In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
All who argue in favor what we as a country do and to whom we do it should read these uncensored stories of the war.
"I was so surprised because in Baghdad we thought we were in danger from the Iraqis. And it was a shock that the Americans shot against journalists, against freedom of the press. And I think they wanted to do it like that. They wanted to shoot against the press to say, we are in Baghdad now and everything is possible so be careful." -- Caroline Sinz, reporter, FR3
"I didn't want that piece of tape to end up on the trash heap of history. And through some coaxing on my part, we showed some of the tape, which included badly burned and blown up bodies. So often we don't show those things on television. But I remember saying that if it wasn't appropriate for broadcast at that time of day then we shouldn't be fighting wars at that time of day. Not to show it is a lie." -- Craig White, cameraman, NBC
Graham was there to meet some of the journalists who had been embedded with the troops on the way to Baghdad. He saw that some them had developed a very close relationship with the marines they were traveling with. "There were some people who were just stoked to be with the marines, this was some kind of childhood fantasy. They loved watching the Americans kick some Iraqi ass and were completely into this sort of hoo ha, marine mind set. And others were sort of indifferent. . . . It turned out to be a more dangerous job in a lot of ways. And it turned out to be pretty interesting, but at the same time it didn't sound like journalism. It sounded a lot like tourism with the army." -- Patrick Graham, freelance reporter
"Pictures of dead soldiers are terrible for morale. I decided that I had to move this picture to my editors because this is the reality, this is what is happening out here. If people back home can't look at this photograph and think of Larry Brown every time they think of what it took to take Saddam Hussein out of power, then we shouldn't be here. As it turns out, the military had their own thoughts about what that picture says." The army was upset. They claimed the picture was disrespectful to Larry Brown and to his family. One of the senior leaders on the ground voiced his opinion. "He said, 'wouldn't it have been much better, you could show that same idea of loss, with a flag draped coffin coming back from Andrew's Air Force Base'? And I thought to myself, it's not the same thing. It's the visceral reaction that people have and this is the power of the photograph. . . . My bosses were very upset. They fought very hard to get this photograph out there and a lot of compromises had to be made. From what I heard the Chief of Staff of the Army was very, very upset with us for publishing that photograph. . . . I've seen people at the lowest point of their lives. I've seen people with no lives, I've seen dead people and you have to come back. And every night when I was out in the field, I would look at a photograph of my daughter and she reminded me of the civility that we exist in and I would wish that everybody in the world could have that. I don't know why people have to die." -- Rob Curtis, photographer, Army Times
"The Iraqis who had been defending that stretch of road were roasted alive. I couldn't see them but I could smell them and it's the most sickening smell you'll ever smell in your life and it stayed in your clothes for days. In the day light you saw there were just skeletons, burned, macabre looking figures on the ground like pieces of charcoal. . . . I remember looking at them and thinking what a waste. You're somebody's husband, your somebody's father, you're somebody's son and now you're dead. You're out here in nowhere, we're not going to bury you and wild animals will eat your corpse. No one is going to know how you died, where you died, you just simply vanished off the planet." -- Ross Simpson, reporter, Associated Press Radio
Nakhoul was about to become part of the story herself. She was with her crew on the 15th floor balcony of the Palestine Hotel the morning it was struck by shells from an American tank. "I went to the balcony and our cameraman gave me his camera because I was looking to see close up. The photographer told me 'Samia, look.' There was an orange glow in the sky and we looked left for a second. This is the one that exploded in our office. I felt a lid of fire hit my head and we're all on the floor screaming and shouting in pain." Shrapnel from the bomb pierced through the Reuters room on the 15th floor. Nakhoul suffered brain injuries and some of her colleagues were seriously wounded. But tragically her cameraman, Taras Protsyuk was killed. "The minute I knew that Taras died for me life would never be the same. We were all waiting for the end of the war and he'd tell me about his son. He had a wife and he was young, he's full of life. It told me that life can change in one second." Nakhoul blames the American military for the attack. She says that the whole world knew that there were hundreds of journalists based at the Palestine hotel that day. "The main thing that I still get angry about - I was at the office. I wasn't on the street that day because I decided that we couldn't get into the street. It was like somebody stabbed you in the back." -- Samia Nakhoul, Gulf Bureau Chief, Reuters
"Wars are fought by people, they're not fought by machines. There's a chain of command and there are people all along that chain with a wide contrast of characters. There were all different kinds of people and that's what I think tells the story of war." He was on foot patrol with the troops when they came across an Iraqi trench. The bodies of the Iraqi soldiers that had been killed during the previous nights shelling where still in their positions. "That's when I saw what I thought was a very important picture, which was white flags protruding from the trenches. It would suggest that they were trying to surrender. There are 2 British soldiers looking down at the bodies and I think the picture tells a story." -- Steven Hird, photographer, Reuters
Branigin was listening on a radio headset when his unit made a tragic error in judgment. As an old Land Rover approached a nearby checkpoint, a warning shot was fired. But the vehicle didn't stop. "I heard a rapid succession of half a dozen 25 mm cannon rounds from one of the Bradley's. They just blew this vehicle away. The company commander looking through his binoculars shouted at the platoon leader, 'you just killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough.' He was really outraged and it was clear at this time that the platoon was distracted." 10 civilian Iraqis were instantly killed - including 5 young children. It was a tragic incident that was widely reported in the western media. It was one of the darkest moments for the American military. Branigin sees the story it as proof that the embedded process during the war worked. "I think they were pretty clear that there would be good times and bad times - this is what they said. I took them at their work so I didn't have any compunction about not reported what happened. They understood that it was a tragedy that happened and that I just had to tell it like it happened." -- William Branigan, reporter, Washington Post
That's our game plan, folks. Get used to it, because this is what we'll be doing over there for the next 20 years. There's a pattern to the madness of conquest, and it neither begins nor ends with Iraq.
- Michael 3:34 PM - [PermaLink] -
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