US unveils new secret weapon

By Jamie Wilson

Baghdad, Iraq, Aug. 18— First they tried to bomb him, then they tried the offer of a reward. They even released images of what he might look like with no hair.

But now the US army would appear to be getting desperate with its latest ploy to catch Saddam Hussein: pictures of the elusive dictator as Hollywood sex goddess.

In a scheme likely to raise as many laughs among Iraq’s hardline Islamic clerics as Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, troops of the 4th Infantry brigade in Tikrit are planning to put up pictures around the town of Saddam’s face superimposed on the bodies of a busty Veronica Lake, a slinky Zsa Zsa Gabor, a grooving Elvis and British-born rocker Billy Idol.

The aim, apparently, is to so enrage Saddam’s followers that they will draw themselves out.

“We’re going to do something devious with these,” Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell told Reuters, referring to a range of spoof Saddam pictures taken from the internet site www.worth1000.com.

“Most of the locals will love ‘em and they’ll be laughing. But the bad guys are going to be upset, which will just make it easier for us to know who they are.”

Col. Russell, of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, told the news agency he hoped to have the posters slapped up on walls around Tikrit beginning today.

However his plans might be thwarted by superiors in Baghdad.

“I think a lot of local people might find that offensive,” a spokeswoman in Baghdad said. “I’m going to call them [the 4th ID] now and try and find out what’s going on.”

Source: Guardian (UK)

Japanese journalist outraged over beating
Victim detained, tied up: colleague

By Sean McIntyre

Aug. 2— A Japanese journalist who was manhandled by US troops in Iraq on July 27 is recovering from injuries sustained during the confrontation but remains outraged at the use of excessive force against him, said co-worker Mika Yamamoto.

Yamamoto and her colleague, Sato Kazutaka, were filming the aftermath of a US raid on a private residence in the Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour for a Japanese television company when US soldiers suddenly told her to stop filming.

“An American soldier twisted my arm behind my back and told me to show her some ID, but by the time I had managed to find it, the soldier said that I was too late,” Yamamoto wrote in an e-mail interview from Baghdad where she has resumed work.

“As the soldier began to lead me away, Kazutaka began to protest, and claimed that we had done nothing wrong by filming the scene and that this was an unreasonable reaction.

“When he said that,” Yamamoto wrote, “a nearby soldier began kicking him and then another four or five soldiers took him to the ground, removed the safeties from their weapons, aimed their guns at his head and continued to kick at him repeatedly.”

US troops then confiscated his camera as they tied his arms behind his back with wire and proceeded to detain him in a nearby military vehicle for about one hour, she said.

“They kept him until other foreign journalists began to appear on the scene,” Yamamoto wrote. “As soon as others started arriving, the soldiers’ attitude became far less aggressive, and they immediately began removing the wire from around Sato’s wrists.”

Sato sustained several cuts to his face and arms, and bruises on his back and stomach.

A spokesperson in Washington said he had no comment on the incident.

Several dozen Iraqi civilians gathered at the scene of the raid, Yamamoto wrote.

While most onlookers stood by anxiously, many were shouting that an entire family had been killed after US troops had opened fire on a nearby vehicle.

According to reports from Reuters, at least five civilians were killed during the raid that day on a home Saddam Hussein was thought to be visiting.

“The soldiers had set up a cordon across which journalists were not allowed to cross, and we began filming from behind the line. Even though we remained behind the line, soldiers continued ordering us to stop filming,” she said. “We continued out of a sense of duty and we had every right to be there.”

Yamamoto said that neither she nor Kazutaka had done anything wrong and were entitled, as journalists, to film what they saw.

Both Kazutaka and Yamamoto are members of The Japan Press, an independent group of freelance journalists who sell material to media organizations in Japan.

Kazutaka has more than 20 years of journalism experience including assignments in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq.

“US troops might have tried to conceal the deaths of civilians,” he told Japan Asahi News Service. “Violence against journalists means the obstruction of news gathering activities and suppresses speech.”

Yamamoto said the reaction of US troops may have been explained by their increasing nervousness stemming from the rising number of attacks on soldiers in Iraq.

Yamamoto added that Arab journalists working for news companies based in the Middle East are very often restricted from filming scenes.

Tariq Hassan-Gordon, program manager of Toronto-based Canadian Journalists for Free Expression had not read of the July 27 attack but said his organization was deeply concerned with the provisional government’s treatment of journalists in Iraq.

“There have been a lot of examples of journalists being mistreated by American forces and the situation is made worse because the post-Hussein Iraq is not yet a typical democratic process that we would expect in democratic countries,” he said.

The dangers faced by independent journalists in Iraq are especially high, and this situation undoubtedly affects the quality of journalism coming out of the country, Hassan-Gordon added.

Source: The Toronto Star

Cameraman shot dead by US troops

By Julia Day

Aug. 18— A Reuters TV cameraman has been shot dead by American troops in Iraq after they claim they mistook his camera for a grenade launcher.

Mazen Dana was killed on Sun., Aug. 17 while he was filming outside a Baghdad prison that was hit by a mortar attack six hours before which had left six prisoners dead and 60 others wounded.

The final footage Dana filmed was of two US tanks coming toward him. Two shots were fired, apparently from the tanks, and Dana fell to the ground. He was taken away by a US helicopter for treatment.

US military officials confirmed Dana was shot by American soldiers who saw him from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla. They thought his camera was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“This is clearly another tragic incident, it is extremely regrettable,” said central command spokesman Sargeant Major Lewis Matson.

But Dana’s driver, Munzer Abbas, claimed the soldiers knew he was a journalist.

“There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists. This was not an accident,” said Abbas.

“One of the soldiers started shouting at us, but when he knew we were journalists, he softened. One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.

“We saw a tank 50 meters away, I heard six shots and Mazen fell to the ground,” Abbas added.

Stephen Jukes, the global head of news at Reuters, paid tribute to Dana, who he said was one of the news agency’s most accomplished and dedicated journalists.

“Mazen was one of Reuters’ finest cameramen and we are devastated by his loss. He was a brave and an award-winning journalist who had worked in many of the world’s hotspots,” said Jukes.

“He was committed to covering the story wherever it was and he was an inspiration to friends and colleagues at Reuters and throughout the industry,” he added.

An outspoken critic of the Israeli government’s treatment of journalists, Dana, a Palestinian, was honored by the Committee to Protect Journalists with an International Press Freedom Award in November 2001 for his work covering conflict in his hometown of Hebron in the West Bank.

“Words and images are a public trust and for this reason I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships, even if it costs me my life,” Dana said after accepting the award.

His death brings to 17 the number of journalists killed in Iraq since the war started Mar. 20, including the veteran ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, who came under fire from coalition forces two days after war began.

Nineteen days later, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Spanish cameraman Jose Couso were killed when the Palestine Hotel, the main base for foreign journalists in Baghdad, was hit by US tank fire.

Dana had survived being shot at least three times in 2000 while covering the conflict in Palestine.

Source: Guardian (UK)