[A-List] US news media: embedding in Iraq

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The Pentagon and the embedded 'truth'
By Ron Synovitz
Asia Times, March 13 2003

KUWAIT CITY - Reporters who covered the last Gulf War often complain that
press controls under the Pentagon's 1991 "pool reporting" system were overly
restrictive.

Under that pool system, small teams of journalists were escorted by US
military officials on short trips to witness specific military operations.
Usually, the teams consisted of one television camera crew, a single
newspaper reporter, a radio reporter and a photographer. When the team
finished their escorted trip, they would return to the other journalists in
the pool and were required to share their work with those who remained
behind.

Bill Gasperini, a correspondent now working in Kuwait for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, was a pool reporter in 1991 for CBS radio. He says
that he appreciated being allowed to watch some operations by the US Navy
and the Marines Corps. But he says many pool reporters found the experience
to be a frustrating one:

"That was a way for the military both to cut down the number of journalists
that would go to a particular place, as well as to be able censor,
basically, or to moderate, what we were saying for military [secrecy]
reasons," Gasperini said. "A lot of people found that system extremely
frustrating because they just couldn't get out - especially a lot of the
writers who were not with the US or the British [press] or the other lead
countries [in the 1991 Gulf War coalition.]"

Today in Kuwait, the Pentagon is launching a new experiment in relations
between media and the military. The process is called "embedding". Instead
of being sequestered from the battlefield in a pool, reporters are being
assigned to specific military units where they will live and work beside the
same soldiers for the duration of any war against Iraq - or until they
choose to pull out of the program.

Major General Buford Blount III, the commander of the US Army's Third
Infantry Division, has met with the journalists who are embedding with his
soldiers, including RFE/RL's correspondent in Kuwait.

Blount welcomed journalists into the program: "This is going to be new for
us - and I think new for you, too. The embedding process has got top
priority of the army to make it work." The general says the embedding
process is an attempt to get reporters to "tell the army story" more
accurately by allowing them to share the experience of rank-and-file
soldiers in the field.

He says his main request from reporters is that they simply tell the truth
about what they see: "You were not happy with coverage in the past, and we
were not happy either. Over the years, I guess stemming from Vietnam, there
has been a gradual mistrust that had developed between the media and the
army. And we're trying to stamp that out. We've got a younger generation of
officers who don't have that stigma with them. And so we're going to try to
embed and open up. And we're going to make it work. You know, we'll have
some bumps, but we'll work through it."

Colonel Rick Thomas, the chief US public affairs officer in Kuwait, told
RFE/RL that the journalists who are being allowed to link up with US troops
include reporters from many countries - including Germany, France, Russia,
China and even some Arab journalists from the Qatar-based al-Jazeera
satellite television network.

Thomas says that with more than 500 embedded journalists spread across the
battlefields and rear echelons of a possible war against Iraq, he does not
think it is logistically possible for military censors to review reporters'
material before they send it to their editors: "There will be no public
affairs officer out there who is going to review or censor anything. And
there is no potential book author out there who is going to be able to say
that Colonel Rick Thomas or any of my staff slowed down the process of
transmitting [news stories]."

Instead, Thomas says embedding will rely upon an honor system - with
journalists promising not to report certain categories of information that
could help Iraqi forces understand how, when, and where US forces plan to
attack: "You will sign ground rules before going out there saying you
understand that you will not transmit this type of information. And by
signing those ground rules, I'm going to take you at your word that you will
abide by it. If I find out that you did not abide by your word, then I'll
bring you back to Kuwait City and send some other news organization in your
stead."

In those ground rules, reporters must agree to honor news embargoes that may
be imposed to protect operational security. An embargo means that no reports
can be filed about a specific military operation before it occurs, or while
it is under way. The embargoes will remain in effect until US military
officials determine that the threat of compromising operational security has
passed.

Only approximate figures will be allowed to be reported about the strength
of US troops and their allies, as well as casualties. Information that
cannot be reported - on grounds that it would jeopardize operations and
endanger the lives of troops - include specific troop deployments or numbers
of aircraft, tanks, artillery, landing craft, radar units and trucks.

The names of military installations or specific geographic locations of
military units in the Gulf region also cannot be reported unless
specifically released by the US Department of Defense. News and images that
identify or include identifiable features of troop locations also are not
authorized for release.

Also, reporters are not allowed to disclose information about the
effectiveness of enemy attacks, camouflage, deception, targeting,
intelligence collection or security. Photographers and television cameramen
also will only be allowed to record images of dead US soldiers if the images
do not show their faces or name tags. In compliance with the Geneva
Convention, no photographs, video footage or interviews of Iraqi prisoners
of war is allowed.

The US military is asking all embedded reporters to only take what equipment
they can carry with them. The only equipment being issued to a reporter by
the Pentagon is a gas mask and a so-called "NBC suit", which is designed to
give protection from nuclear fallout or from chemical and biological
attacks.

Thomas says that reporters will have to conduct their work in a way that
doesn't hamper the efforts of US troops: "We're telling you to bring a
satellite dish to the battlefield. Bring a video phone to the battlefield.
Bring your laptop computer with an ability to transmit back to the rear. And
when we pull over to the side, transmit your product."

Despite the unprecedented opportunity for news coverage that the embedding
process could allow, former Gulf War pool reporter Gasperini says he and
many other journalists are not going to take up the Pentagon's offer to live
and work beside the U.S. soldiers: "This time, I'm not quite sure how this
embed system will work. For large [news] organizations that have many
different people, they can have someone who is with different individual
units. But you always have to have someone who is looking at the big
picture. And in our case, my company decided not to embed because they
thought, well, you can end up with a unit somewhere and lose sight of the
big picture. And you essentially become useless once certain events
transpire elsewhere. And so what we're going to do is to cover the big
picture as best we can by following the troops - assuming there is a war -
into Iraq."

Looking back on his experience of 12 years ago, Gasperini admits that
information which was cut from his reports by military censors during the
last Gulf War sometimes was strategically significant. He agrees that the US
military has the right to prevent security leaks that could endanger the
lives of US soldiers.

Copyright (c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20036