[Media-watch] Reuters still seeking answers on alleged abuse of 3 staffers - Editor & Publisher - 5/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731807

 Reuters Still Seeking Answers on Alleged Abuse of 3 Staffers

By Allan Wolper

Published: December 05, 2004 5:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Andrew Marshall, Reuters' chief correspondent in Iraq, is seeking 
justice for three of his Iraqi news staffers and an NBC cameraman who claim 
they were severely abused earlier this year at a United States Army base 
outside of Fallujah.

Marshall, a soft-spoken, short-haired, mirror image of a military officer, 
lobbies the American media to cover the case (it was first probed by E&P 
Online in May) while pressuring the Pentagon to reopen its investigation of 
the incident that was eerily similar in some regards to the military 
treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

The Reuters staffers and an NBC newsman who was with them were arrested last 
Jan. 2 by soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division as they were filming the 
aftermath of the downing of an American helicopter. The Iraqi staffers say 
they were handcuffed as one in a press jacket shouted, "Reuters, Reuters, 
journalist, journalist," in English and were then carted off to the Forward 
Operating Base Volturno Army camp in a Humvee. (Two of them had active press 
credentials and a third, whose card had expired, had one waiting for him 
when he returned to Baghdad.)

The men claim that at Volturno, they were subjected to three days of mental 
and physical abuse. This included beatings, sexual humiliation, and sleep 
deprivation.

"We all felt we were going to die," Salem Ureibi, a longtime cameraman for 
Reuters, told Marshall and Khaled al-Ramahi, the news agency's Baghdad 
office manager. "They treated us like criminals. They did not let us sleep. 
During [the first] night, two hooded people and a translator took me for 
questioning."

Later, he continued, "I cried. I never cried before. Even when my father 
died, when Saddam killed my brother, I never cried. In this situation, with 
the Americans, I cried."

Marshall, after learning that the men had been arrested, sent an e-mail to 
the Army stating that three of them were Reuters staffers and asked when 
they might be released. They were set free 60 hours later.

The transcript of Ureib's testimony, that of Ahmad Hussein (another Reuters 
cameraman), and Satar Jabar (a driver for Reuters) - supported by statements 
from NBC television cameraman Ali Muhammed Hussein Ali al-Badrini - has not 
moved the Pentagon, which found no fault with their treatment in January, 
frustrating Marshall. Reuters has been asking since Feb. 3 for the probe to 
be reopened.

"If an organization with the resources and influence of Reuters finds it 
hard to get results, one can only assume that the ordinary Iraqis who have 
been abused will face an impossible task to get their complaints taken 
seriously," Marshall said in New York in October. He added that the American 
media ought to devote more coverage to the suffering of Iraqi journalists, 
noting that they are the ones carrying the true burden of the U.S. media's 
war coverage.



Climbing a stonewall

Marshall thought he might achieve a breakthrough with the Pentagon after The 
New York Times on Oct. 14 published an article on the Iraqis' detainment 
that quoted the Defense Department saying its civilian lawyers "were 
reviewing the case" to determine if it warranted a follow-up investigation.

Hoping for the best, he rushed to Washington and met with Bryan Whitman, a 
spokesperson for the Defense Department who had once called the Reuters 
allegations appalling. But now, in November, back in Baghdad, Marshall is 
disillusioned, if not deflated.

"My talk really didn't achieve any progress," he said afterward. "I just 
wanted them to know I wasn't giving up. Our senior management have put their 
reputations on the line to back up our Iraqi journalists."

Capt. David Romley, an aide to Whitman, confirmed the meeting took place but 
said that his boss was bogged down in handling press briefings on the 
current situation in Fallujah and would try to get back to me. He never did.

Marshall should not have been surprised. He had been warned in August by 
U.S. Rear Admiral Gregory J. Slavonic at a meeting in Baghdad not to expect 
too much from a Defense Department review.

"He told me that a new investigation might be very difficult because so much 
time had passed since the incident and because it might be hard tracking 
down the soldiers involved," Marshall said in an e-mail to E&P. "He said 
that this might mean an investigation could drag on for months or even over 
a year. I told him I had no problem with that, as long as the investigation 
was thorough and impartial."

Slavonic might be right, but the transcript describing Ureibi's ordeal 
provided some slight clues to the identity of the interrogators. Ureibi 
complained about a "black" soldier who threatened to "put a pen up his nose" 
and a white officer, identified only as "Jerry," who was kind to him.



