Press Groups Blast Pentagon Report

By: Mark Fitzgerald Like the belief that the Iraq war was finished when statues of Saddam fell in Baghdad, the notion that embedding American journalists with U.S. forces would transform relations between the military and the media is foundering in the tense and often violent reality of the occupation.

Two recent incidents symbolize the mutual suspicion that increasingly is replacing empathy: the Aug. 17 death of Mazen Dana of Reuters, who was fatally shot by U.S. soldiers who apparently mistook his canvas-wrapped video camera for a grenade launcher; and the announcement by U.S. Central Command (Centcom) that its investigation had concluded that the April 8 tank attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad was "a proportionate and justifiably measured response" by U.S. forces. More than 100 journalists were staying at the hotel at the time of the shelling, which killed two journalists and wounded three others.

Aidan White, general secretary of the London-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), condemned the Centcom report, which remains classified, as a "cynical whitewash," and said in a statement that the killing of Dana was "more tragic evidence of what appears to be casual disregard of journalists' safety by military commanders."

International press-freedom groups say there have been other disturbing incidents by U.S. soldiers, who in recent weeks seized digital cameras from Turkish journalists and erased the images; beat and detained a cameraman for the Nippon Television Network in Japan; detained Al-Jazeera journalists, and ransacked the offices of a newspaper published by a Shiite Muslim party. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the incidents were part of what it called "the worsening attitude of American troops towards journalists in Iraq."

"We've documented a pattern of incidents in which journalists have been detained or roughed up," said Joel Campagna, Mideast program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

However, the groups stop short of accusing the military of targeting journalists, and they emphasize they understand the tensions troops face on the ground. Said Sarah DeJong, IFJ's human rights and safety officer: "A lot of the soldiers there are quite young and quite terrified. It's normal for them to treat just about everybody with a great deal of suspicion." The problem, she added, is that the military does not seem to be learning anything from these incidents, and, as with the Palestine Hotel report, appears to be justifying them.

Said CPJ's Campagna: "Clearly, Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist." One constant worry is the organized groups of bandits and thieves, who are not necessarily targeting journalists but who operate along routes reporters must often use.

Campagna wrote CPJ's independent report on the Palestine Hotel shelling, which concluded that attack was not deliberate, but was avoidable -- especially because commanders on the ground were aware it housed many journalists, but failed to tell the attackers. The Centcom summary of the report said troops "observed what they believed to be a enemy hunter/killer team on the balcony of a room." CPJ is asking the Pentagon to declassify the report, and in May filed Freedom of Information Act requests for information about the attacks. A Pentagon spokesman did not return a phone message from E&P seeking comment.