Press Association puts different numbers: “The Stop The War coalition, who organised the demo along with CND and the British Muslim Initiative, estimated up to 100,000 people were taking part in the London event. But the Metropolitan Police said their latest figures put the number at 2,000-3,000.”

British and American media gave then different figures of what happened. In UK, the only national newspaper to publish the news have been The Independent, Express on Sunday, The Guardian Unlimited. The last two have used the Press Association report, where the Independent had an original piece by Arifa Akbar (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2300438.ece).

BBC News correspondent Barnie Choudhury wrote on BBC.co.uk: “Among those who had spent hours travelling by coach to get to London there was a passionate belief that what they were doing was right. They wanted to get their message to Britain’s top politicians.

The Scottland on Sunday reports on the Glasgow demonstration, linked to the on in London: “The event, tied in with an anti-war and anti-nuclear rally in London’s Trafalgar Square, came as a poll found 76 per cent of Scots would rather see money for Trident spent on public services.”

The news, nonetheless, went far. China’s CCTV writes: “War is not the answer. So said thousands of protesters in central London, calling for all British troops to be pulled out of Iraq.” Fair enough.

In opposition to this recipe for narrow, single-track activity are those who are aware of history and the leading role trade unionists have played in establishing just about everything that’s become our generation’s responsibility to defend and extend – our collective social wage, whether it’s the NHS, social housing, the concept of state pension, unemployment insurance, universal education… where does one end the list?

What’s important is not what we are against, but what we are in favour of. Our economic wellbeing today means insuring the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Western Asia, stopping the American bombing of Somalia, ending US military activity in the Philippines, no invasion of Iran – in other words, self determination for all.

To those who demean the struggle to bring unions into this world, I say: you are actively and effectively insuring the marginalisation of the trade union movement. Many trade unionists, perhaps the majority, always knew that our social and economic wellbeing is thoroughly determined by the world in which we live.

From a trade union stance it is essential for Media Workers Against the War to organise among media workers in opposition to war. MWAW is answering questions like: how do unions defend members’ right to freely and independently gather material in war zones? How do we protect our sources? How can the union protect journalists who refuse to handle racist and/or sexist material?

Some in the trade union movement blithely argue that all the unions should do is to “agitate for £50 more”. We, who struggle to be “citizens of our time”, who struggle to define what’s happening in today’s world and to place unions at the very heart of world events, understand that the “war on terror” is terrifying because it sweeps up anyone at any time, from the recent killings in Najaf to the raid and shooting in Forest Gate in east London. In the twelve months ending in April 2004 (latest publicly available figures) slightly more than half-a-million New Yorkers were stopped and searched by various police bodies on city streets. There are 7.5 million people living in that city.

Media Workers Against the War asked to have a stall at the forthcoming NUJ photographer’s conference at Sadlers Wells (Feb 27) and were informed by the NUJ freelance office that no stalls are being allowed because of “lack of room” in the theatre and lobbies. This backward (perhaps, even historically, backward for a trade union meeting) position is regrettable. MWAW will of course, abide by this fiat and our supporters will only distribute a leaflet instead.

We crave unity, but do those who want a trade union movement, only active around economic issues, actually want the same? They argue for the proverbial unity of the graveyard and the acquiescence of the slave, because if their views were successful that’s where their neutered trade union movement would end up – glibly, even smugly, talking to itself.

We, on the other side, will confidently continue to build and establish a vibrant, relevant and militant union movement, as many generations have done before us, based upon the reality of world conditions and human solidarity. A trade union movement that will become the place where people go to defend all their interests.

Larry Herman, photo-journalist

On 18 March last year, the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, around 80,000 people marched in central London. Yet there was no mention of this in BBC peak news items. In response, the BBC received a deluge of complaints from protesters and an open letter from Stop the War demanding they explain their decision not to report the story.

Furthermore, there was no direct mention of the demonstration in the national press. Strangely, this didn’t stop the media giving widespread coverage to the employment law demonstrations in France at the same time – as if mass protest in a foreign country was more newsworthy than that taking place at home.

Perhaps more remarkably, the media almost completely ignored the Time to Go demonstration in Manchester on September 23, the day before the Labour Party conference began. More than 50,000 protesters from all over the country gathered in the city, marking the largest demonstration that Manchester had seen for 188 years.

Yet on the day of the demonstration, the front page of the Guardian was devoted to the revelation that Prince Charles is somewhat particular about his boiled eggs after a morning’s hunting. No platform was given to an anti-war commentator.

