War in Iraq
The Media War

Comment and analysis from Ottawa, Chennai, New Delhi, Doha, Sydney, London,
Canberra, Tehran, Ramallah, Beijing, Bangkok, and Jidda


         A bloodied camera at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Two
journalists were killed, and at least three others wounded, when a U.S.
tank fired at the hotel on April 8, 2003. The same day, U.S. air strikes
destroyed the Baghdad offices of Arab satellite channels Al-Jazeera and Abu
Dhabi TV, killing an Al-Jazeera correspondent (Photo: AFP). Ottawa The
Ottawa Citizen (conservative), April 7: Despite what may be the most
comprehensive, and expensive, effort to cover a war in history-and a long
period of preparation before hostilities began-we still have only a general
sen
se of what is happening in Iraq. We know the country is under intense
bombardment. The Americans and British appear to be "winning," although, as
New York Times writer R.W. Apple asked yesterday: "How and when will the
United States and its allies know they have won?" (When they find Saddam
Hussein's body, his identity confirmed by DNA testing, or when CNN
loses interest?). But despite endless interviews, crucial information
remains unavailable-such as the number of casualties on the Iraqi side.
Yesterday, a U.S.. briefer estimated as many as 2,000 Iraq soldiers were
killed in the most recent fighting, but it could be less, he said, or more.
As for civilian casualties, these first appeared to be "light.".Still,
thousands upon thousands of bombs have been dropped in Baghdad and environs
over 19 days. You'd think there would be heavy casualties.a lot more than
have been reported..One day we w
ill find out what is happening in Iraq-how
many people died, how the Iraqis feel about the invasion, how U.S. and
British troops got along, how successful U.S. military tactics were-but it
won't be because of technological advances in filing from the front.
Personally, I'm waiting for the book. -Susan Riley

Chennai The Hindu (centrist), April 6: As this analysis is being typed, the
U.S. Central Command headquarters is claiming that substantial numbers of
coalition troops are in the center of Baghdad. Simultaneously, Iraqi
television is broadcasting pictures of crowds cheering.in repeats of Saddam
Hussein's now famous walk in Baghdad, not far from where the coalition
forces are claimed to be positioned. It has never been easy to determine
whom to believe in the welter of claims and counter-claims made by the
coalition forces and by the Iraqi high command. If television as a medium
is itself the message C it has become one of disinformation..The coalition
has from the very beginning deliberately sought to create doubts about
Saddam Hussein's fate.. He has been, according to the coalition, dead,
wounded, believed dying, moved out of Iraq, lost control over the country,
and other such examples of imaginative intelligence, until the man boldly
walked his talk in front of cameras. That brought forth the equally amazing
flow of commentaries about someone impersonating Saddam Hussein. Even in
the face of observers and reporters in Baghdad who reported otherwise, the
anchors on Western channels always used the phrase, "assuming of course
that this was the real Saddam Hussein." The battles of Nassiriyah, Karbala,
and Najaf were likewise portrayed as won when the fact was otherwise. The
liberation of Basra was no different in fact and fiction..The smog of war
will darken the skies and confuse minds on both sides.

-V. R. Raghavan

New Delhi Outlook (independent weekly), April 14: I am witnessing the war as
everyone else is perhaps back home in India, piggy-riding the likes of CNN,
Fox, and so on..But a far greater help has been my new stint as a journalist
with Al-Jazeera. The Arabic satellite television channel has in the past
week kicked up as much heat and dust as has the actual war. For its no-
holds-barred reportage, mirroring the war in all its gore, the channel has
been in the news as much as Baghdad or Basra have been..But the offensive
against Al-Jazeera stinks, just as the unfair and unjust war does. And I am
as much outraged on seeing our Web site being hacked and paralyzed as
ordinary residents of Baghdad would expectedly be these days..The heavily
biased coverage of the war in the Western media and the targeting of Al-
Jazeera could only have stiffened the Arab feelings. The region is more or
less convinced
that the West, Bush, Blair and the media included, is
conspiring against them..So long as television channels broadcast images of
captured Iraqi soldiers being forced to kneel down and body-searched, it
was O.K. with the world. But near mayhem broke out the moment Al-Jazeera
telecast images of some captured British troops being interviewed. The
inherent duplicity hasn't been lost on the Arabs. -Ruben
Banerjee

