Posted on 09/28/2005 7:09:27 AM PDT by Grendel9
28 September 2005
LONDON - The conduct of US troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.
In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said US forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate.
The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of US troops with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.
Schlesinger referred to “a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq.”
He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues ”in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the US forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law”.
US forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on Aug. 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military say the soldiers were justified in opening fire.
Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper.
”The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists’ abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall,” Schlesinger wrote.
“By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the US forces are unduly preventing US citizens from receiving information...and undermining the very freedoms the US says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits US lives and US dollars,” the letter said.
“Spiraling out of control”
Schlesinger said the US military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.
Schlesinger said Reuters and other reputable international news organisations were concerned by the “sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by US forces”.
He said most of these detentions had been prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as possessing photographs and video of insurgents, whichUS soldiers assumed showed sympathy with the insurgency.
In most cases the journalists were held for long periods at Abu Ghraib or Camp Bucca prisons before being released without charge.
At least four journalists working for international media are currently being held without charge or legal representation in Iraq. They include two cameramen working for Reuters and a freelance reporter who sometimes works for the agency.
A cameraman working for the US network CBS has been detained since April despite an Iraqi court saying his case does not justify prosecution. Iraq’s justice minister has criticised the system of military detentions without charge.
Schlesinger’s letter said: “It appears as though the US forces in Iraq either completely misunderstand the role of professional journalists or do not know how to deal with journalists in a conflict zone, or both.”
Reuters and other media organisations in Iraq had repeatedly tried to hold a dialogue with the Pentagon to establish appropriate guidelines on how to safeguard journalists. These efforts had failed “and the situation is now spiraling out of control”, Schlesinger said.
He asked Warner to question Rumsfeld specifically about the rules of engagement towards professional journalists, the failure to hold independent investigations into shooting incidents and to ask what was the guidance to US forces on how to distinguish legitimate journalists from insurgents.
Oh, and what's this "Khaleej Times"? Link?
And what is going to prevent Iraqi's from shooting them as traitors to their cause for freedom?
Also, the journalists want to hang out with terrorists because the terrorists know when and where the news is going to happen. Isn't it amazing that the journalists are at most major bombings near the very beginning. We were suspicious when Al-Jezeera was there thinking they were in collusion w/the enemy and I don't know how we can think anything less of these journalists.
It’s too late to do that in Iraq, but not too late to impede the progress of propagandists. Killing them is not an option, but refusing to make special no-fire zones so they travel unimpeded is justified.
How about this for guidance?
Anyone accompanying "insurgents", by Geneva Convention definition, is an enemy combatant.
LOL. Need to keep the population of excess, disease-ridden Leftists down.
Michael Yon doesn't seem to have any problem getting good stories...
Absolutely.
And I suppose that if Reuters wanted to follow a Jeffrey Dahmer-style killer as he raped and murdered his victims, they think they would be entitled to do that. In my mind, they are accessories to murder.
Michael Yon is a real reporter and a real American, not a shill for terrorists waiting at the hotel bar for the insurgents the news agency hired yesterday to return with a 'story'.
I think that such things have happened. There have been times when a journalist could have intervened to stop a crime and didn't so they could have a good story.
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