On the day after the demo, press coverage amounted to a small photo in the Sunday Independent and a tiny article in the Mail on Sunday, both taking a superficial “celebrity” angle. The demonstration was also absent from Monday’s papers. And all this in a week when there was turmoil in the Labour Party over the impact of the government’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon, plus a major story regarding Queen’s Lancashire Regiment soldiers being brought to trial for war crimes.

Editors’ stated reasoning against keeping the anti-war movement off the news agenda seems to be that such events are “no longer newsworthy” and that “fewer and fewer people are attending”. Neither argument holds up.

No longer newsworthy?

Firstly, this war is ongoing and the situation in Iraq is not simply a problem that the Iraqis themselves are failing to sort out. The continuing violence is a symptom of the occupation, in which Britain plays a crucial part. Four years into the occupation Blair’s “legacy” on Iraq is still a huge news story – so too, therefore, should be protest at the war.

Secondly, it is a crude over-simplification to measure the significance of demonstrations purely in terms of their size. In February 2003 over a million people took to the streets and hundreds of thousands more staged protests up and down the country. But subsequent demonstrations have been large by any standard.

Moreover, opinion polls show that the public is still overwhelmingly opposed to the war. One of the reasons they don’t march in such numbers as in 2003 is because then they believed their government would listen and the media would pay attention. The government didn’t and the media don’t. Are people to blame if now they feel there is no point in marching?

Finally, the anti-war movement is more than a numbers game. It also represents a body of powerful ideas about Iraq and the “war on terror” more generally, ideas that are reflected in the opinion poll data. These ideas, and the movements’ spokespeople who embody them, demand to be taken more seriously by the media.

Yet the roots of sectarian division in Iraq, and the parallels with British imperial history, are almost completely ignored in any mainstream coverage. General Sir Richard Dannatt’s statement in October, for example, that British troops’ presence was “exacerbating the situation” – which caused a media furore – was just what the antiwar movement has argued all along, but it has been almost entirely glossed over in media coverage since then.

Some protests ARE news

Many editors appear to be more comfortable championing causes that resonate with people’s short-term self-interest rather than on more fundamental issues. It seems there is no intrinsic reluctance to get stuck into a display of public dissent – provided it’s a minor policy issue. So on February 16, for example, a BBC Radio London reporter announced that the early stages of a protest in opposition to the city’s congestion charge extension were attended by more press than demonstrators.

Similarly, the recent online road-pricing petition has been given legitimacy by the media, with front page stories built around the strength of public opinion. Yet the anti-war demonstrations are the result of far more conviction and effort on any individual’s part than the signing of an online petition. This Saturday’s demonstration is raising much more urgent and important matters that are failing to be addressed in parliament.

It is precisely the lack of parliamentary debate on Iraq and any serious discussion of a timetable for withdrawal that has driven people to protest in the streets – surely their voice deserves to be heard now more than ever?

This week’s announcement that 1600 troops are to be withdrawn from southern Iraq is a breakthrough but there is still no firm commitment to have our armed forces out by the end of 2008. The media are portraying the withdrawal as a “success” for British forces, when absolutely noone believes this.

Trident, Iran…

Similarly, nearly 60% of people don’t want Trident replaced yet there has been no proper debate of this issue. A decision to renew the UK’s nuclear deterrent will not only be a further destabilising factor in the Middle East but also have a domestic impact on public spending priorities, issues that people really do experience first-hand in this country – last week we learned, for example, that British children are the most deprived in the developed world.

And the very real threat of an attack on Iran is still failing to be properly addressed. Despite wider acknowledgement of just how advanced the US and Israel’s plans are for military strikes in Iran, there is still a danger that an attack will be launched before the opposition is heard. The march is critical to alerting MPs that they cannot sit back this time and let the same excuses that led is into Iraq be made.

Since 2003, despite consistent opposition on the evidence of opinion polls, there has been virtually no high-profile coverage of the anti-war movement. How does this reflect on the public service that news organisations are supposed to provide?

The anti-war demonstrations are not only a sign of the strength of public will on these matters, they are central to gaining a platform for these discussions to happen and making the government listen. The challenge now for the mainstream media is to engage with the public on what are profound moral issues and allow their voice to be heard.

Caroline Price

Blair has spun the troop withdrawal all along.

As early as November 2005 the Guardian front page headlined: “Troops may start to leave Iraq in May”. It continued: “The government is aiming to begin a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq as early as the middle of next year [i.e. 2006], the Guardian has learned. … The Iraqi president said at the weekend that all British troops could be out by the end of next year. Mr Reid [UK defence secretary] was more cautious, suggesting that withdrawal could begin ‘by the end of next year’.”

