Possible List of Jordan's Targeted Journalists?
On the theory that we'd better cover all sides of this story, I thought I'd check and find out what journalists got killed in action in Iraq where there is any reasonable indication that they were killed by US forces.
Here's a list of all journalists
deliberately killed for their work or who died on duty in 2004 compiled by the Coalition to Protect Journalists. According to the webpage:
CPJ research indicates that the following individuals have been killed in 2004 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization.
Under Iraq, the CPJ lists 23 journalists who were either murdered or killed in the line of duty. I'll cut to the chase here and omit the ones where there is no indication that the person was killed by the US military:
Ali Abdel Aziz, Al-Arabiya, March 18, 2004, Baghdad
Ali al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya, March 19, 2004, Baghdad
These two will surely be mentioned by Jordan's defenders. They were in a car that approached a checkpoint and were refused passage. Continuing from the website:
As the three men prepared to depart, the electricity in the area went out and a car driven by an elderly man approached U.S. troops, crashing into a small metal barrier near a military vehicle at the checkpoint. Abdel Hafez said that as the crew pulled away from the scene, one of their vehicles was struck by gunfire from the direction of the U.S. troops. Abdel Hafez said he witnessed two or three U.S. soldiers firing but was not sure at whom they were firing. He said there had been no other gunfire in the area at the time.
Bullets passed through the rear windshield of the car in which Abdel Aziz and al-Khatib were driving. Abdel Aziz died instantly of a bullet wound, or wounds, to the head, while al-Khatib died in a hospital the next day, also due to head wounds.
Sad incident, but clearly accidental. There is no reason to think that the journalists were targeted. Still, that's two that the CPJ mentions killed by US forces.
Burhan Mohamed Mazhour, ABC, March 26, 2004, Fallujah
Another one that will surely be cited.
Agence France-Presse reported that Mazhour, who had been freelancing for ABC for nearly two months, was standing among a group of working journalists “when U.S. troops fired in their direction.”
According to ABC News, Mazhour was struck in the head by a single bullet and later died in a hospital.
No real indication that this was intentional. Remember this was in Fallujah, in March. Still, that's three.
Asaad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya TV, April 19, 2004, near Samara
On April 20, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, confirmed that U.S. troops had killed the journalist and his driver. According to media reports, Kimmitt said that coalition forces at the checkpoint warned the journalists’ vehicle to stop by firing several warning shots. When the vehicle ignored those shots, Kimmitt said, forces fired at the car.
Four.
Mazen al-Tumeizi, Al-Arabiya, September 12, 2004, Baghdad
That day at dawn, fighting erupted on Haifa Street in the center of Baghdad, a U.S. Bradley armored vehicle caught fire, and its four crew members were evacuated with minor injuries, according to news reports. As a crowd gathered, one or more U.S. helicopters opened fire.
Video aired by Al-Arabiya showed that al-Tumeizi was preparing a report nearby when an explosion behind him caused him to double over and scream, “I’m dying, I’m dying.” He died moments later, the Dubai-based station reported.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan told The Associated Press that a U.S. helicopter fired on the disabled Bradley vehicle to prevent looters from stripping it.
But Reuters quoted a statement from the military that presented a different account. “As the helicopters flew over the burning Bradley they received small-arms fire from the insurgents in vicinity of the vehicle,” the statement said. “Clearly within the rules of engagement, the helicopters returned fire, destroying some anti-Iraqi forces in the vicinity of the Bradley.”
That's five.
Dhia Najim, freelance, November 1, 2004, Ramadi
On November 3, The New York Times reported that the Marine Corps had opened an investigation. “‘We did kill him,” an unnamed military official told The Times. “‘He was out with the bad guys. He was there with them, they attacked, and we fired back and hit him.”
Reuters rejected the military’s implication that Najim was working as part of an insurgent group. The agency reported that video footage showed no signs of fighting in the vicinity and noted that Najim had “filmed heavy clashes between Marines and insurgents earlier in the day but that fighting had subsided.”
That's six.
That's it for 2004, let's go back
to 2003. There were 13 journalists killed that year in Iraq where "They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization."
