No longer shielded
By Iason Athanasiadis Posted Jul 1 2004
A reporter does a stand-up piece in front of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The Palestine is a popular base for journalists because of its high level of security.
Journalists in post-Saddam Iraq are using an innovative array of high- and low-tech stratagems in their bid to stay alive while on the job. From hiring former special forces men as security guards to traveling in battered Opels bedecked with curtains that shield their identity from the prying eyes of Iraqi opposition fighters, media workers in Iraq know that their press cards are no longer the shields they once were.
When news broke that U.S. forces had captured Saddam Hussein, Western journalists in Iraq knew they were covering one of the biggest stories of the decade. The question was how to sate the thirst for coverage when the U.S. occupation authorities were releasing little more than terse confirmation of the arrest.
Harry de Quetteville, the London Telegraph's Baghdad correspondent, made a snap judgment to visit the former dictator's hometown, Tikrit, and gauge the mood in Iraq 's most pro-Saddam city. Rumors that the road heading north from Baghdad was unsafe because of revengeful Saddam loyalists did not deter de Quetteville. He hired a driver and headed through the notorious Sunni Triangle.
“My normal driver was working with another journalist, so I took a 21-year-old guy that day,” says de Quetteville, who is based in Athens.
Their black BMW was hardly out of Baghdad before another car aggressively swerved past. De Quetteville's annoyed driver revved the engine, overtook the other car and – with the vehicles level and the offending driver's attention secured – dipped his shoulder as if reaching for a gun.
“It was a mind-numbingly dumb thing to do, especially as my driver didn't have a gun,” says de Quetteville. “As soon as I realized what he'd done, I screamed at him. When we got back to Baghdad, I fired him.
“He thought it was cool; I thought it was incredibly stupid and dangerous. And that's the problem with Iraq – you only have one chance to be stupid.”
Life-and-death choices
For journalists in Baghdad , the holy trinity of whom they employ, how they get around and the route they take to a story is potentially a set of life-or-death choices.
Militants target GMCs and Humvees, causing the low-profile Opels to be increasingly popular. Armored GMCs are an option, but they cost US$150,000 each.
“The Iraq story is not losing prominence,” says Michael MacAuliffe, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) correspondent who was recently in Baghdad. “A lot of news organizations began realizing a few months ago that Iraq is going to continue to be a major story for at least another year, maybe two. Now everyone's trying to figure out how they're going to be able to maintain coverage, do it safely and somehow manage to afford it.”
Iraq is far from becoming safer; the growing prevalence of a hostile local population is only part of the story. With a fatigued U.S. Army coming under attack on a daily basis, trigger-happy American soldiers have been responsible for the deaths of Iraqi and foreign journalists.
“The media are up against a severe threat from coalition forces,” says Paul Rees, the director of Centurion Risk Services, a company that provides security for networks such as the BBC. “Utmost caution is needed when approaching them due to the fact that the experienced war veterans you had during the war have been pulled since President Bush declared major fighting to be over. Now, a lot of the forces deployed there are what we call weekend soldiers, part-timers who are jumpy and on edge, especially when they're patrolling.”
Reuters' loss of Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana and Ukrainian journalist Taras Protsyuk to U.S. fire has prompted strong criticism from its management.
“Taras' death was avoidable, as was that of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, who was shot in Iraq last August,” says Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger. Taras was killed in the Palestine Hotel, which was hit by the U.S. forces the day before Baghdad fell.
“It is in their memory that we are pushing for changes in the way U.S. soldiers interact with journalists. The sad truth is that the safety of journalists in Iraq has not improved. In fact, it has deteriorated considerably. This cannot continue, and we urge the Pentagon to address this by immediately implementing the recommendations it has made to improve the safety of journalists. We cannot afford to wait until another tragedy happens,” Schlesinger says.
Casualties mounting
But casualties in Iraq have been mounting. In January, a rust-colored Opel sidled up to a two-vehicle CNN convoy returning to Baghdad . Without warning, a gunman appeared through the sunroof and opened fire on them.
Two CNN employees were killed instantly, and one cameraman was wounded. The causalities sparked a safety review at CNN headquarters in Atlanta amid charges that security had been lax that day.
“I don't think anyone plans ahead too much,” says de Quetteville. “What can you do? You wake up in the morning, decide what's a good story to do and then do it, hoping someone doesn't shoot you along the way.”
But waking up is never the starting point in Baghdad. Journalists and their employers weigh carefully whether to base their operations in Baghdad's highly guarded five-star hotels or privately run villas.
