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August
1, 2003
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
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August
1, 2003
US
Moves to Close Down Al-Jazeera TV
Wolfowitz the
Censor
By ROBERT FISK
BAGHDAD.
Only a day after US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz claimed that the Arabic Al-Jazeera television channel
was "inciting violence" and "endangering the lives
of American troops" in Iraq, the station's Baghdad bureau
chief has written a scathing reply to the American administration,
complaining that in the past month the station's offices and
staff in Iraq "have been subject to strafing by gunfire,
death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions
and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers..."
The unprecedented dispute between an
Anglo-American occupation authority supposedly dedicated to "democracy"
in Iraq and an Arab station once praised by Washington for its
services to free speech in the Arab world comes at a time when
the US administration appears to be laying the ground work to
close down Al-Jazeera's operations in Iraq --along with those
of the Arabia channel --for alleged "incitement to  violence".
America's senior occupation proconsul
in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has officially stated that he would close
down newspapers or television stations guilty of "incitement
to violence" --without, of course, explaining exactly what
this phrase means.
Wolfowitz, a right-wing ideologue and
fervent supporter of Israel, is one of the cabal of advisers
who pushed the US administration into war with Iraq on the grounds
that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and that the
destruction of his regime would open the way to a new, democratic
Middle East. He used the equally right-wing and Murdoch-owned
Fox Channel to make his allegations against Al-Jazeera, many
of which are palpably false. He claimed, for example, that the
staff of Al-Jazeera "have a way when they want to cover
somebody favorably, including Saddam Hussein in the old days,
of slanting the news incredibly ... and now, the minute they
get something that they can use to spread hatred and violence
in Iraq, they're broadcasting it around."
In fact, as the station's Baghdad bureau
chief, Wadah Khanfar, points out in his letter --addressed to
Bremer, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent
--"Al-Jazeera did not cover Saddam Hussein favorably. Both
Yasser Abu Hilala (one of the channel's senior correspondents)
and I myself have been expelled from Baghdad by the former regime
for our reporting. The Baghdad bureau was shut down twice by
the former Ministry of Information for unfavorable coverage,
and once by Al-Jazeera itself in protest over attempts at censorship.
Al-Jazeera reporters in Iraq have even been physically assaulted
by former Information Minister Mohamed Saeed As-Sahaf for daring
to broadcast events which cast the regime in an unfavorable light."
Already, however, the dispute between
Al-Jazeera and the US authorities has gone beyond mere words.
American troops have raided the bureau's offices in the city
of Ramadi and arrested reporters, harassment that has been accompanied
by claims from US officers --a certain Col. Teeples of the US
3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment prominent among them --that Al-Jazeera
has advance notice of attacks against American troops. The truth
is that the station sometimes receives unsolicited videotapes
--hand-delivered to their reception staff by unidentified men
--showing the military ambush of US convoys. In many cases, Al-Jazeera
has decided not to show the tapes --but this has had no effect
on the Americans.
The history of mutual --indeed lethal
--antagonism between Washington and Al-Jazeera goes back to the
2001 bombardment of Afghanistan when, after the Arab station
showed videotape of Osama Bin Laden, an American Cruise missile
exploded in their Kabul bureau. Then in the last days of the
invasion of Iraq this year, after the channel beamed pictures
of Iraqi civilians mutilated by US air raids and tape of American
prisoners in Iraqi hands, a US jet targeted the station's Baghdad
bureau, killing one of its senior reporters. Al-Jazeera had earlier
given the map coordinates of its Baghdad offices to the Pentagon
to prevent any accidental bombing of its bureau. These frightening
events --regarded by many of the international Baghdad press
corps as a deliberate attempt by the Americans to murder Al-Jazeera
staff --mean that the channel's reporters regard themselves at
risk of their lives if they offend the Americans.
Another of Wolfowitz's claims involved
the station's coverage of an incident in the Iraqi Shiite city
of Najaf. "Al-Jazeera ran a totally false report that American
troops had gone and detained one of the key imams in this holy
city of Najaf, Muqtad Al-Sadr (sic)," he said. "It
was a false report, but they were out broadcasting it instantly."
Wadah Khanfar's detailed reply --and his sense of frustration
--will be familiar to any Western newspaper editor. "Al-Jazeera
never stated at any time that Muqtada As-Sadr was detained,"
he wrote. "Our correspondent Yasser Abu Hilala, a top reporter
with thirteen years experience covering the Middle East, stated
he had received phone calls from Muqtada As-Sadr's secretary
and two of his top deputies saying the imam's house was surrounded
by US forces after he called for the formation of an Islamic
Army. The phone calls were not only made to our offices but to
all the offices of As-Sadr's followers in Baghdad resulting in
a massive demonstration in front of the Republic Palace within
45 minutes which we reported, along with the New York Times,
CNN and a host of others."
Khanfar added that "when Mr. Abu
Hilala attempted to contact the US military's public information
center they did not even know about the demonstration going on
in their own backyard, let alone what was happening in Najaf.
When the US military finally got around to denying the encirclement
of As-Sadr's home over 24 hours later, we duly reported it."
The Al-Jazeera bureau chief suspects
that poor translation of its dispatches mean that "half-truths
and total falsehoods about our reporting...make the rounds in
Washington, Baghdad and elsewhere." No doubt remembering
the American missile strikes against Al-Jazeera's offices, he
also states in his letter to Bremer that "the mischaracterizations
of our reporting made by Mr. Wolfowitz and others are a form
of incitement to violence against Al-Jazeera, the first Arab
television channel to practice professional Western-style journalism
free of the notorious censorship so prominent in the rest of
the Middle East."
Khanfar is calling for Wolfowitz to retract
his statement and issue an apology. But the real cause of American
anger has always been Al-Jazeera's powerful coverage of Arab
and Muslim suffering --and its ability to reflect this in millions
of homes throughout the Middle East.
And since the US government neither explained
nor apologized for its deliberate bombing of the station's offices
in Kabul and Baghdad, Khanfar has not the slightest chance of
an apology from Wolfowitz.
Robert Fisk is
a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity
the Nation. He is also a contributor to Cockburn and
St. Clair's forthcoming book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Weekend Edition Features for July 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
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