US
Moves To Close Down
Al-Jazeera TV
By
Robert Fisk
Counterpunch.org
02 August, 2003
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