There has been a drip drip drip of similar stories, faithfully reported by the British media. In November 2006 Blair said all coalition forces would be able to leave Iraq within 18 months. In July he said “significant” numbers of British troops could leave Iraq within 18 months (i.e. by the end of 2007). This merely repeated the British military’s plan made public in August that troops in Iraq could be cut “to between 3,000 and 4,000″ by the middle of 2008 — note, a bigger cut that the one announced by Blair this week.

The puppet Iraqi government has delighted in allowing the Western press to print headlines about imminent troop withdrawals. In June, Iraq’s national security adviser said he expected large numbers of US-led troops to leave Iraq by the end of this year, with the “majority” going by the end of 2007. “Maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid 2008,” he said. In November 2005 the Iraqi government said up to 30,000 US troops could be withdrawn as early as 2006. Ha bloody ha.

An entire year ago (March 2006), the Guardian reported that “British troops could start leaving Iraq within weeks, the army’s most senior officer in the country said today. The plan [paves] the way for all but a few hundred British troops to leave Iraq by mid-2008.” Déjà vu, anybody?

This week’s announcement allows Blair to leave office posturing that the UK intervention has had some success (see the FT’s comment, for example). Some British troops are coming home — this is a tremendous victory for the anti-war movement. But we will need to push hard to finish this shameful occupation.

Dave Crouch

This Branch notes:

1. The deaths of 171 (as of February 2007) journalists and media support staff since the current invasion of Iraq.

2.The inquest result into the death of Terry Lloyd, the ITV journalist who declined to be imbedded, which found that he was killed by American troops.

3. The NUJ’s campaign against identity cards and other restrictions on civil liberties and press freedom introduced under “anti-terror” legislation.

4. The sometimes blatant bias and unethical reporting of the “war on terror” in some sections of the main stream media.

This Branch acknowledges:

The work of Media Workers Against the War in rallying journalists and their non-editorial colleagues to defend accurate reporting and expose political pressure on journalists.

Recent Media Workers Against the War public meetings where speakers have included Jeremy Dear, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Gary Younge and Sami Ramadani, reflecting the growing concern about the wars in western Asia.

Media Workers Against the War plans to expand, forming a Scottish MWAW and a series of public meetings and addresses to union branches across the country.

This Branch believes:

That the “war on terror” has made journalists’ jobs more difficult and more dangerous at home and abroad.

Journalists should campaign to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

That journalists encounter pressure from government over the reporting of the “war on terror” and should campaign for fair and balanced press coverage.

This Branch resolves:

To donate £. . . to Media Workers Against the War to help fund a website, public meetings, newsletter and campaign material.

• The worst headline;
• The worst reporting;
• The best reporting.

Nominations follow below. Please send in your own nominations, for items published or broadcast in the last few months, as a comment to this post, or to mwaw@btinternet.com — a shortlist will be announced in a few weeks, and you to be able to vote on this site for your choice among the nominations.

The nominations so far:

• For the worst headline:

“Muslim majority schools ‘pose security threat and should be closed’” (The Daily Mail, Jan 22, puts a nuclear headline on a damp squib of a story)

“Barrack attack correction” (The Sun, Jan 15 buries it’s one-paragarph apology for he fact that it’s October story about a soldier’s home in Windsor being vandalised by Muslims was a pack of lies.)

“EU warned of new wave of illegal immigrants [from North Africa]” (The Guardian’s story on January 16 drowned in repetitions about “waves of illegal immigrants” who are set to “inundate” Europe from North Africa)

“Islamists use raid to stir up UK Somalis” (The Telegraph, Jan 14, smears opposition to the US assault on Somalia as all the work of fundamentalists)

“Target the preachers of hate, not [BNP Ballerina] Simone [Clarke]” (The Sun, January 16, says Muslims are worse than the BNP)

“Misbah wears burqa to pro-Taliban madrassa” (The Herald, Jan 12, joyfully sums up the entire UK media’s reporting of the custody battle over 12-yr-old Misbah Rana, also known as Molly Campbell, which was dominated by the assumption that Muslims just want to put women in a burqa.)

[our thanks to islamophobia-watch.com for help with compiling this list]

• For the worst reporting

1. The “Dispatches” documentary “Undercover Mosque“, produced by HardCash productions and first broadcast by Channel 4 on January 15.

2. Bobby Pathak’s article “Britain’s new preachers of hate“, in the Mirror on January 11 — which merely took the transcript of the Dispatches programme (see above) and re-published it with a few tiny modifications. This was part of a massive media hype about the programme.

