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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">US military [tried to] censor coverage of Saddam hearing</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">By Robert Fisk in Baghdad - 03 July 2004</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New"><A HREF="http://www.k1m.com/antiwarblog/archives/000110.html">http://www.k1m.com/antiwarblog/archives/000110.html</A></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New"><A HREF="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=537630">http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=537630</A></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">A team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of the </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen on Thursday, destroying </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded legal </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">An American network cameraman who demanded the return of his tapes, which </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">contained audios of the hearings, said he was told by a US officer: "No. </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">They belong to us now. And anyway, we don't trust you guys."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">According to American journalists present at the 30-minute hearing of </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Saddam and 11 former ministers at Baghdad airport, an American admiral in </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">civilian clothes told camera crews that the judge had demanded that there </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">should be no sound recording of the initial hearing. He ordered crews to </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">unplug their sound wires. Several of the six crews present pretended to </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">obey the instruction. "We learnt later," one of them said, "that the judge </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">didn't order us to turn off our sound. The Americans lied - it was they who </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">wanted no sound. The judge wanted sound and pictures."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Initially, crews were told that a US Department of Defence camera crew </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">would provide the sound for their silent tapes. But when CNN and CBS crews </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">went to the former occupation authority headquarters - now the US embassy - </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">they found that three US officers ordered the censorship of tape which </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">showed Saddam being led into the courtroom with a chain round his waist </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">which was connected to handcuffs round his wrists. The Americans gave no </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">reason for this censorship.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">"They were rude and they didn't care," another American television crew </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">member said. "They were running the show. The Americans decided what the </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">world could and could not see of this trial - and it was meant to be an </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Iraqi trial. There was a British official in the courtroom whom we were not </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">allowed to take pictures of. The other men were US troops who had been </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">ordered to wear ordinary clothes so that they were civilians' in the court."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Three US officers viewed the tapes taken by two CNN cameras, Al-Djezaira' </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">(a local, American-funded Iraqi channel), and the US government. </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">"Fortunately, they were lazy and they didn't check all the tapes properly </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">so we got our audio' through in the satellite to London," one of the crew </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">members told The Independent yesterday. "I had pretended to unplug the </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">sound from the camera but the man who claimed he was a US admiral didn't </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">understand cameras and we were able to record sound. The American censors </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">at the embassy were inattentive - that's how we got the sound out."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">The only thing the Americans managed to censor from most of the tapes was </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Saddam's comment that "this is theatre - Bush is the real criminal."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Television stations throughout the world were astonished yesterday when the </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">first tapes of Saddam's trial arrived without sound and have still not been </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">informed that the Americans censored the material. "What can we do when an </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">American official tells us the judge doesn't want sound - and then we find </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">out that they lied and the judge does want the sound?" an American camera </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">operator asked.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Video showed the face - and audiotape revealed the voice - of Judge Raid </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Juhi, whose name was widely reported in the Arab press yesterday. According </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">to the camera crews, Judge Juhi wanted the world to hear Saddam's voice. </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Nevertheless the Americans erased the entire audiotape of the hearings of </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">the 11 former Saddam ministers, including that of Tariq Aziz, the former </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">deputy prime minister, and "Chemical" Ali, Saddam's cousin accused of </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">gassing the Kurds at Halabja. The US Department of Defence tape of their </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">hearings has been taken by the US authorities so there is now no technical </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">record of the words of these 11 men, save for the notebooks of "pool" </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">reporters - four Americans and two Iraqis - who were present.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Judge Juhi said not long ago that "I have no secrets - a judge must not be </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">ashamed of the decisions he takes."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">The Americans apparently think differently.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New"><A HREF="http://www.robert-fisk.com">http://www.robert-fisk.com</A></FONT>
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