Journalists Die, Networks Lie...

Iraq is being 'liberated' while truth is incarcerated. Former BBC reporter Kate Adie warned thatnon-embedded journalists in Iraq could be Pentagon targets before the war began. She was right. 

Today, an American tank shell was fired at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel--temporary home of internationalreporters and film crews--causing casualties among those who bravely stayed in a war zone so that we couldknow.

Two cameramen – one employed by Reuters and the other working with Telecinco - were victims of the Pentagon’s version of ‘freedom’ during this attack.

Sky's David Chater said he saw the tank turn towards the hotel and spew out its deadly load. He wonders howindependent reporters (as opposed to embeds) can continue to do their jobs when such danger emanates fromtheir own side. Not from the Iraqi side but from 'our boys'.

That's the whole idea. Those people who are giving the orders to fire upon journalists want them to flee interror. We must not see the criminal acts yet to be perpetrated against the civilians of Baghdad. We have seentoo much already.

The Baghdad office of Al Jazeera, housed in a residential district, was hit too, reminiscent of Kabul. Thistime a journalist and a cameraman lost their lives. Al Jazeera's mistake was to have given the Pentagon itsoffice coordinates.

A further 'accident' on the same day resulted in a Reuters' vehicle being attacked, and another 'stray'bomb or missile 'coincidentally' destroyed the office of Abu Dhabi television. Its terrified employees contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross begging it to assist in extricating them from the battle zone. The Pentagon was informed but said there was nothing it could do except to advise the Abu Dhabi crew to keep their heads down. I am sure they found that very helpful.

Early on in this war, ITV's Terry Lloyd was allegedly killed by a U.S. bullet while two of his colleagueswent missing following the same incident. The Pentagon tells us that it is still investigating, yet, evenwhile their own employees fall, the Western television networks refuse to condemn this assault on the truth,making excuse after excuse about the 'fog of war'.

In a 'blue on blue' incident a 25-year-old BBC translator was killed in northern Iraq and a cameramanwounded in the head when a convoy of Kurdish fighters and American special forces was bombed by a US fighterjet.

But veteran BBC reporter John Simpson, who was slightly injured during the attack, calmly commented thatsuch things happen during conflict, and thanked the Americans travelling with them for their first aidcapabilities. How polite! "Your chappie who is probably rattling with 'go-pills' (amphetamines) has justkilled my friend but, hey, such things happen. Thanks for the bandages, by the way."

From the point of view of the Coalition of two and a bit, who repeat over and over again that 'every effortis being made to protect civilians', what shouldn't we know?

We should not have learned about soldiers who shoot first and ask questions later, as seven Iraqi women andchildren found to their cost as well as the drivers and passengers of numerous vehicles, erroneously mistakenfor suicide bombers.

We should not be apprised that the Coalition's boys and girls are dropping cluster bombs and firing depleteduranium tank shells, without any thought to how much misery these weapons of mass destruction will certainlycause in the future.

We should not have seen the British marines, who when arresting a middle-aged suspect, forced him to theground and repeatedly yanked off his kuffiyeh (Arab headdress). This was an appalling insult to thatman's dignity and his heritage, done without any respect to the traditions of the people Bush and Blair claimto befriend.

We should not have born witness to the way that prisoners were handcuffed and hooded by this"liberating army". There is a photograph doing the rounds of one of a hooded man cuddling histerrified infant behind coils of barbed wire. One can only wonder what that boy will think of his"liberators" when he grows up.

In Najaf, American soldiers headed towards the golden-domed Imam Ali Mosque, one of the most sacred Shiitesites, and were kept back by sheer people power. Hundreds of unarmed men steadfastly marched towards thosearmoured servants of the U.S. military machine shaking their fists in a rare display of courage.

The confused soldiers were ordered to step back... and smile. We were not told by our media of the braveryof those men defending an icon of their religion, only of the diplomacy of the American troops in retreating.

In Nassiriyah, an enraged middle-aged resident shouted 'they are molesting our women' with reference tobody searches being undertaken at checkpoints, and called Bush, Hussein and all Arab leaders"Liars". He then sobbed tears of frustration and humiliation. This emotive scene, which has causedoutrage in the Moslem world, was courtesy of Al Jazeera, Pentagon bad boy number one.

CNN, Fox News, NBC, the BBC and Sky News are trying to sell us an antiseptic war, one in which there are notorn and bleeding victims. In their war the enemy is destroyed in its thousands while the coalition suffersonly those losses inescapably witnessed by the cameras of independent journalists.

A BBC spokesman, when asked why the British network was portraying such a sterile conflict, said thatpeople with children wouldn't like to see such gory images coming into their living rooms. In other words,it's fine for those sensitive souls to support their nation's finest, but not to see the obscene results oftheir handiwork.

The Anglo-American media hasn't shrunk from distorting the truth and putting out disinformation in itsscrambling to prove which one of its outlets can serve as the most effective propaganda arm.

If the media comes across some bottles of liquid, these are painted as possible chemical weapons. Boxes ofwhite powder are turned into anthrax. A meat hook hangs from a ceiling and that room must have been a torturechamber. The finding of some 200 decomposed bodies in southern Iraq is touted as a sinister find.