3. The Mail on Sunday (Jan 21) article by Martin Smith, “I cannot shake your hand, sir. I’m a Muslim and you’re a man“, about a Muslim policewoman who refused to shake hands with Met chief Sir Ian Blair — at a time when half the country would refuse to shake the man’s hand. All part of the media’s notion that Muslims are the “enemy within” who cannot be trusted.

4. The Telegraph’s executive editor Con Coughlin’s comment piece on January 10, welcoming the assault by a US AC-130 gunship on Islamists and civilians in Somalia.

• For the best reporting:

1. The “Analysis” programme on BBC Radio 4 on December 28 entitled “Telling Muslim Stories“

2.  The documentary “Generation 7/7” presented by Bobby Friction

“DEAR STOP THE WAR COALITION,

Unfortunately, I can’t join your national demonstration against my war policies in London on 24 February, but I’m very pleased to hear that my record WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? will be featured at the protest. You can read my reasons for making this record, see my video for the song and find out how to buy it on this website: www.uglyrumours.com

If enough of you buy WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? (for just £1.50!) it will go into the charts, which the media won’t be able to ignore. This will spread the peace message and help bring the troops home. The record is available to buy now, either by texting PEACE1 to 78789 or by download at http://tinyurl.com/33j4oj

Any profits made from the record will go to Stop the War Coalition and help them continue campaigning against my slavish support for George Bush and his warmongering, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and which George and I are now planning to spread to Iran. Please buy WAR – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? and forward this message to everyone you can.

To publicise your demonstration and to promote my musical plea for peace, I have given an interview to the anti-war campaigner Brian Haw.

By the way, Stop the War tell me that coaches are coming from all over the country to be at Saturday’s demonstration. It’s very gratifying to hear that my reputation – what I call my legacy – can draw such huge crowds to the capital. You can find a coach in your area by clivking here.

I also hear that hundreds of thousands of leaflets and postcards will be distributed across London this week and that Wednesday 21 February has been designated LEAFLET THE TUBES day, when Stop the War hopes to publicise its demonstration at every tube station in the city. Anyone who wants to help or leaflet their neighbourhood or workplace, should contact 020 7278 6694 for leaflets or postcards.

I’m very pleased to learn that you have organised THE DEBATE PARLIAMENT WON’T HAVE on 20 March 2007 – exactly four years after George and I invaded Iraq. MPs, politicians from the USA, a range of experts, campaigners and other witnesses will discuss the Iraq war and its consequences. I’m afraid I won’t be able to join you, as it’s my policy never to be present when the Iraq war is discussed seriously. Judging by what an easy ride my war policies have had in parliament, this seems to be the policy for most MPs too.

I do of course wish your demonstration on 24 February every success (not). You will be representing the vast majority in this country who have always opposed my warmongering and I’ve always said that my government should be the voice of the people.

Yours, as nauseatingly hypocritical as ever,

TONY BLAIR
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
————————————————
NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
Called By Stop the War, CND and BMI
SAT 24 FEBRUARY 12 NOON
TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ – NO TRIDENT
ASSEMBLE HYDE PARK – MARCH TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE
ROUTE MAP here
COACHES: Drop off Park lane – Pickup Embankment

Publicising next week’s anti-war marches in London and Glasgow, the group also warned of the increasing dangers of a potential US-led war on Iran.

Jessica Lange, the actor who is currently performing in London’s West End in The Glass Menagerie, called for all coalition troops to leave Iraq. “George Bush’s plan to deploy more troops in Iraq was as immoral and criminal as the initial invasion and occupation,” she said in a statement. “The majority of the American people are held hostage by an administration which not only does not represent but arrogantly denies the will of the people.”

Mark Thomas, the comedian, said that it was bizarre that the government appeared to take more notice of a million motorists opposing road pricing in an online petition than of the million who had marched against the Iraq war in February 2003.

The novelist China Miéville attacked the “craven set of backbenchers” who failed to oppose the war. “This is a disgrace, they have forgotten who works for whom. This is a march to reclaim democracy.”

Among those attending the gathering or sending messages of support yesterday were the actors Richard Wilson and Timothy West, the designers Katherine Hamnett and Vivienne Westwood, the musician Dave Randall from Faithless, artists David Gentleman and Peter Kennard, the cartoonist Leon Kuhn and the playwright Caryl Churchill.

MPs are due to vote next month on the future of Trident, Kate Hudson, chair of the CND, reminded the gathering. She said that more than 120 MPs had already indicated that they would oppose it and she said that opposition to Trident among the general public was increasing daily.

