[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1880-H1882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         AMERICA BETTER WAKE UP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, as we inch closer to Mr. Bush's 
unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Iraq, I come to the floor to 
talk about an issue that I think the American people should be aware of 
and Members of House should be very concerned about, and that is the 
type of news coverage they get about this war.
  I see in today's Roll Call that the Republicans are setting up a spin 
room that will be briefings from the White House on a regular basis, 
but it is only on one side. It is all being coordinated through the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Cox).
  Now, in addition to that the question is then about reporters, and 
there are going to be two kinds of reporters in this war. The first are 
the embedded reporters. Those are the American reporters who are 
brought in and put in military uniforms and put in units of the 
military. They will be under constant censorship by the leadership of 
the unit that they are with. They have to sign an agreement to that 
effect. It is called the Coalition Forces Land Component Ground Rules 
Agreement, and that means they cannot write anything that the commander 
of that unit does not say is all right to go out.
  Now it is pretty clear that the Secretary of War, Mr. Rumsfeld, is 
trying to deal with the problems of the Vietnam War. The press played 
an enormous role in stopping that war by reporting what is going on 
over there. Had there not been free press, there is no telling how long 
it might have gone on because the official reports were all bogus and 
we now know it. But, in the last couple of wars we have controlled the 
press, and this is the real best control I have ever seen.
  There is a second kind of reporter, and that is the unembedded 
reporter, the international reporters. There is an article in today's 
paper from the Irish radio, an interview with a woman by the name of 
Kate Adie, who is the chief news correspondent for the BBC. She said 
when asked if there were any consequences of fatal actions, the 
Pentagon officers said we do not care. They have been warned, stay out 
of

[[Page H1881]]

there. She says, ``I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent, 
on the spot reporting as the war occurs.''
  Another man on the same program, Phillip Knightley, who is a war 
historian, said, The Pentagon has also threatened they ``may find it 
necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to 
report from Iraq.''
  Now, Miss Adie was told the Americans, and I have been talking to the 
Pentagon, their attitude is ``entirely hostile to the free spread of 
the information.'' I have been told by a senior officer in the Pentagon 
that if uplinks, that is television and electronic links, that is the 
television signals, were detected by any planes, the military would 
fire on them, even if they were journalists, she said. And the man 
said, Who cares?
  Well, the fact is those smart bombs, they tell us a lot but they 
cannot tell the difference between a radio link, a cell telephone or a 
radar. They are going to do everything they can to stamp out any kind 
of information about this war that they do not want to have to have 
processed.
  Now the American people are being taken into a war which is, we are 
going to be told it is going to be short and quick and sweet, and we 
were told that about the last war. We were told that only 147 people 
died in Iraq. But the fact is that 10,000 people have died since, and 
there are 221,000 claims of disability in the Veterans Administration 
due to depleted uranium and other toxins that were experienced by our 
troops. That was not reported at the time. It was not reported now. You 
have to go to the foreign press.
  I would say to all Americans, you should be watching the BBC. Read 
the French papers, the German papers, any other paper besides the 
United States. The reporters in the White House are lap dogs to the 
White House. They stood up there in a press conference the other day 
and watched the President of the United States with a script on the 
podium saying, I will call on Joe. Joe. I will call on Sally. Sally.
  He knew what the questions were that they were going to ask and he 
took exactly what he wanted. He would not take any question that was 
off his list. That is what the American people are supposed to make a 
decision about. You cannot have a democracy when the people are 
ignorant. They have to have information, and this administration is 
determined not to tell people what is going on. America better wake up 
quickly.

                  [From GuluFuture.com, Mar. 10, 2003]

  Pentagon Threatens To Kill Independent Reporters in Iraq (By Fintan 
                                 Dunne)

       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.''
       According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the 
     last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: ``entirely hostile 
     to 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.''

       Audio Transcript follows below:
       Tom McGurk: ``Now, Kate Adie, you join us from the BBC in 
     London. Thank you very much for going to all this trouble on 
     a Sunday morning to come and join us. I suppose you are 
     watching with a mixture of emotions this war beginning to 
     happen, because you are not going to be covering it.''
       Kate Adie: ``Oh I will be. And what actually appalls me is 
     the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a 
     complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters 
     should be able to report as they witness.''
       ``The Americans . . . and I've been talking to the Pentagon 
     . . . take the attitude which is entirely hostile to the free 
     spread of information.''
       ``I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if 
     uplinks--that is the television signals out of . . . Bhagdad, 
     for example--were detected by any planes . . . electronic 
     media . . . mediums, of the military above Bhagdad . . . 
     they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists . . . 
     Who cares! `said . . . [inaudible].''
       Tom McGurk: ``. . . Kate . . . sorry Kate . . . just to 
     underline that. Sorry to interrupt you. Just to explain for 
     our listeners. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite 
     telephone method of distributing information.''
       Kate Adie: ``The telephones and the television signals.''
       Tom McGurk: ``And they would be fired on?''
       Kate Adie: ``Yes. They would be `targeted down,' said the 
     officer.''
       Tom McGurk: ``Extraordinary!''
       Kate Adie: ``Shameless!''
       ``He said . . . `Well . . . they know this . . . they've 
     been warned.' ''
       ``This is threatening freedom of information, before you 
     even get to a war.''
       ``The second thing is there was a massive news blackout 
     imposed.''
       ``In the last Gulf war, where I was one of the pool 
     correspondents with the British Army. We effectively had 
     very, very light touch when it came to any kind of 
     censorship.''
       ``We were told that anything which was going to endanger 
     troops lives which we understood we shouldn't broadcast. But 
     other than that, we were relatively free.''
       ``Unlike our American colleagues, who immediately left 
     their pool, after about 48 hours, having just had enough of 
     it.''
       ``And this time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists 
     who go with them, whether they are . . . have feelings 
     against the war. And therefore if you have views that are 
     skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable.''
       ``Secondly, they are intending to take control of the 
     Americans technical equipment . . . those uplinks and 
     satellite phones I was talking about. And control access to 
     the airwaves.''
       ``And then on top of everything else, there is now a 
     blackout (which was imposed, during the last war, at the 
     beginning of the war), . . . ordered by one Mr. Dick Cheney, 
     who is in charge of this.''
       ``I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-
     the-spot reporting, as the war occurs. You will get it 
     later.''
                                  ____


              USA: CPJ Sends Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld


  Expresses concern about embedding rules and nonembedded journalists

                                                    March 6, 2003.
     Hon. Donald H. Rumsfeld,
     Secretary of Defense,
     The Pentagon, Washington, DC.
       Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect 
     Journalists (CPJ) is encouraged that the administration is 
     making efforts to accommodate journalists who are seeking to 
     cover a possible U.S. military action in the Gulf. We welcome 
     the Pentagon's plan to embed as many as 500 journalists with 
     U.S. forces as a positive step that will improve frontline 
     access to combat operations.
       However, based on a 10-day trip, which CPJ senior program 
     coordinator Joel Campagna recently completed to Kuwait, 
     Qatar, and Jordan, we have a number of concerns regarding 
     both the embed system's implementation and the ability of the 
     many reports who plan to report outside the system to conduct 
     their reporting duties freely.
       During his recent trip, CPJ's Campagna visited U.S. 
     military bases in Qatar and Kuwait, meeting with military 
     officials in both places to discuss the Pentagon's media 
     policy. CPJ is particularly concerned by the specific 
     language in the recently released Public Affairs guidance 
     document on embedding and the Coalition Forces Land Component 
     Command Ground Rules Agreement, which embedded journalists 
     will be required to sign. The language could be used to 
     justify unreasonable limits on coverage.
       For example, among the information deemed ``not 
     reasonable'' in the agreement is that which pertains to ``on-
     going engagements.'' According to the guidelines, such 
     information will not be released unless authorized by an on-
     scene commander. What constitutes an ongoing engagement is 
     not clear from this document, and unit commanders could 
     interpret it in an extremely broad manner as a basis to 
     restrict reporting.
       We, of course, recognize the need to protect certain kinds 
     of information to ensure the safety of U.S. forces. However, 
     we are concerned that under the embedding guidelines, unit 
     commanders have the authority to request that embedded 
     reporters refrain from reporting on a number of broadly 
     defined categories of information. Despite explicit 
     guarantees that journalists' material will not be 
     censored, the guidelines state that when a unit commander 
     believes a reporter may be in a position to reveal 
     sensitive information, he or she may ask a reporter to 
     submit copy for security review. The commander may then 
     ask the reporter to remove information that is classified 
     or sensitive. Access to such information would be 
     contingent on agreeing to this review.
       Moreover, despite general assurances from Pentagon 
     officials that they will limit reporting only in cases where 
     operational security would be jeopardized, reporters have 
     expressed fears that officials will restrict coverage by 
     limiting movements or delaying journalists' ability to file 
     stories. The current guidelines grant broad discretion to

[[Page H1882]]

     unit commanders to limit the dissemination of information 
     likely to be contained in news reports.
       Perhaps more important than the embed plan itself is the 
     extent to which journalists not embedded with U.S. troops 
     will be allowed to move and gather news freely. To date, U.S. 
     officials have offered no convincing guarantees that 
     ``unilateral'' reporting, or reports by nonembedded 
     journalists, will be allowed to proceed without interference. 
     Pentagon officials have stated that they anticipate the 
     presence of unilateral reporters in a potential military 
     theater, and military units that encounter journalists will 
     treat them ``like any other civilian person found on the 
     battlefield.'' Officials, however, have never provided 
     details or assurances about the kind of access unilateral 
     reporters would experience on or around the battlefield but 
     instead have warned journalists about the dangers associated 
     with not embedding.
       Lastly, CPJ is concerned for the safety of the significant 
     number of journalists who will likely be working in Baghdad 
     should conflict erupt. While we are worried about possible 
     threats from Iraqi authorities, who detailed and imprisoned 
     several international correspondents during the 1991 Gulf 
     War, we also fear that foreign reporters working in Baghdad 
     could be endangered by U.S. air strikes. We note with concern 
     that U.S. and NATO forces have targeted local broadcast 
     facilities in previous conflicts, including the 1999 strike 
     on the offices of the Yugoslav state broadcaster RTS 
     television. Furthermore, your office has failed to assuage 
     the concerns highlighted in our January 31, 2002, letter 
     requesting clarification on the November 2001 U.S. military 
     strike that destroyed the offices of the Arabic language 
     broadcaster Al-Jazeera in Kabul, Afghanistan. We remind you 
     that statements made by Pentagon officials to U.S. media 
     representatives on February 28, 2003, warning of the 
     potential dangers to unilateral reporters operating in Iraq 
     do not absolve U.S. forces of their responsibility to avoid 
     endangering media operating in known locations.
       Today, hundreds of journalists are preparing to cover what 
     could be a potentially hazardous assignment in Iraq and the 
     Persian Gulf should the U.S. decide to attack Iraq. Despite 
     these inherent dangers, journalists have an obligation to 
     report the news, especially in times of war, when public 
     information is crucial. Any U.S. military action must take 
     into account the safety of working journalists and their 
     ability to work freely. As an independent organization of 
     journalists dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, 
     we urge you to take the following actions to make certain 
     that journalists covering a possible war with Iraq can do so 
     freely and safely: Ensure that journalists operating within 
     the embed system be allowed the maximum possible freedom to 
     report; provide public assurance to journalists who will be 
     reporting outside the embed system that the U.S. military 
     will not interfere in their work and will impose only those 
     restrictions absolutely necessary to ensure the safety of 
     U.S. military personnel and operations; refrain from 
     targeting broadcast and other media operating in Baghdad; and 
     ensure that maximum precaution is taken to avoid harm to 
     journalists operating in known locations in potential 
     military theaters.
       Thank you for your attention to these important matters. We 
     await your response.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Joel Simon,
     Acting Director.

                          ____________________