Late on Saturday night, a Sky News anchor interviewed one of the inevitable "experts" about thediscovery of the makeshift morgue. "How can we know who these people are?" she asked. Thepathologist said that samples of DNA would have to be taken and dental records sought.

Did he imagine that these unfortunates were discovered near Harley Street instead of in the middle of adesert? Dental records indeed! We saw a British soldier flicking through a file on which was written"Iran" in Arabic and inside were photographs and names of the victims. Despite this evidence, Sky'ssouthern Iraq-based reporter hinted darkly that this discovery could only mean one thing.

What it did, in fact, mean was that Iran and Iraq had been in the process of exchanging corpses of soldierswho lost their lives during the Iran-Iraq war--now confirmed by state-run Tehran Radio. 

Murdoch's Sky News once again proved that the unrelenting vilification of the Iraqi regime is part of itsagenda with the facts not being allowed to get in the way of a good story. 

Have you noticed that even when the truth does come to light, the media rarely issues a retraction, leavingits audience forever in the dark, its views tainted by false facts and incriminating innuendo?

Meanwhile, Britain's Sun newspaper--a Murdoch-owned tabloid rag--puts the photograph of a dissentingBritish Member of Parliament on its front cover with the word 'Traitor' emblazoned on the page. It even wentas far as publishing his email and telephone number inciting its ignorant readership to tell the MP theirthoughts. The result was a barrage of insults and death threats forcing the paper's victim, George Galloway,to surround himself with bodyguards.

Al Jazeera has been accused of following an agenda too and this is why it has been evicted from the NewYork stock exchange, the victim of professional hackers, and has had to look for a new server for its website.

While it is true that Al Jazeera is certainly playing to the bias of its Arab audience, it does showgraphic videos, worth more than a million words. It didn't concoct those images of ashen-faced, lifelessbabies, victims of carpet bombs in Al Hilla or those heartrending scenes of the victims of man's inhumanity toman, filling the beds and covering the floors of Iraqi hospitals.

Iraqi television has an agenda too. It's called showing your side of the story against all odds. It madethe mistake of screening a downed Apache helicopter and was bombed. It later ran images of captured Americanservice personnel and dead British pilots and the Ministry of Information was promptly targeted.

Broadcasting out of the Palestine Hotel--temporary home of foreign journalists--Iraqi television stillwon't do as it's told. After it showed footage of a burning American vehicle, the coalition promptly unleasheda warning bomb just 100 yards from the hotel. According to a coalition spokesman pressure is being put onthose companies, which sell satellite time to Iraqi TV to desist.

As I write, the stubborn Baghdadi people have yet to welcome the liberating armies, with the exception ofaround 20 waving to U.S. tanks in front of a backdrop of scorched and half-demolished homes and shops on theoutskirts of their city. Great photo-op!

Another gem of Pentagon propaganda was the so-called 'rescue' of one of its female soldiers, the now famousJessica. They made it look like a re-run of Entebbe. The helicopter landed, the troops rushed out and aftercreating a diversion rushed into Jessica's hospital room before carrying her off to safety.

During their press briefings in Qatar and Washington they made no mention of the Iraqi doctor who had toldthem where she was. They did not say that the hospital had not been guarded and that Jessica had been welltreated and they did not dampen the rumours that she had been shot several times. It took her father to dothat. It would probably have suited the US administration better had she been tortured and raped.

And how the British press lapped up those photographs of U.S. servicemen lounging around one of Saddam'smany palaces taken by embedded reporters who ensured we knew that the Iraqi leader had gold taps on his bidetwhile his people starved. Couldn't we say the same about Buckingham Palace while children sleep in thedoorways of nearby Regent Street, or the White House while bag ladies doss out in cardboard boxes?

In Basra, the people have already been liberated and are celebrating their freedom by looting and stealingwhile British commanders look on saying that there is nothing they can do about such lawlessness. (I do hopeAthens will be freed soon. There's a gold bracelet in the window of a jewellery store at the end of my street,which would look great on my wrist).

Iraq's new interim rulers--led by Viceroy-Designate pro-Likud former U.S. General Jay Garner with links toSY Coleman, a company specialising in weapons guidance systems--are patiently awaiting their glorious destinyin a luxury Kuwaiti beach resort.

Fat-cat Iraqi exiles hope for some crumbs. Like Hamid Karzai before him, the normally well turned out AhmedChalabi head of the Iraqi National Congress has donned a uniform and headed off to northern Iraq to make hisvictorious entry into Baghdad like Hannibal without the elephant.

American oil companies wait for this war to receive a stamp of legality from the United Nations before theycan draw up lucrative contracts. U.S. companies look forward to being recipients of bounty from Iraq'sreconstruction and the Israelis hope for a long-awaited oil pipeline from northern Iraq to Haifa.

Evangelical Messianic Christians circle like soul-scalping vulture in Jordan until they can make theirvainglorious entry into Baghdad bearing bread and Bibles.

And the Iraqis? What do they get? Why! Liberation, of course. The Saddam regime is coming to an end. Thepro-Israel American neo-cons are about to take its place, while the Arab world shakes its collective head withdismay, and the media buries its dead.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs.