'Christian Science Monitor' Reporter Kicked Out of Unit

By: Joe Strupp Updated at 1:35 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

A Christian Science Monitor reporter, who had not been officially embedded but managed to hook up with a U.S. Marine unit south of Baghdad earlier this week, was kicked out of the unit and escorted by Marines out of Iraq after he reportedly revealed the unit's location during a television interview.

Philip Smucker, who joined the First Marine Division on Sunday along with Monitor photographer Andy Nelson, was interviewed on CNN early Wednesday morning and disclosed the approximate location of the unit, according to Monitor spokesman Jay Jostyn. He said the newspaper had not spoken with Smucker, who was being escorted back to the Kuwait border, but believed his comments had not been detrimental to the Marines.

"Given the fact that he was not embedded, he had not undergone the same sort of preparations that the other embedded reporters had gone through," Jostyn said, explaining why Smucker might have inadvertently broken the rules. "I'm not sure how soon it will be that we hear from him."

Smucker and Nelson were able to embed with the Marine unit after traveling from Kuwait City late Saturday night to the Iraq border in a Mitsubishi Pajero SUV that they purchased from a Kuwait used car lot for $4,500. In a Monitor story published Monday, Smucker, 41, described how the pair of journalists were welcomed into the Marine unit just before it crossed into Iraq and stayed with them over several hundred miles on the trek to Baghdad. Smucker was expelled while the unit was about 60 miles south of the Iraqi capital, Jostyn said.

The difficulties began after Smucker was interviewed at 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Wednesday on CNN, Jostyn said, and apparently revealed more information about the unit's location than the unit commander would have liked. He also gave a similar location description to National Public Radio, according to The Washington Post, which also reported that Marines searched some of his belongings prior to expelling him from the unit.

"My understanding of the facts at this point from the commander on the ground is that this reporter was reporting, in real time, positions, locations, and activities of units engaged in combat," Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said in a statement to the Monitor. "The commander felt it was necessary and appropriate to remove [Smucker] from his immediate battle space in order not to compromise his mission or endanger personnel of his unit."

Monitor Editor Paul Van Slambrouck defended Smucker's actions in a column slated to run in Friday's paper. "Smucker's work in the Monitor is not at issue, but we have read the transcript of the CNN interview and it does not appear to us that he disclosed anything that wasn't already widely available in maps and in US and British radio, newspaper, and television reports on that same newscycle," the column said. "Of course, the Pentagon has the final say in the field about any threat the information reported might pose. We are disappointed Smucker has been removed. He is an experienced war correspondent who understands the gravity of such situations and not one who would knowingly put U.S. troops -- and himself -- in jeopardy. Even during his short time in Iraq, he gave Monitor readers valuable insights into the campaign."

Smucker has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Cambodia for a variety of publications, including The Daily Telegraph of London, U.S. News and World Report, and The Washington Times, according to the Boston-based Monitor. Nelson remains with the Marine unit and is attempting to become officially embedded, Jostyn said. The Monitor, which hopes to reassign Smucker elsewhere in the region, has two other embedded reporters, but no other non-embeds, in the Persian Gulf.
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