Submitted by Zed on Thu, 2005-02-03 00:31

There's been a small storm of protest over CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan accusing the US military not only of killing 12 journalists, but doing it deliberately. That's the kind of statement that really requires a bit of preparation, so it's quite annoying that he seems to have bungled the job of defending something I suspect is true. Let's go over the list of reporters attacked by the US, and see how many could fit that description.

2003.03.23: Terry Lloyd, Hussein Othman, and Fred Nerac killed ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2878777.stm ), taking at first US tank fire (despite being in a clearly marked jeep) that was ostensibly aimed at Iraqi soldiers.
According to an Iraqi eyewitness, Terry Lloyd actually survived that first attack with only a wound to the shoulder, but took an additional bullet to the head when a US helicopter fired upon the civilian van taking him to the hospital ( http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/itn-s11_prn.shtml ). The bodies of Hussein Othman and Fred Nerac were never found, but they are presumed dead. This makes three possibly killed deliberately.

2003.03.28: Three foreign journalists are arrested, detained, and beaten up, leaving one with broken ribs ( http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?index=573&Language=EN ). No fatalities, so still only three killed, but not exactly evidence of US care for uncontrolled journalists.

2003.03.30: Gaby Rado falls from the roof of his hotel under unknown circumstances ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,926172,00.htm
l ). There's a lot of speculation about whether this was a suicide, or whether someone pushed him, and it's noted that he's a human rights reporter, the kind the US government generally wants out of the way if not well controlled. There's absolutely no evidence one way or the other, though, so you can't count this one unless you're the type to seek tinfoil hats. The count remains at three.

2003.04.06: Kamaran Muhamed killed by shrapnel from a bomb dropped on a convoy of Kurdish soldiers ( http://www.ifex.org/fr/content/view/full/34029/ ). This one can be chalked up to collateral damage, and is rather unlikely to be intentional. The count remains at three.

2003.04.08: Taras Protsyuk and José Couso killed when a US tank fires at their hotel ( http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=5975 ).
The subsequent investigation of Reporters Without Borders concluded that the soldiers on the ground had not been informed that the hotel was the main residence for non-embedded journalists, although their superiors were frequently informed of this, all the way down to GPS locations, for weeks prior to the incident ( http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9045 ).
RWB was "extremely disappointed" when the military investigation closed declaring that "no fault or negligence" could be attributed to the US army for the incident ( http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11856 )
As a side note, My Sandmen ( http://mysandmen.blogspot.com/2005/02/come-againus-troops-ta
rget-journalists.html ) is reporting that RWB is claiming only negligence, not intent, which I think is a little inaccurate — RWB cleared the soldiers on the ground of intent, but implied that a decision was made higher up to deliberately not inform the troops, so as to encourage an "accident" with the non-embedded troops that might report something contrary to the party line. Since the military's investigation ended with a conclusion so much at odds with the results of investigations from outside the military, and early press releases of what happened differed so much from immediate reports from the ground, it's pretty safe to assume that a solid cover-up was made, and there's never going to be any more information found.) Current total: five.

2003.04.08: Tariq Ayoub killed when a US missile hits the Al-Jazeera headquarters ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2927527.stm ). Al-Jazeera claims it is deliberate, and it is noted that their Afghanistan office was one of the first buildings bombed back in Kabul, Afghanistan as well. The US, of course, claims otherwise. While this is plausible, considering how many of their missiles went randomly astray, it's certainly suspicious. This brings the total to six.

2003.08.17: Mazen Dana killed by soldiers in two tanks outside Abu Ghraib, now famous for entirely different reasons ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1021480
,00.html ). The soldiers claimed they thought he was pointing a rocket-propelled grenade at them; other journalists at the scene stated that they had been seen filming for half an hour before he was shot. Pictures from Reuters showing what he looked like with a camera on his shoulder can be found here: http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial/mazendana/
and here: http://www.notinourname.net/war/mazen-dana-18aug03.htm
Update: Here's a picture of a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher for comparison: http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/20046154333
5/$file/Release0280-2004-10low.jpg
Thanks to chthus ( chthus@gmail.com ) for the link. The total is now seven.

2004.01.02: Four journalists, three from Reuters and one from NBC, were fired upon, imprisoned, and brutalised, resulting in one requiring subsequent hospitalization for a leg injury ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1121981,00.html ). They were wearing bulletproof jackets clearly marked "Press". One was forced to strip naked and ordered to put his shoe on his mouth, while soldiers told the journalists, "If you don't shut up, we'll fuck you." Others had bags placed over their heads while being told that they were going to Guantanamo, while soldiers whispered, "Let's have sex." The US government claimed that they were enemy personnel pretending to be media that had fired on US soldiers, but admitted that no weapons were found. All four survived, so the total remains at seven, but this doesn't paint a very pretty picture about US treatment of media outside of their direct control (i.e. non-embedded), particularly taking the events of 2003.03.28 into account.

2004.03.18: Ali Abdel Aziz and Ali al-Khatib killed by US soldiers after getting into their vehicle (marked clearly "TV": http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9600 ), while trying to get out of the area where a Volvo had tried to run a checkpoint, sparking protests by their news agency Al-Iraqyia and others.
( http://www.duckdaotsu.org/media_murder.html ) They had been given permission to film by the US Army. This brings the total to nine.

2004.04.19: Assad Kadhim and Hussein Saleh killed by US fire on the road to Samarra ( http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=9845 ). The US Army issued a statement accepting responsibility for the death of the two journalists in what it called "accidental" fire, claiming that they were hit by "four to six bullets" that were aimed at the car ahead of them that jumped a roadblock (even accounting for panic, that's kind of lousy aim, there, to miss by an entire vehicle and the distance between them). Assad Kadhim and Hussein Saleh were Al-Iraqyia journalists, like the ones killed a month prior. This brings the total to eleven.

2004.09.23: Mazen Al-Tomaizi killed by a missile fired from an Apache helicopter while filming people gathered around a US tank that had been set ablaze in a car bomb attack ( http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=51422&d=13
&m=9&y=2004 ). Reuters footage showed the crowd to be made up of unarmed boys and men, two of whom were standing on top of the Bradley. This attack seemed to be aimed at the unarmed civilians, and not the reporter specifically, however, so we'll leave the count at eleven.

2004.11.01: Dhia Najim killed by sniper fire in Ramadi ( http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11757 ). The US claimed at first that he was killed in a small arms firefight, but his video footage showed no fighting at the time he was killed. The US admitted that Marine snipers were present.

This brings the total to twelve, so if someone handed Eason Jordan the same information I've just provided here, it's entirely possible that he said what he did in good faith. Blogs keep decrying him as a liar, and asking for names — here they are. It is admittedly a little unfair to ask the US military to prove a negative, that these deaths were not intentional... but then, we have most likely killed over a hundred thousand civilians in Iraq, and taken horrendous casualties among our own soldiers, because Saddam Hussein was unable to prove a negative: that he had no weapons of mass destruction.