchangeable usage of the terms "pro-troops" and "pro-war", a practice it said distorts the views of anti-war demonstrators and "contributes to the media marginalization of the peace movement." Correspondingly, AP used "supporting the troops", meant by the peace movement to imply bringing them home out of harm's way, as a synonym for "supporting the war", and used the "pro-troops" epithet as a shorthand to describe rallies that are explicitly pro-war events. A point in case was the utterance by CNN's Jeff Flock on 22 March: "Perhaps you see police arrayed in riot gear keeping apart the pro-troop rally and the anti-war rally." It was alleged by Czech security services that Iraqi agents plotted an attack on the Prague headquarters of US-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to halt its Arabic-language broadcasts to Iraq. "One of the scenarios was also to carry out a terrorist attack," said Jiri Ruzek, director of the Czech Secret Services, without giving any further details. This represented the first time a top Czech official had publicly confirmed rumours that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, financed by the US Congress, may have been the target of an attack. Ruzek added that Iraqi intelligence activity in the capital of Prague was the reason underlying the expulsion of five Iraqi diplomats in the past week, leaving only one at the Iraqi embassy. The British daily, The Guardian, reported that "subscriptions to the Arabic language television network Al-Jazeera have doubled since the war on Iraq began last week, signalling a significant demand for an alternative to western media coverage. The broadcaster said it had signed up to 4 million subscribers in Europe since last Wednesday." This indicated a large shift in public opinion away from accepting the increasingly official coverage of the war portrayed in the western media. Plans for an English-language version of the increasingly popular and trusted Al-Jazeera channel were reportedly also underway in order to redress the imbalance of news interpretation in the western world. Notably, it had drawn little more than 100,000 subscribers in the United States. Al-Jazeera received an award for its resistance to censorship from the British-based Index on Censorship for its "apparent independence in a region where much of the media is state-run." Al-Jazeera has been credited with a reputation for credible news, and, as Index explained, "that same quality has enraged Arab governments and the United States." The United States has accused the channel of inflaming anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, particularly by carrying the speeches of Osama Bin Laden, widely blamed for masterminding the 11 September 2001 attacks on the USA, before they can be processed by State Department operatives for media airing. In related news, Al-Jazeera defended its controversial coverage on the war and demanded the United States come to its aid in the name of a free press. "There has to be a national effort to protect the freedom of the press even more&we appeal to authorities to pay attention to this," said Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout, as US Secretary of State Colin Powell countered that "Al-Jazeera has an editorial line and a way of presenting news that appeals to the Arab public. They watch it and they magnify the minor successes of the Iraqi regime. They tend to portray our efforts in a negative light" in an interview with National Public Radio. He appeared on Al-Jazeera for an exclusive interview a few days later. Day 8: Thursday, 27 March, 2003 Baghdad came under renewed bombardment from coalition war planes, with powerful blasts reported in both the centre and outskirts of the city. UK raids destroyed transmitters in Basra, taking state radio and television of the air and effectively cutting off communications with Baghdad. US troops and members of Iraq's Fedayeen units fought a major battle in the town of Samawah, the site of a crucial bridge on the way to Baghdad. Separately, hundreds of American troops parachuted into northern Iraq in the first big US deployment north of Baghdad - which one unnamed US defence official called "the beginning of the northern front". The British military conquered the local radio and television stations in Basra, a city of over one million, despite fierce resistance from Iraqi troops and civilians. UNESCO urged all parties in the war to ensure the safety of journalists and the free flow of information. Koichiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General, said that journalists working in areas of armed conflict should be considered civilians under international law. "In a war that also includes a fierce media battle, the task of seeking independent information is especially vital if world public opinion is to avoid being the target of manipulation and propaganda," Matsuura said. The bodies of two dead soldiers that were shown by Al-Jazeera were declared to be British, as the US Defence Ministry declared itself "shocked and appalled" that the Iraqis had released the pictures, and urged media