“If you're in a big news agency, you go for the Palestine or Sheraton,” says one AP journalist who was in Baghdad earlier this year.
Hundreds of journalists, including those who work for Fox TV, AP, CNN and Reuters, all stay in the Palestine Hotel.
“The benefit of the big hotels is the huge security around the perimeter, but it leaves you open to mortar attacks,” he says. “Journalists here jokingly refer to them as the twin towers of Baghdad.”
Freelancers suspected
But five-star hotels and safe houses operated by security companies aren't options for freelance journalists with tight budgets and no support networks. Nir Rosen is a freelancer who has been living in Iraq since April of last year. He finds Baghdad an increasingly expensive and dangerous city. Rosen speaks fluent Arabic and passes as an Iraqi, but he admits, “I've just been lucky until now.”
“I take local taxis and have Iraqi friends drive me around,” he wrote in an e-mail interview from Baghdad. “I take no precautions, and that's why I have almost been killed many times, by Americans and Iraqis.”
Rosen is one of a rare group of multicultural freelancers who walk a high-stakes tightrope between East and West. Their American education and upbringing allow them access to the occupation authorities without pigeonholing them among the locals as being Westerners. The downside: These freelancers are suspects to both sides.
“As a freelancer, I have no safety net, no security,” says Rosen.
“Iraqis suspect every journalist of being a spy. They also resent journalists for being intrusive parasites, violating their privacy, rushing with their cameras to film every tragedy. Many journalists are attacked and threatened. It's a very unfriendly environment.”
Western journalists: a target
As British freelance cameraman Richard Wilde found out last summer, something as innocent as a mistaken identity can spell disaster. Wilde was killed in a crowded Baghdad street a few days after his arrival – moments after he stepped away from speaking with American soldiers at a checkpoint.
Much of Wilde's undoing was that he was a tall, fair foreigner with the bearing of a soldier.
“Unfortunately, Western journalists are viewed as a target because the terrorists realize that the coalition has special forces out there who are not in uniform, and they're trying to find them,” says Rees. “Journalists can be prime suspects because they're out there, gathering intelligence or maybe even reporting pro-Western feeling.”
Arabic Media: different dangers
Although journalists with Arab and Western media cover the same stories in the same city, they might as well inhabit parallel worlds. Employees for Arabic media are more capable of blending into Iraqi society than tall, pale Westerners, but they face different dangers.
“We leave decisions to our people on the ground,” says Jihad Ballout, Al-Jazeera spokesman. “They can assess much better than anyone else what they can get away with. We trust them to do that; otherwise, they wouldn't be hired. We give them guidelines. On a very practical level, they're well versed with dealing with local society.”
Despite having its bureau bombed, a correspondent killed and staff regularly arrested by the U.S. Army, Al-Jazeera continues to maintain the biggest bureau of any Arabic news service in Baghdad . As the U.S. Army sought to pacify the restive town of Fallujah in April, Al-Jazeera was the only TV station broadcasting from inside the besieged city of 500,000.
“It's by design that we're there,” says Ballout, even as heavy fighting continues in Fallujah. “One of our very senior correspondents, Ahmed Mansour, was mandated to go down to Fallujah, so this shows how much we felt that it was important that we be on the ground.”
An AP journalist monitoring the fighting in Baghdad pointed out that most Western journalists covering the fighting were embedded with the Marines; those who had succeeded in entering the city alone “had horror stories to tell of being detained by the insurgents.”
“In a situation like Fallujah, if you're not an embed, you're game for both sides. When you are, you just have one enemy, and that's the insurgents.”
Ballout says that Al-Jazeera maintains an office in Fallujah, and its staff travels in vehicles clearly marked “press.'”
Ballout says Al-Jazeera offers its journalists the option of taking hostile environment training courses (HET) “but nothing beats experience in these issues. Because they're a part of the fabric of society – both Iraqi and pan-Arab – they know the areas of sensitivity and can navigate through a minefield better than the foreign media.”
Ultimately, no amount of preparation, suicide bomb barriers or armed guards can guarantee safety in Iraq.
“If there's an ambush, there's an ambush,” says Ballout. “Having more guards works for a building, but would it work for a car bomb? I don't think so.”
“If you're driving along a frontline area, and you stop at a patrol station to go into the restroom, you have to make sure that you're not surrounded by people,” says one CNN journalist. “You can't just stop for a cigarette break in the middle of Tikrit, acting as if you're on holiday in Bournemouth.”