Western journalists killed by coalition forces in Iraq
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TV avoids showing deadly side of war

By Antonia Zerbisias

Mar. 22— Deeply embedded as I am in war TV coverage, my remote control thumb seeing as much action as a B-52 pilot’s trigger finger, my faith has been restored, almost.

Not so much in the networks themselves, most of which are parading the Pentagon line, but in the reporters assigned to one of the deadliest journalistic minefields ever: The White House Press Briefing Room.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, when the America bombardment of Baghdad — and parts untelevised — began, the excitement among the anchors was palpable.

“‘Shock & Awe’ underway” read the onscreen graphics. Finally, explosions! Mushroom clouds! Towering plumes of smoke! CNN even had little graphics to count them off, so viewers could see how closely spaced the bombs were.

Was ABC’s Peter Jennings serious when he repeated the propaganda about this being a “precision” campaign, as if the Tomahawks and Patriots, which sound more like baseball teams than deadly missiles, were programmed only to search and destroy brutal vicious dictators?

But for the light and sound show, all seemed calm and bright on Baghdad’s streets, thanks to the stationary cameras left behind by the networks. Why was nobody saying, “Hmm, this is a city of five million people, do you think any of them have been hurt?”

The full horror didn’t hit until later on CBC, where the Dubai Business Network’s Tamara Al Karram, voice quavering, was providing a boom-by-boom account for Peter Mansbridge.

“Are you on a rooftop?” he asked. “Are you with other people?”

Then a blast, followed by a numbing, chilling, silence.

“All right, we’ve lost her,” he said, his voice just a little too steady for me.

Flipping from CBC’s “Attack On Iraq” to CNN’s “Strike On Iraq” to CBS’ “America At War” and on and around up to the business-oriented CNBC’s “The Price Of War,” I kept searching for signs of death. If this is a war, people are being killed. Where are the bodies?

But, if any of the 500 reporters traveling with the troops found any, they didn’t reveal them when they did their here-I-am on an aircraft carrier sniffing the fumes stand-ups — was that an NBC flag on one tank turret? — asking the boys how they feel as they’re moving in.

In the words of the distinguished journalist Russell Baker, these embeds are “serving as megaphones for fraud.”

So far anyway.

(Incidentally, one thing US TV didn’t show but BBC beamed around the world: live video of President George W. Bush having his hair pouffed as he fidgeted in the Oval Office just before Wednesday night’s speech announcing the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Knight-Ridder newspapers reported he pumped his fist and said, “Feels good.”)

But who could blame the networks when they had been issued their marching orders from the Pentagon?

Just before 2pm, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a news conference where he lectured reporters on the TV coverage: “I heard various commentators expansively comparing what’s taking place in Iraq today to some of the more famous bombing campaigns of World War II.

“There is no comparison. The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict. They didn’t exist.”

Okay, but when is when?

“We’re having a conflict at a time in our history when we have 24-hours-a-day television, radio, media, Internet, and more people in the world have access to what is taking place,” Rumsfeld continued. “You couple that with the hundreds — literally hundreds of people in the free press — the international press, the press of the United States, from every aspect of the media — who have been offered and accepted an opportunity to join and be connected directly with practically every aspect of this campaign ... and I doubt that in a conflict of this type there’s ever been the degree of free press coverage as you are witnessing in this instance.”

Translation: Don’t mess with us or we’re court-martialing your embeds.

But not all was lost, thanks to an increasingly irate White House press corps.

Throughout most of the briefing that chief Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer held mid-afternoon, they hammered him about what the president was watching on TV. Had he seen the horrific images? Had he contemplated the effects of his decision to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction even as he was unloading megatons of the same on the country?

Try as they did though, the journalists could not penetrate Fleischer’s defenses.