Terry Lloyd, ITV News, March 22, 2003, near Al-Zubayr
An investigative article published in The Wall Street Journal in May indicated that Lloyd's SUV and another vehicle belonging to his colleagues came under fire from U.S. Marines. The article cited accounts from U.S. troops who recalled opening fire on cars marked "TV." Soldiers also said they believed that Iraqi suicide bombers were using the cars to attack U.S. troops.
The Journal article cited a report from a British security firm commissioned by ITN to investigate the incident saying that Lloyd's car was hit by both coalition and Iraqi fire;the latter most likely came from behind the car, possibly after the vehicle had crashed.
The report concluded that "[t]he Iraqis no doubt mounted an attack using the ITN crew as cover, or perhaps stumbled into the U.S. forces whilst attempting to detain the ITN crew." The report also speculated that the missing men—Nerac and Othman, who were last seen by Demoustier in another car being stopped by Iraqi forces—might have been pulled out of their car before it came under fire from coalition forces, and then Iraqi forces used the SUV to attack the coalition forces.
This one starts out sounding very much like what Eason Jordan described and ends up sounding more like a justifiable shooting by US forces. Seven.
Tareq Ayyoub, Al-Jazeera, April 8, 2003, Baghdad
Ayyoub, a Jordanian national working with the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was killed when a U.S. missile struck the station's Baghdad bureau, which was located in a two-story villa in a residential area near the Iraqi Information Ministry and the former presidential palace compound of Saddam Hussein. Al-Jazeera cameraman Zouhair Nadhim, who was outside on the building's roof with Ayyoub, was injured in the blast, which targeted a small electric generator outside the building.
Centcom maintains that U.S. forces were responding to enemy fire in the area and that the Al-Jazeera journalists were caught in the crossfire. Al-Jazeera correspondents deny that any fire came from their building.
I'm sure Jordan's supporters would include this one, but it certainly is inconvenient for their argument that the target was not the journalist, but an electric generator.
However, given this:
In its April 8 letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld CPJ also noted that, "The attack against Al-Jazeera is of particular concern since the stations' offices were also hit in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2001. The Pentagon asserted, without providing additional detail, that the office was a ‘known Al-Qaeda facility,' and that the U.S. military did not know the space was being used by Al-Jazeera."
Eight.
José Couso, Telecinco, April 8, 2003, Baghdad
Taras Protsyuk, Reuters, April 8, 2003, Baghdad
Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television station Telecinco, died after a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, where most journalists in the city were based during the war. At around 12 p.m., a shell hit two hotel balconies where several journalists were monitoring a battle in the vicinity. Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters, was also killed in the attack.
Ten.
Mazen Dana, Reuters, August 17, 2003, outside Baghdad
Dana, a veteran conflict cameraman for Reuters news agency, was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near the capital, Baghdad. Dana was struck in the torso while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison, outside Baghdad, in the afternoon. He had been reporting with a colleague near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. The soldier in the tank who fired on Dana did so without warning, while the journalist filmed the vehicle approaching him from about 55 yards (50 meters).
U.S. military officials said the soldier who opened fire mistook Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. There was no fighting taking place in the area, and the journalists had been operating in the vicinity of the prison with the knowledge of U.S. troops near the prison gates.
In an August 18 letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, CPJ protested the shooting, stating that it raised "serious questions about the conduct of U.S. troops and their rules of engagement."
On September 22, the U.S. military announced that it had concluded its investigation into the incident. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command (Centcom) in Iraq told CPJ that while Dana's killing was "regrettable," the soldier "acted within the rules of engagement." No further details were provided. The results of the investigation have not been made public. A Centcom spokesman said other details of the report are classified.
That's eleven; assuming Jordan can come up with one in January he's got his dozen to argue about. Now, reading all those cases, they all sound like accidents or justified killings, and only John Kerry would conclude that this indicated some vast conspiracy at all levels of command--oh, sorry, wrong blog!
The Committee to Protect Journalists, which does not sound like a right-wing organization, and which seems to err on the side of including things that sound clearly justifiable, never indicates in any of their discussions that the journalists were targeted specifically by US forces except by mistake.
If there is an attempt at a defense by CNN and Eason Jordan it will center on these journalists, but it's going to be a tough row indeed.