organisations to refrain from becoming "tools for Iraqi propaganda" by showing them to domestic audiences. British Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon added that the airing was a "flagrant and disgraceful breach of the Geneva conventions". The headline carried by London daily The Times summed up the popular interpretation of events: "British bodies lie in the dust as mob exults". The US State Department broadly accused the Arab media of misconstruing events and of being "inflammatory" in its reporting, and insisted that Washington get a "fair treatment." The example that State Department spokesman Richard Boucher gave was of the missile that hit the market place in Baghdad on the previous day that killed at least 15 people. Despite the obvious deduction that this may have been a US missile, the State Department tried to diffuse such notions by suggesting that it was in fact an Iraqi missile that hit the marketplace. As US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters that Iraq was "firing old anti-aircraft missiles without radar guidance", he suggested that it "might" have been a deliberate attack by Iraq on its own people. The Pentagon put considerable efforts into suggesting that it was waging a "humanitarian" war, and that it should have been considered that such revelations were naturally highly damaging to its projected profile of "humanitarian benevolence". Al-Jazeera was accused by State Department officials of "biased" and "inflammatory" material as it aired Iraqi television footage of US Prisoners of War. With regard to Al-Jazeera having had two of its reporters barred from making live reports from the New York Stock Exchange floor in the previous days, the NYSE stated that, "credentials were only for networks that provided "responsible" coverage." Al-Jazeera was also denied a request to broadcast live from New York's Nasdaq exchange. The station had obtained rare interviews with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Britain's top Gulf commander Air Marshal Brian Burridge added his ire to the fire by accusing Al-Jazeera of making "injudicious editorial choices" and warned, "it could be playing into Baghdad's hands." Al-Jazeera correspondent Jawad Omari fired back that his network "was an independent news-gathering organisation committed to showing the human cost of the US-led war." Reuters reported a pronounced support for Iraqi resistance efforts on behalf of neighbouring Iran's official media. Despite the war of enmity that persists between the two countries since the war of 1980-88, in which more than a million people died, coupled with a sustained popular hatred towards Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran's media openly displayed the entrenched anti-Americanism of the country and even went as far as to back the defensive efforts of the Ba'ath party regime. It is worth noting that despite the reforming efforts of President Mohammad Khatami, state radio and television continue to be run by the anti-American conservatives who wield power in Iran. Despite Iran's official policy of "active neutrality" on the war, war coverage on state television is marked by a logo reading "War of Dominance", and the broadcast media openly refer to the United States and Britain as the "aggressors" in the campaign. The public seemed divided on this development; mass demonstrations took place in the streets of Tehran in support of Saddam Hussein, but more guarded observers commented that "Iranian television has become like Iraqi television. Its reports about the war obviously take the side of the Iraqi regime". The clerical establishment in Iran fears encirclement by pro-US countries and sees the current campaign as an effort to control the Middle East. It also fears being next on the US government's "axis of evil" target list of regimes to be overthrown by military aggression. Reuters reported that protests that passed through New York's 5th Avenue, in which 200 people were arrested for various acts of civil disobedience, were partially due to an antagonism towards the American media coverage of the war, with protesters accusing "the corporate media of making profits off the war". It was also reported that complaints were made by anti-war advocacy groups that they were being blocked from airing anti-war advertisements on broadcast media dominated by giant corporations. The online advocacy group TrueMajority.org correspondingly stated that placing ads in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal had not been problematic, but that television networks such as CNN, Fox, MTV and even cable television Comedy Central were refusing to run spots featuring actress and notable war opponent Susan Sarandon discussing the war with government-aligned "experts", alongside spots in which young Americans discussed their opposition to the war with acclaimed documentary maker Barbara Kopple. With television off limits to war opponents, the anti-war message was also becoming correspondingly more difficult to hear on radio, where stations are increasingly owned by large corporations such as Clear Channel Communications. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman intoned that Clear Channel, which controls around 1200 US radio stations, was overtly helping to organise grass-roots demonstrations in favour of the war and was emphatically against the anti-war voices. Accordingly, Clear Channel organised a protest at which a tractor "smashed CDs, tapes and videos of the Dixie Chicks, after the Grammy-winning country music group told an audience in London it was embarrassed that Bush was from Texas." Besides calling Krugman's comments "pure fiction", Clear Channel spokeswoman Lisa Dollinger was unavailable for comment. Correspondent Phil Smucker of the Boston Christian Science Monitor was expelled to Kuwait from Iraq by coalition forces for allegedly "endangering" the allied mission. The reason given was an interview Smucker gave to CNN last Wednesday in which he allegedly divulged military secrets pertaining to coalition location and strategy. Pentagon spokesman Tim Blair stated that Smucker had placed the US Marines at considerable risk. Smucker also reported in Cairo for the British Daily Telegraph. Day 9: Friday, 28 March, 2003 The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution clearing the way for the oil-for-food humanitarian aid programme in Iraq to resume. US military spokesmen at Coalition Central Command said air strikes and cruise missiles had taken out a major communication centre and command-and-control facilities in Baghdad. Thousands more US troops moved in, backed by heavy artillery, to join the battle for the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya. On this day, the Muslim Holy day, the United States declared that a B-2 Spirit "Stealth" bomber had knocked out a major link in Iraq's communication network, the al-Alawiya civilian communications centre, with precision guided missiles in a pre-dawn raid over Baghdad. US missiles also hit government offices, including the ministries of information, planning and foreign affairs. RSF called on all parties to the Iraqi war to help find nine journalists who were missing in the war zone. Some of them had been missing since the beginning of the conflict. "Confusion on the battlefield and the ongoing fighting must not be used as an excuse for Iraqi and US/British forces to ignore the safety of reporters and cameramen who have come to cover a war that has already cost lives among the media," said RSF. It also reported that a cameraman from Al-Jazeera disappeared in Basra, after the four-man crew he was with came under fire from British tanks. The crew was in a civilian vehicle preparing to film food relief being distributed by Iraqi authorities when the British tanks opened fire. Three of the crew members managed to escape by foot, but the cameraman hid to preserve his equipment. The cameraman, Akil Abdel Reda was later found to have been held for 12 hours by US troops. The two ITN crew members, Fred Nerac and Hussein Othman, who were with deceased journalist Terry Lloyd were still missing. Since 22 March, Syrian reporter Wael Awad, Lebanese cameraman Talal Fawzi al-Masri and Lebanese technician Ali Hassan Safa, all working for the Al-Arabiya television station, were also reported missing. The station lost contact with them as they were passing between Al-Zubair and Nassiriya. The Pentagon professed not to know of any journalists killed or wounded in the area. Al-Arabiya was not sure whether or not the journalists were embedded with the US army 101st Airborne Division, as the Central Command military headquarters in Qatar said that they were not. However, they may have been accredited by the army in Kuwait. The station broadcasted pictures of them almost incessantly in the hope that Iraqis would come forward with news about them. The two Newsday journalists, Moises Saman and Matthew McAllester, were seen for the last time at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 24 March. Apparently, the Iraqi authorities were preparing to deport them and other foreign journalists for entering the country only on tourist visas, according to an Italian journalist. Several special correspondents in Baghdad said the authorities had wanted to expel them by road in a bus to Damascus. Freelance French-American photographer Molly Bingham, reported to be among the deported, was also missing. RSF sent a representative to Iraq to investigate the amount of press freedom allowed to the hundreds of reporters embedded with US army units first-hand. Tania Church-Much, the head of RSF Canada and a journalist at Global Television Network of Canada, was sent to Iraq with a Germany-based US army unit, to report on how "embedment" was working. "No-one is questioning the merits of this embedding policy, which is giving journalists far greater access than they had in the 1991 Gulf War, but there are some controls that we aren't happy about," said RSF. Despite the frontline access, reporters attached to the invading troops had to work under restrictions such as observing embargoes and limits on certain images. Concerned about the safety of its Baghdad-based