No questions asked

Reuters officials have decried the manner in which the Army dismissed their 
complaints. In January, the Army claimed the Iraqis were picked up because 
of reports that "enemy personnel" were posing as journalists, and then 
declared the case closed without interviewing the alleged victims.

Marshall wrote in a report (obtained by E&P) at that time, "It should be 
noted that the bulk of their mistreatment - including their humiliating 
interrogations and the mental and physical torment of the first night which 
all agreed was the worst part of their ordeal - occurred several hours after 
I had informed the 82nd Airborne Division that they were Reuters staff."

He tried to persuade American journalists to join his crusade, sending 
e-mails to Baghdad-based journalists, gently prodding reporters whenever 
possible, and giving brief statements on the case. But it never did much 
good.

"I was at a news conference after our [Iraqi news staffers] were released, 
and I was hoping that someone would ask about them," Marshall recalled. "But 
no one did. So I had to. It was distressing. If the journalists had been 
American, I think it would have been different."

After Abu Ghraib exploded onto the American front pages last April, the 
Iraqi journalists, seeing the abuses there as similar to what they had gone 
through, gave Marshall permission to go public with their private testimony. 
A story Marshall wrote for Reuters on May 18, based on the testimony of the 
Iraqis and followed by release of extensive supporting materials to E&P 
(quoted at length at E&P Online), did not attract American attention.

Marshall's account was published in much briefer form in the New York Times 
and The Washington Post as well as many other papers, but no one devoted 
their own resources to exploring the incident further.

"I knew that the story needed a lot of work," he said. "I knew that it 
needed reporters in the states to work on it because of the 
Defense-Department angle. We knew we needed an independent investigation by 
another media outlet."

In September, disgusted by the lack of interest by the American press corps, 
Marshall sought out New York Times foreign correspondent John Burns - a 
friend and fellow Brit - to investigate the story. "I knew we needed a big 
player in the American media," Marshall said. "It was going to have to be 
either the Times or the Washington Post.

"I knew John, so I went to see John and he assigned two of his reporters, 
Norimitsu Onishi and later, Eric Schmitt, to the story," he recalls. "If 
John had turned me down, I would have called Seymour Hersh."

But even though Marshall was grateful to the Times for its story, he was 
disappointed it took so long to get an American news organization to use its 
own reporters to investigate what had happened. "U.S. media attention is 
crucial if we are going to force the Pentagon to ensure that justice is 
done," he said.

According to Paul Holmes, Reuters' political and general news editor, no one 
in the press outside of CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr did 
anything with the story until Burns assigned his two reporters to it. 
Marshall said, "I have long been baffled about why the U.S. media showed so 
little interest in the case ... until [the Times story], no major media 
organization had shown much interest in it, despite the fact that Reuters 
was regularly putting out stories and statements."

Iraqi stringers carry the ball

The Iraqi staffers are no longer shy about speaking out, but they won't 
allow E&P to publish pictures of them because they fear that some soldiers - 
especially in the 82nd Airborne - might then be motivated to hunt them down.

Their concern is twofold: A defense attorney for one of the soldiers 
involved in the Abu Ghraib case wants them as witnesses as proof that the 
military misbehavior was the result of White House policy and not the work 
of individual soldiers.

Marshall said he provided the attorney with information, adding, "There has 
been no formal move to subpoena anybody so far, but Reuters would cooperate 
with any reasonable request."

Reuters received another blow in early November when the U.S military 
announced that a Marine sniper had killed an individual who was carrying a 
video camera during heavy fighting between Americans and insurgents in the 
Iraqi city of Ramadi. The victim turned out to be Dhia Najim, a Reuters 
cameraman.

The news agency again expressed its outrage. "We reject the clear 
implication in the Marines statement that Dhia was part of an insurgent 
group," said Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger. "This claim 
was not supported by available evidence. I strongly urge the U.S. military 
to conduct a proper investigation into this tragic event."

This becomes all the more just, with American reporters increasingly 
hunkered down in Baghdad while native Iraqis venture into danger. "We all 
need them, so we ought to take care of them," said Marshall, who noted that 
Reuters regularly gives credit to its Iraqi stringers and staff people. The 
military has also denied any wrongdoing in the killing of two journalists, 
including another Reuters cameraman, in Baghdad in April 2003.

"Previously journalists were seen as non-combatants," Marshall said. "Now 
journalists are targets and always under suspicion. In Iraq, especially, the 
people are not used to being covered by mass media. They are used to being 
tightly controlled by Saddam. But those days are over. Journalists will 
never be safe again in most of the world."