Leave No Satellite Dish Unburned
Mar. 21st, 2003 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS IN IRAQ
10th March, 2003
by Fintan Dunne, Editor
http://www.GuluFuture.com
The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."The headline is a bit too sensationalistic. But ultimately, the best spin you can put on it is that, assuming the allegations are correct, the US Army is basically saying that if (a) you're broadcasting signals from Baghdad, we don't or can't distinguish between friend and foe and you're toast and (b) if you're in enemy areas we're bombing and get burned, sorry.
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."
"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."
Ms. Adie made the startling revelations during a discussion of media freedom issues in the likely upcoming war in Iraq. She also warned that the Pentagon is vetting journalists according to their stance on the war, and intends to take control of US journalists' satellite equipment --in order to control access to the airwaves.
Another guest on the show, war author Phillip Knightley, reported that the Pentagon has also threatened they: "may find it necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to report from the Iraqi side."
All of which does sound more than a little callous on first blush, but then again, I don't think the Pentagon is deliberately targetting reporters with munitions. Some part of me, however, wants to say that reporters who deliberately Lois Lane themselves in the line of duty know the risks.
What is sickening, though, is the idea that the Pentagon is vetting journalists and controlling access to the airwaves. It looks like it's going to be worse than the kind of press pool propaganda nonsense they did in 1991.