journalists, Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas asked reporters attending his daily news briefing to urge their 16 colleagues reporting in Iraq to return to Greece. "I ask you to convince your colleagues to leave in order to protect their safety, even their lives," he said. He said that Greece's press ministry had already contacted Greek journalists in Baghdad and had assured them that they would be provided with a safe return journey. "Many of them refused to leave," he added. "I understand that they are performing significant work, and we congratulate them for that, but I think human life is above everything." Protopapas said that the move was a Greek initiative concerning only Greek journalists and that he was not aware of similar efforts being performed in other countries. Journalists and analysts lamented the dearth in correct, verifiable reporting: "If the war spin is to be believed, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may be dead, Iraq may have executed British prisoners of war while an Iraqi missile could be responsible for smashing up a crowded Baghdad marketplace. The reality may be quite different," reported journalist Merissa Marr for Reuters. "Each day, claims and counter-claims are flying from both sides in the Iraq conflict as Washington, London and Baghdad battle for airtime in a fierce war of words and images. In what is being branded the television war, media strategy is proving just as important as military tactics as Saddam, US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair scramble to sway public opinion," she added. The result was a trail of confusion, with claims of dramatic developments reversing within hours. "With 24-hour rolling television news, often there isn't time for considered opinion and reporters are falling prey to blunders and propaganda. Take the fate of Umm Qasr. The southern Iraqi port fell numerous times according to reports from the frontline last Sunday. But the key entry point into Iraq was not firmly secured by US-led forces until Tuesday. Any modern war is a media war too. Not just for the ears and minds of Iraqi but for world opinion too," said Jamie Cowling, a research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research in London. "With all its capability and technology, western media in particular has fallen flat on its face," said Palestinian lawmaker and human rights advocate Hanan Ashrawi. "They have become monolithic, propagandistic and simplistic". BBC News reported that websites of the Al-Jazeera television network came under attack by electronic hackers. So-called "service attacks" were launched against the websites, and visitor hijacks most notably happened courtesy of a group calling itself the "Freedom Cyber Force Militia", which sent visitors to different web-pages such as one emblazoned with an American flag and the inscription "God bless our troops" or, alternately, "Let Freedom Ring", and another featuring an American pornographic website. The attack constituted a vicious attack on press freedom and was indicative of western fears that they had lost the monopoly on news reporting. As the war began, Al-Jazeera overnight became the world's most sought after news resource in the world. As British Al-Jazeera journalist Faisal Bodi put it in an article in the British daily, The Guardian, "I do not mean to brag - people are turning to us simply because the western media coverage has been so poor. For although Doha is just a 15-minute drive from Central Command, the view of events could not be more different. Of the all the major global networks, Al-Jazeera has been alone in proceeding from the premise that this war should be viewed as an illegal enterprise. It has broadcast the horror of the bombing campaign, the blown-out brains, the blood-spattered pavements, the screaming infants and the corpses. Its team of on-the-ground, un-embedded correspondents has provided a corrective to the official line that the campaign is, barring occasional resistance, going according to plan." A case in point was the widespread coverage of an alleged "uprising" against Saddam Hussein in Iraq's besieged second city of Basra, which was called by unaligned journalists to be a "non-event". The misinformation in this instance could be due to the notion that western media do not have a single journalist in the city, and receive much of their information during question time from US military commanders in Doha. British defence officials were allegedly so outraged by Al-Jazeera's footage of dead British soldiers that they issued an appeal on Wednesday for the network to stop screening footage of the two dead soldiers. Experts said both the Arabic site ( ) and the English-language version () would probably not be accessible for 24 hours. The sites had been under constant attack since the English-language version devoted to the war was launched on Monday.
Day 10: Saturday, 29 March, 2003 Baghdad came under the most concentrated bombing in more than a week. US warplanes bombed a building in Basra, where about 200 paramilitaries loyal to Saddam Hussein were believed to have gathered. |