[Media-watch] Army finds no fault in Palestine Hotel shelling/ full report released - CPJ - 5/11/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

Pointers in links in original.
Committee to Protect Journalists.
http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/Iraq05nov04na.html#more

 Army finds no fault in Palestine Hotel shelling
CPJ questions findings in long-awaited probe

New York, November 5, 2004-Nineteen months after a U.S. Army tank opened 
fire on a Baghdad hotel full of journalists, killing two and wounding three 
others, the Pentagon has released a redacted report concluding that 
coalition forces bore "no fault or negligence" in the shelling. In August 
2003, the Pentagon had released summary findings about its investigation 
into the incident but until now had kept the report classified.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, while welcoming the release of the 
U.S. Central Command inquiry into the April 8, 2003, attack on the Palestine 
Hotel, questioned its main findings and called on the Pentagon to follow 
through on earlier military recommendations intended to increase journalist 
security.

Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Spanish cameraman José Couso of 
Telecinco, were killed in the attack, which came during a day of intense 
combat in Baghdad. That day, CPJ called on Secretary of Defense Donald H. 
Rumsfeld "to launch an immediate and thorough investigation ... and to make 
the findings public."

CPJ's own investigation, published in May 2003, concluded that the attack 
was not deliberate but was avoidable. In light of the Army's report, CPJ 
reaffirms that position. CPJ's investigation described an apparent 
communication breakdown within the U.S. Army chain of command, and 
questioned whether target information known to senior officers was 
disseminated to battle units. Pentagon officials and commanders in Baghdad 
had been widely aware that the Palestine Hotel was full of international 
journalists. About 100 journalists were lodged there at the time. The Army 
report leaves open the question of why troops were not made aware of the 
presence of journalists at the hotel.

The U.S. Central Command investigation, which includes interviews with 
platoon and company soldiers, was completed by June 5, 2003, but the 
Pentagon did not clear its release until September 2004. The 52-page report 
was released by mail from Fort McPherson, Ga., postmarked November 1, in 
response to a Freedom of Information Act request that CPJ filed in May 2003. 
(CPJ has not received a response to a FOIA request requesting information 
about the a U.S. missile strike on Al-Jazeera's Baghdad office that same 
day, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. The Pentagon has said no investigation 
into the strike took place.)

Details of the Army report, focusing on the actions of the 3rd Infantry 
Division's 4th Battalion 64th Armor Regiment, are mostly consistent with 
CPJ's own investigation into the shelling, which concluded that after a 
morning of heavy fighting near the Tigris River the tank opened fire on what 
it believed was an Iraqi "spotter" directing enemy fire at U.S. troops from 
the hotel's upper floors or roof. It appears from soldier testimony that 
troops likely mistook cameramen working on the hotel's balconies for the 
"spotters."

But there were "several spot reports" about different Iraqis directing Iraqi 
artillery strikes in the area at the time, according to the report's 
investigating officer, whose name has been excised from the report. 
Intercepted Iraqi radio communications indicated that the only thing that 
soldiers of the 64th Armor Regiment were sure of is that the tanks near the 
Tigris River were "being observed from a 'multi-story' building; one high 
enough to be able to observe."

The Army report, however, also reiterates previous claims of the military 
that soldiers were responding to hostile fire from the hotel. That finding 
is at odds with CPJ's own investigation, which was based on interviews with 
about a dozen reporters at the scene. None of the journalists based inside 
the Palestine Hotel reported evidence of hostile fire coming from the hotel, 
CPJ's investigation found.

The report also fails to address the question of why U.S. troops on the 
ground were not made aware that the Palestine Hotel-one of the best-known 
civilian sites in Baghdad at the time-was full of journalists. The testimony 
of at least one soldier cited in the Army report appears to indicate that 
U.S. troops were unaware of any sensitive civilian targets in their area of 
operations. "At no time was there any discussion of no-fire areas, or 
protected sites on the east side of the Tigris River," the soldier, whose 
name was excised, wrote.

The Army report recommends that "non-embedded media personnel routinely 
inform, through the proper military and civilian authorities, their 
locations during combat operations." However, the evidence suggests that 
news organizations did exactly that, and senior U.S. commanders were aware 
that the hotel was full of journalists-but apparently did not convey the 
information to troops on the ground.

The commanding lieutenant general in charge of the investigation, whose name 
has been excised from the report, concludes: "I have the deepest sympathy 
for the families of those who were killed. However, responsibility for the 
incident rests with an enemy that chose to fight in a city, needlessly 
exposing the civilian population, including journalists, to the hazards of 
war."

In a previous U.S. Army report, one by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment 
based in Fort Carson, Colorado, into the August 17, 2003, fatal shooting of 
Reuters cameraman (and CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner) Mazen 
Dana, the 3rd Cavalry report recommended that U.S. troops improve 
communication between the military and the media, and within the military 
itself regarding the presence of media on the battlefield. It also urged a 
review of the Army's rules of engagement in order to avoid harming 
journalists in areas of combat.

CPJ is disappointed that this report about the shelling of the Palestine 
hotel-which took inexplicably long to be released-did not make the same 
recommendations.

Journalists in Iraq continue to come under fire.Thirty-six journalists have 
been killed in Iraq since the conflict began in March 2003. At least nine 
journalists were killed by fire from U.S. forces, the second highest cause 
of death behind insurgent actions, which led to the deaths of 19 
journalists. The remainder died at the hands of Iraqi armed forces during 
the combat phase of the war, or in crossfire from unclear sources. [See 
complete statistics]