“(T)he president deeply regrets that Saddam Hussein has put innocents in a place where their lives will be lost,” he said. “The other portion of what the president remembers when he thinks about the innocents are the 3,000 innocents who lost their lives on Sept. 11 in the United States. And if it were not for the worries that the president had about an Iraqi regime, in defiance of the United Nations, possessing weapons of mass destruction, which he fears could again be used against the United States, you might not see this developing.”

Just in case you were wondering.

Source: Toronto Star

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Western journalists killed by coalition forces in Iraq

By Matt Wells

Mar. 24— ITN, a British news agency, suspended its independent reporting teams in southern Iraq yesterday on confirmation that the veteran ITV news reporter Terry Lloyd had been killed under fire near Basra.

“ITN has received sufficient evidence to believe that ITV News correspondent Terry Lloyd was killed in an incident on the southern Iraq war front yesterday,” it said in a statement.

“We believe his body to be in Basra hospital, which is still under Iraqi control. Two members of his team — Fred Nerac and Hussein Osman — are still missing, and ITN so far has no information on their whereabouts or condition.”

Lloyd and his crew were working outside the supervision of the coalition forces and were apparently fired on by coalition tanks near Basra.

It was also confirmed that an Australian cameraman, Paul Moran, had been killed, and two other journalists were injured by a car bomb in northern Iraq, feeding the debate about the risks of sending reporters into Iraq without the protection of military escorts.

Stewart Purvis, chief executive and editor-in-chief of ITN, said it had stood down its second team of independent reporters in southern Iraq after Saturday’s incident: “The situation remains very grim.”

ITN’s statement said: “The ITN team came under fire, apparently from coalition forces, outside Basra. Iraqi ambulances took a number of dead and injured from the area into Basra and locally based journalists have given ITN information which leaves no doubt that Terry Lloyd’s body was among the dead.

“ITN has informed Terry Lloyd’s family.”

Lloyd was approaching Basra on Saturday with his cameramen, Fred Nerac, and Daniel Demoustier, and a local translator, Hussein Othman. Demoustier, who escaped, said they had been approached by Iraqi soldiers who appeared to want to surrender. Then their vehicles came under fire.

He told Barbara Jones of the Mail on Sunday, who rescued him, that they had been fired on by tanks from coalition forces at Iman Anas while they were trying to drive away from a group of Iraqi soldiers.

“Immediately the allied tanks started heavy firing directly at us. Rounds were coming straight at the Jeep, smashing the windows and puncturing holes in the bodywork,” he was quoted as saying.

“Then the whole car was on fire. We were enveloped in flames. It was terrifying. I’m so angry that we were fired on by the allies. The Iraqis must have been their real target but I’m sure they were surrendering, and anyway, they were all dead within minutes.”

Demoustier said he had tried to break cover and join an Iraqi farming family who were walking down the road with a white flag. But he was forced to retreat to the ditch when machine guns began to fire again.

“I crouched there longing to know where my teammates were. It was impossible to go and find them.”

Purvis said ITN had decided to sanction independent teams because of its experience in the last Gulf conflict.

“People who were embedded were not able to file any meaningful reports,” he said. “The fact is in Gulf War I, the majority of detailed and accurate reports was done from people on their own.

“Terry was brave, he was determined, and he was safety conscious. He was a lovely guy.”

David Mannion, editor of ITV News, said: “Terry’s record as an outstanding journalist speaks for itself. He was my oldest, dearest friend, but I am sustained that he died doing what he did best, at the peak of his powers and at a time of his life when he was personally and professionally the happiest I have seen him.”

Lloyd, 51, began as a reporter for Central Television in 1983, in the East Midlands, before moving to ITN in London. He was the first reporter to go to Halabja after Saddam Hussein attacked with chemicals in 1988, killing 5,000 Kurds. He reported from Kosovo, Bosnia and Yugoslavia, and also covered sporting events, including the Olympics and World Cup. He is survived by his wife Lynn and children Chelsey, 20, and Oliver, 11.

Source: Guardian (UK)

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