| |
Pressure grows over US
killing of journalists
By Ian Urbina
On April 8, two journalists were killed in
Baghdad. By this date, only weeks into the conflict, the
death toll for journalists in Iraq was an alarming 10,
more than double the total killed in the entirety of the
first Gulf War in 1991. But what was especially
worrisome about the deaths of Ukraine-born Reuters
cameraman, Taras Protsyuk, and Spanish photographer Jose
Couso, was that neither man was near the front lines.
Both were in their hotels. Alongside roughly 100
other journalists from virtually every major
international news outlet in the country at the time,
Protsyuk and Couso were recouping in an officially
recognized safe zone - the Palestine Hotel. But an
American tank on the opposite bank of the Tigris River,
roughly three-quarters of a mile away, fired directly at
the hotel anyway. The US military stated that the
incident was a regrettable though unavoidable mistake.
However, with the recent release of an investigation by
the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists
there is new evidence that the incident was in fact
entirely avoidable, and a Spanish judge is being asked
to file formal extradition charges against the
responsible three US military officers.
The
defendants are Lieutenant Colonel Philip DeCamp,
commander of the Fourth Battalion 64th Armored Regiment
of the Third Infantry Division; Captain Philip Wolford,
company commander of the tank unit that fired on the
hotel; and Sergeant Shawn Gibson, the officer who asked
Wolford for permission to fire and received it.
The Pentagon has claimed that the tank fire was
a purely defensive move. Specifically, military
spokeswoman Victoria Clarke wrote the committee a week
after the event, stating that "coalition forces were
fired upon and acted in self defense by returning fire".
At the time of the incident, US forces were attempting
to find and kill an Iraqi "spotter" who was believed to
be watching American troop movements and relaying the
information back to snipers scattered throughout the
city.
But interviews with more than a dozen
eye-witnesses at the hotel tell a different story. The
unanimous rendition given to the investigators was that
no shots of any sort were fired from the hotel. Some of
the most damning evidence came in the investigation from
Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson, who was
embedded with the Fourth Battalion. Tomlinson was
waiting in Baghdad at a military facility and therefore
had access to a military radio. He followed the entire
incident closely, listening to the full conversations
between company members, as well as between a commander
and his superiors.
While listening to events
unfold, Tomlinson, who served with the army for seven
years, was approached by Colonel David Perkins, the
commander of the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry.
Perkins, too, was following events on the military
radio, and he expressed concern that US tank personnel
might decide to fire on the Palestine Hotel. Perkins
decided to ask Tomlinson to help more clearly identify
the hotel so as to prevent it from being hit. Tomlinson
agreed to help and called the AP office in Doha, Qatar,
to find out what the hotel looked like. Soon after,
Tomlinson tried to relay the message to the journalists
in the hotel, asking them to hang sheets out the
windows. Unfortunately, it was too late. At this very
moment, the tank commander, having seen someone with
binoculars at the hotel, and assuming that this person
was the Iraqi spotter, asked and received permission to
fire on the Palestine Hotel.
Immediately after
the hotel was hit one of the commanding officers,
Lieutenant Colonel Philip, started screaming over the
radio. "Who just shot the Palestinian [sic] Hotel? Did
you just fucking shoot the Palestinian Hotel?" Shortly
afterward, Perkins reiterated the policy that no one was
to shoot the hotel under any circumstances.
One
thing that the recent investigation makes quite clear is
that it would be difficult to mistake the Palestine
Hotel. It was known to all. On the other side of the
world, anyone who watched even five minutes of war
coverage knew that virtually the entire international
press corps was headquartered at this location. The
video and reporting feeds coming from the rooftops and
balconies at this spot were constant. On the facade of
the building facing the tank, the name of the hotel was
written in huge letters. The 14-story building is by far
the tallest on the skyline. There is only one other
building nearly as tall, and it, too, was a militarily
off-limits hotel. With the naked eye, and no help from
distance-vision technology that are standard in most US
tanks, the Palestine Hotel is apparent. Investigators
drove this point home by commissioning a photographer to
take pictures, included in the recent report, from where
the tank fired. The hotel could not be clearer in these
photographs.
After the incident, the Spanish
government called the deaths a tragic error but also
stated that it accepted the official US explanation.
Despite opposition from more than 90 percent of the
Spanish population, the country's Prime Minister, Jose
Aznar, staunchly backed the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Since then Aznar has continued to dismiss the incident
at the Palestine Hotel.
However, the Spanish
judiciary may have something else to say about the
matter now that evidence seems clearly to indicate
avoidable error. In the coming weeks, Spanish
investigative magistrate Guillermo Ruiz de Polanco will
decide whether there are sufficient grounds for a trial.
Under the Geneva Convention, firing on media
facilities is unequivocally illegal. In a court of law,
be it international jurisprudence or otherwise, neither
accident nor the perception of nearby threat stands as
just cause or sufficient excuse for such action. Of
course, American soldiers do not operate under these
concerns. They are exempt from such battle-field
limitations. But for the rest of the world, for which
violations of UN resolutions and breaches of
international law can have dire consequences, pursuing
this case is important. If nothing else, honest
disclosure of wrongdoing and proper procedure in
accordance with law are owed to the family of the
deceased. Washington would likely agree if the tank had
been Iraqi, and the victims American journalists.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.) |
| | |
|
 |
|