Doha Al-Jazeera (international broadcaster), April 7: With the psychological
warfare campaign in full swing, the American press has been bombarded with
pro-coalition news that has later been proved to be false. U.S. media
outlets heavily reported on seemingly fabricated events, such as an
uprising in Basra, the discovery of an extensive chemical weapons factory,
the surrender of high-ranking officials and claims of prisoner executions,
all of which were officially disowned within days. Al-Jazeera 7s coverage of
the war, which featured Iraqi TV images of captured American soldiers, drew
scathing criticism from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
Secretary of State Colin Powell. Correspondents for Al-Jazeera were later
banished from the New York Stock Exchange, shot at while filming food
warehouses being shelled by British tanks in Basra, and chastised by an
American general during a press conference at a U.S. military base in
Qatar. -Habib Battah

Sydney The Sydney Morning Herald (centrist), April 7: People who remain to
be convinced that cross-media laws are important to maintaining the fabric
of our democracy need look no further than today's page one of The Daily
Telegraph.
"KILLING ROOM-Coalition forces reveal Saddam's torture terror" it screamed.
The first lines: "The depraved brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime was
revealed to the world yesterday in a series of horri
fic discoveries. As
U.S. forces intensified the battle for Baghdad last night, British allies
uncovered an enormous charnel house containing the remains of hundreds of
Saddam's torture victims." I saw the vision of the find on TV last night,
and noted the British officer's remark that it was unclear what the
building and its rows of simple coffins was all about. -Margo Kingston

London The Independent (liberal), April 8: This column is for the unsung
heroes of war journalism: the local drivers, fixers, and translators who
make it possible for correspondents from Western news organizations to gain
access and understanding they could not otherwise obtain. It is dedicated
to men such as Kamaran Abdurazaq Mohamed, the 25-year-old Kurdish
translator who was killed on Sunday while assisting the BBC's John
Simpson..They never get bylines, nor do they make appearances on screen.
Their assistance to Western
journalists can make them unpopular in their
home countries and attract unwanted attention to their families..To the
global travelers who fly in to add glamour to major crises, such people are
invaluable. They can translate documents and interviews. Their knowledge of
local geography enables them to reach sites the authorities prefer to keep
hidden. Their knowledge of local bureaucracy saves hours and sometimes
lives. But their employment is temporary, often informal and usually more
risky than the role played by those who hire them. -Tim Luckhurst

London The Times (conservative), April 8: Whatever else it may or not have
achieved, the second Gulf war has led to something that feels uncannily
like a truce between the politicians and the media. Of course, there has
been the odd "incident" here and there but, for the most part, the
notoriously difficult frontier dividing those who do the fighting from
those
 who merely report on it has been marked by an almost unprecedented
harmony. For this, the military deserves a good deal of the credit..Over
the past three weeks the dilemmas inherent in that position produced at
least one professional casualty in the person of NBC's Peter Arnett, whose
position as the CNN star of the first Gulf War did not save him from being
sacked by his new network. But that it is feasible to walk that particular
tightrope has been demonstrated, among others, by Lindsey Hil-sum, of
Channel 4 News. The great mystery of the war remains the falling out of the
Baghdad regime with the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, which, in return for
restrictions put on two of its correspondents, ceased "live" reporting from
the Iraqi capital last week. Perversely, by taking the action they did the
Baghdad authorities did Al-Jazeera a substantial favor-if only because they
appeared to confirm the network's reputati
on for objectivity at the moment
when it was, perhaps predictably, coming under increasing question
in both Britain and America. -Anthony Howard

London The Guardian (liberal), April 7: Please, just tell us what's going
on. Too few war reporters are simply bearing witness to events in
Iraq..There is no better, or sadder, way to chart the 19 days of this war
than through the columns Michael Kelly wrote for the Washington Post; for
Kelly, embedded with the U.S. 3rd Infantry, was no ordinary war
correspondent. He edited the National Journal and got sacked as too much of
a Clinton-basher. He edited the Atlantic Monthly and gave it a vivid,
inquiring edge. And then, at 46, he quit the world of editorial conferences
and boardroom bust-ups and went back to his first love, reporting-what he
called "bearing witness." He died on Friday, the first American reporting
victim of the war, killed Iraq Wi
nning the Peace Comment and analysis from
Taipei, London, Rawalpindi, Prague, Accra, Hong Kong, Paris, Madrid,
Beirut, Islamabad, Istanbul, New Delhi, Milan, Århus, Kuala Lumpur, and
Berlin
The Arab Press and the War in Iraq Extended excerpts from nine Arab
newspapers in Baghdad, London, Jerusalem, Dubai, Amman, Muscat, and  Kuwait
City

 As War Continues, Tensions Rise in Egypt Abdalla F. Hassan, Cairo, Egypt,
March 31, 2003

The Latin American and Canadian Press on the War in Iraq Comment and
analysis from newspapers in Toronto, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico
City, Santiago, Panama City, Lima, and Caracas

U.S. Troops Flatten 'Leadership Target' in Baghdad |Paul Koring, The Globe
and Mail (centrist), Toronto, Canada, April 8, 2003..

