[Media-watch] US Forces want AlJazeera out of Fallujah - Al J - 09/04/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=1430

      U.S. Forces want Aljazeera out of Fallujah
      - 09/04/2004 23:00:00 GMT

      The United States asked al-Jazeera team to leave Fallujah as one of
conditions for reaching a settlement to the bloody stand-off in the besieged
western Baghdad town Friday, April 9.

      "American forces declared al-Jazeera must leave before any progress is
made to settle the Fallujah stand-off," al-Jazeera director general Wadah
Khanfar said, citing sources close to the Iraqi Governing Council.

      Khanfar, the former Baghdad bureau chairman of the station, declined
to speculate on reasons for putting al-Jazeera departure as "part of solving
the crisis". He also denied receiving "any threats or notification
statements" from the U.S. occupation forces recently.

      Khanfar also dismissed charges of bias in the coverage of the Fallujah
raids, which resulted in more than 400 people killed including women and
children.

      "We are just carrying out our work as professionally as possible. We
describe the situation on the ground as is," Khanfar said.

      "We try to be objective. The situation there bear a sign of
humanitarian crisis. We just shed light on this," he stressed.

      A correspondent - speaking live from Fallujah - had warned Friday
against a "humanitarian crisis" in the town if the U.S. soldiers did not end
their attack on the densely-populated areas.

      He said that local inhabitants are furious over the inaction of Arab
and Muslim countries as well as the international community.

      The correspondent in Fallujah said that even besieged local
inhabitants of the town follow the latest developments in their bastion of
resistance through al-Jazeera.

      Corpses are littered in the streets as U.S. warplanes hit the only
hospital and other makeshift medical centers, he added.

      As Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of U.S. military
operations in Iraq, was speaking by phone on al-Jazeera and insisting that
American forces declared a unilateral ceasefire in Fallujah, the channel was
airing live images of continued air raids by F16 fighter jets on residential
neighborhoods of the town.

      Kimmitt later dismissed the coverage of the channel for the crisis as
a "series of lies". However, asked by al-Jazeera anchor about the live
images, the U.S. commander said he was not accusing al-Jazeera of faking the
images, but rather "looked at things differently".

      He said the attacks by F16 fighter jets and helicopters were meant to
take out "armed insurgents firing at our troops". The anchor reminded
Kimmitt, however, that "live coverage showed children and women killed by
the missiles, not armed insurgents".

      Observers see the U.S. highly unusual demand for al-Jazeera to leave
Fallujah as a sign of crisis of credibility the U.S. forces face in the eyes
of the Iraqis as well as people all over the Arab and Islamic world.