Why Most Embeds Don't Tell All

By: Greg Mitchell Has it really been two full years since the run-up to the Iraq war? Time, and a lot of hope, has flown. Who expected us to be bogged down there two years later? Certainly not the president, his Pentagon chief, nor, I suspect, most editors and war correspondents.

Yet here we are, in January 2005, with dozens of embeds and other reporters heading back to Baghdad in another kind of run-up: this time to the national (or at least regional) elections. On Wednesday, I wrote about one of the current embeds, Mike Francis of The Oregonian in Portland, who is shipping out today. But the question remains: What is the relationship between excellent reporters like Francis and a full picture of what?s really going on in Iraq?

An article written by another embed this week quotes an unnamed Marine lieutenant in Ramadi: ?If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them. It?s kind of a shame, because it means we?ve killed a lot of innocent people.? This came from a British reporter, traveling with American forces, writing for the respected magazine The Economist. Few American embeds have passed along a quote like that, and I wonder why.

In another passage, the Economist embed observes that bystanders to an ambush are liable to be killed by Marines, who sometimes hide near the body of a dead insurgent and kill whoever comes to collect it. According to that same Marine lieutenant, commenting on the general situation in Iraq: ?It gets to the point where you can?t wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody. It gets to the point where you don?t mind the bad stuff you do.?

The embed (whose work, like most in the magazine, appears without a byline) points out that the Americans are superb fighting machines, but at peacekeeping or policing ?they are often inept.? He mentions an 18-year-old Texan in Mosul who, confronted by jeering school kids, shot canisters of buckshot at them, then explained: ?It?s not good, dude, it could be fatal, but you gotta do it.?

Then there are the soldiers who seem to enjoy kicking down doors and calling the Iraqi women they find "Bitch."

The question is: Do American soldiers only talk and act like this around foreign journalists, or are our embeds only telling half the story?

Since the beginning of the embed saga, E&P has highlighted the many benefits and serious drawbacks of the program. As expected, the bunking-down-with-the-troops concept has led to millions of words of extraordinary journalism, but also, most likely, millions of valuable words that never got written. Some embeds (including Mike Francis) admit that punches get pulled, either because of potential or actual complaints from the military or out of concern for their new buddies among the troops.

As I?ve observed, one usually has to look abroad, or to non-embeds, for eyewitness accounts of American boys behaving badly. (Or sometimes, as we?ve learned, photos emerge.) Yesterday, I hailed a Jan. 3 piece by embed Amy Schlesing of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which examined the rarely explored area of drug and alcohol abuse among U.S. soldiers, including some who go on drunken joyrides in humvees through the streets of Baghdad. But not even in that piece did any Iraqi civilians get shot up or verbally abused.

When I asked Mike Francis about this on Tuesday he said he continually had to guard against getting ?too close? to the soldiers who protected him, but he admitted this was almost impossible. He had it easier than most, however, because on his previous tour last summer ?the honest truth is, I didn?t see a lot that would reflect badly on the men I was with," he told me. "I did see one guy manhandle a kid, but it was over quickly, and I didn?t see it again....I'm pleased that I had the luxury of covering guys who seem to be wearing white hats." His National Guard unit even intervened in a widely-publicized case when it tried to halt Iraqis from abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Francis may very well be telling the truth about only observing one bad actor, but he only traveled with his unit for a month, and it was far from the most combat-active time. While his article on the heroic Americans who intervened in the Iraqi abuse episode was hailed back home, he also got a taste of what happens when you go off the reservation, after he wrote about the high rate of casualties among Oregon?s guard units. Then he got a lot of heat from soldiers? families and other readers, asserting that he was ?against the administration and against the troops.?

His explanation: ?Some people see through a small prism.? But do embeds self-censor what they observe through their own prism?

I'm reminded of a column I wrote in November, during the uproar over NBC camerman Kevin Sites filming a U.S. marine shooting an injured Iraqi insurgent. Darrin Mortenson, a former embed for the North County Times in California, had the temerity to defend Sites in his newspaper. For this he received e-mails from locals with messages like, "Go back to Iraq with a target on your back" and "I hope they take your head."

In our chat this week, Mike Francis mentioned that he had ?blogged? something recently, so I went to his newspaper?s Web site and found a running commentary, which goes back months, supplied by the paper?s handful of past and present embeds.

It?s clearly directed at average readers but also, more pointedly, at those close to the state?s many guardsmen serving in Iraq. In a tone that wavers from neutral to rah-rah (and certainly never critical of U.S. actions), it includes entries such as ?Happy Birthday to Sgt. Brian Hambright from wife Angie and kids Justin and Maddi? and a happy anniversary to a certain Spc. from another wife, ?who promises to make up for lost time when he comes home."

Many embeds elsewhere maintain similar journals or serve as regular conduits, off the page, between families and soldiers. It?s a nice service to perform, but tightening this kind of personal bond hampers honest reporting already compromised by military sanctions and the relationships formed with the soldiers in the field.

In fact, the most recent entry on the blog reveals that the paper's embeds are well aware that the soldiers ?frankly resent? negative or "bloody" stories from Iraq that appear in the media. The journos admit it ?colors our relationship with the military and with family members, not to mention some passionate, unaffiliated readers.?

Equally revealing in the blog was a commentary on this week?s Economist article. Francis had told me that he found that piece compelling, adding that the reporter "really nailed it," but in his blog entry (for a quite different audience) he softened its vivid details, saying that it simply described ?some sometimes-tragic cultural misunderstandings.?

So much for the buckshot aimed at kids and the killing of ?a lot of innocent people.?

NEXT WEEK, Part III: More thoughts on embeds.