Blasts Hit Pakistani Pipelines | Zaffar Abbas, BBC (news agency), London,

England, April 8, 2003.

Baghdad: Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV Offices Destroyed in Air Raid | Al-
Jazeera (international broadcaster), Doha, Qatar, April 8, 2003.

Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV Cars Come under Fire | Gulf News (independent,
English-language), Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 8, 2003.

Bush and Blair: Iraqis to Run Own Affairs | Rashmee Z. Ahmed, The Times of
India (conservative), New Delhi, India, April 8, 2003.

Two More Die of SARS, Infections up | Bertha Henson, The Straits Times (pro-
government), Singapore, April 8, 2003. Russian Diplomats Leave Syria |
Interfax News Agency(pro-government), Moscow, Russia, April 8, 2003.

in a Humvee accident..It is, I think, a tribute to him, and something of a
reproach to the merchants of glory or gloom, that I shall miss his witness
through the days to come. -Peter Prest
on

Canberra The Canberra Times (centrist), April 5: Brave Private Jessica
Lynch, photogenic and daringly rescued from captivity in an Iraqi hospital,
shot and stabbed by Iraqi soldiers as she heroically fought to protect her
unit in an ambush. We told you the story, complete with photograph, on our
front page yesterday, and so did many other newspapers around the world.
Our source for the story was the Washington Post, which cited military
sources and Pentagon officials. Yesterday's Post reports, deep down in its
follow-up story, that Private Lynch was not shot or stabbed at all..We were
dudded, and probably not by the Washington Post, which, however, shows too
little consciousness of how it might have been used for disinformation or
propaganda. Like us, and like our other news services, its reporters have
to rely for some of their information on officials. Some of these are none
too scrupu
lous about making up facts where they serve some propaganda
purpose-of making America or the coalition look good, or the Saddam Hussein
regime look bad-or operate as disinformation against the Iraqi regime,
designed to mislead it about its locations, intentions, capabilities or
problems, to fill it with doubt or despondency, or to goad it into doing
something against its interests. Saddam Hussein, no doubt, does exactly the
same thing, though the consumer's guard against anything coming from
Baghdad is naturally far higher.

Tehran Aftab-e Yazd (reformist), April 5: They say professional media work
is like working in a morgue. Just as those washing corpses care little
whether the dead they are handling have gone to heaven or hell, media
workers too must concentrate on reporting the news and refrain from
revealing their own opinions. That is the theoretical model the media
should follow, and one to
 which almost all try and remain faithful. A look
at successful media would show evidence of this behavioral model. If CNN
becomes a leading news service, it is to a great extent because of this
characteristic, rather than the extensive resources, which numerous other
American and non-American media also have at their disposal. If the Al-
Jazeera network in Qatar has come a long way in such a short time, it is
because it has adopted this method, in spite of the pressures it faced at
the start from numerous regional, friendly, or "big-brother" states..Those
media that wish to beat CNN and Al-Jazeera at their game, but report a
retreat during a war with terms such as "forced to retreat," describing the
enemy's same move as a "tactical retreat," cannot expect to be considered
an impartial medium.

Ramallah Al-Ayyam (pro-Palestinian Authority), April 3: From the first day
of the aggressive wa
r on Iraq, the cameras were there, but they were
distributed among the opposing camps of the war. British, U.S., and
coalition countries' press became tools working according to military plans
and in parallel with them, covering up the crimes committed by the troops,
and in many cases participating in the falsification of facts and the
beautification of crimes..Among these journalists, there are dozens of
Israeli journalists and correspondents who entered Kuwait with the invading
forces, crossed the borders into Iraq, and then started to send their
reports to the Israeli media. They have entered using foreign passports
with prior coordination, and perhaps with the knowledge of the Kuwaiti
authorities. The correspondent of Israeli Jerusalem Channel 1 TV, Dan
Scemama, and the correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot,
Boaz Bismuth, who were expelled on charges of spying, reported some of the

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