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Reporters in Iraq face danger on many fronts
Reuters, 09.25.03, 11:48 AM ET
By Andrew Gray
BAGHDAD, Sept 25 (Reuters) - From the day in July when a man
walked out of a crowd near a Baghdad museum and shot dead a
British television cameraman, foreign journalists in Iraq have
been wondering if they were all targets for postwar attacks.
Thursday morning's bomb blast at a hotel serving as the
bureau of U.S. television network NBC, which killed a Somali
guard, left little room for doubt.
It was the first attack on a building housing a media
company since the official end of major combat on May 1.
Reporters in Iraq are now at risk from guerrillas who see
the Western media as part of the U.S.-led occupation, as well as
from U.S. troops mistaking journalists for attackers and from
common criminals like bandits who roam some highways.
Anxiety began to rise after the July 5 killing of Richard
Wild, who had arrived in Iraq just a week before to work as a
freelance cameraman, although some suggested the 24-year-old
ex-soldier had been mistaken for a member of the U.S. military.
The bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad
the following month showed guerrillas would not limit their
attacks to the occupiers and prompted many news media to retreat
to hotels and offices behind concrete road blocks and barbed
wire.
"I get the strong feeling that we are a target," one British
television journalist said. "I think the people who are killing
American soldiers don't make any distinction between us and
combatants."
FRIENDLY MAJORITY
The tragedy is that Western reporters find the vast majority
of Iraqis to be friendly, talkative and hospitable -- even if
they have plenty of complaints to address to Western leaders.
"We are generally well received by the Iraqis," said Patrick
E. Tyler, Baghdad bureau chief for the New York Times. "But
we're taking all the prudent precautions we can think of."
The hostility of a radical minority and general lawlessness
have forced many journalists to think about security first and
the story second.
Angry crowds threatened and roughed up reporters after the
August 29 bombing in Najaf which killed a top Shi'ite cleric and
more than 80 other people. Several journalists also narrowly
escaped death in the bombing itself.
At least one reporter has also been beaten up in the town of
Falluja, a bastion of anti-Americanism west of Baghdad.
Jeremy Little, an Australian soundman with NBC, died on July
6 from wounds sustained in an ambush in Falluja. Little had been
with U.S. soldiers, who were the target of the attack. His death
made reporters warier of going on patrol with U.S. troops.
But before Thursday's blast at a hotel markedly less secure
than the fortified Sheraton and Palestine Hotels where most big
media companies are based, U.S. troops themselves had appeared
to pose the greatest threat to journalists in recent weeks.
A soldier shot dead Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana as he
filmed west of Baghdad on August 17. Other U.S. troops had given
him permission to film but the U.S. military said the soldier
thought Dana was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
During a firefight after they had come under attack last
week, U.S. soldiers shot up the car of an Associated Press
photographer while he and a colleague were inside. The pair were
also fired upon as they ran from the car but emerged unscathed.
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
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