The marches will be on February 24 and assemble at noon at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, London, and in George Square in Glasgow.

In November the government tried to ban ITV from embedding its journalists with British troops, accusing them of doing a “hatchet-job” on the military. Newspapers like the Daily Mail periodically lash out at the BBC for undermining the war effort.

These attacks play a dual role. On the one hand they bully the media into toeing the government line. But they also allow media bosses to pose as “independent”. Editors defend themselves like this: “We’re getting attacked from the right and from the left, so we must be somewhere in between, which proves our coverage is balanced.”

The truth is very different. Any serious analysis of the media shows how they have consistently fallen in behind the government in making the case of war and then backing “our” troops in the conflict. Recent research at Manchester University confirmed that, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, more than 80% of all television news stories took the government line on the moral case for war, while less than 12% challenged it. The research found that government accusations of BBC anti-war bias were unfounded: Channel 4 News was least likely to report coalition good news, with Sky News and ITV most likely. The BBC’s coverage fell in the middle ground. The findings supported earlier research by Cardiff University.

“Our side are the good guys”

Blair and the warmongers are applying to Iraq the hoary notion that nightly TV pictures from Vietnam turned Americans against the war. Daniel Hallin’s books have shown — although it was pretty clear at the time – that while liberal media organizations such as the New York Times and CBS were critical of the war’s tactics and “mistakes”, even exposing a few of its atrocities, they rarely challenged the positive motives by which the government explained what they were doing in Vietnam: “liberating” the population in a fight for freedom and democracy.

This is the main, underlying, problem with the UK media’s coverage of the “war on terror”: Britain and the US are assumed to be the good guys, trying to make a bad situation better, to stop people killing other people, to bring food, peace, prosperity, democracy, freedom. The fact that these are patently NOT the results of British and US intervention is either overlooked by the media or deemed the unfortunate consequences of otherwise good intentions.

Some examples (do you have suggestions of your own?). Here is Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor of the Observer, in a two-page spread on September 17 which described the US operation in Baghdad as “a desperate struggle to stop a brutal sectarian conflict from ripping the city apart”. I will return to the extremely doubtful nature of this definition of the US army’s role. But Beaumont went on to argue that Operation Forward Together was “the latest effort to improve the quality of life for the residents” of Baghdad (my emphasis).

As a matter of fact, Operation Together Forward “did not operate, did not go forward, and did not create togetherness”, as Juan Cole put it. Launched on June 14, the operation saw the bloodshed in Iraq reach record levels. It ended in late October with Bush admitting that the United States may be facing another Tet Offensive. As the Financial Times reported on October 21, this period saw “the worst violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion, with more than 100 civilian deaths a day over the past three weeks and more than 70 US military casualties”.

In other words, three-and-a-half years into an occupation that has give us Abu Graib, Haditha, a huge refugee crisis and up to 650,000 dead, the Observer’s foreign editor was still convinced that the US presence in the country was essentially benign.

It is less common now to encounter similar attitudes towards Iraq among senior editors expressed in public. Why? The scale of the disaster has been apparent for a long time, and opposition in the country to British involvement has been overwhelming. But it took General Sir Richard Dannatt’s admission in October that the war was lost to make newsrooms sit up and take notice.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the media have started a serious inquest into what went wrong in Iraq and why; explanation remains at the level of “mistakes”, “what ifs”, and of course blaming the Iraqis. Moreover, the media cling to the argument that things would get even worse if US/UK troops were to withdraw – as did the Guardian in its leader of September 23, which repeated the argument that US troops are somehow “protecting” Iraqis from each other.

Afghanistan is different. This, in the eyes of the entire British media, is still a “winnable” war and therefore NATO troops are bringing democracy, reconstruction and doing a great job fighting barbarism. Typical is the Independent on Sunday’s special issue of October 1 devoted to Afghanistan. The headlines say it all: “Tales of courage under fire”, “The sacrifice”, “Soldiers are not like us, they are better,” “Unlike Iraq, the Afghan war is winnable”. The leader, headlined “Right war, wrong tactics”, states: “Britain is one of the few nations that has made its commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan as a free country more than mere rhetoric. … The case for fulfilling our promise to the Afghan people is overwhelming in terms of simple morality…” (my emphasis)

Last November, a listener wrote to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme asking why the invasion of Iraq was described merely as “a conflict”. She said she could not recall other bloody invasions reduced to “a conflict”. She received this reply from Roger Hermiston, assistant editor: “I think there’s a big difference between the aggressive ‘invasions’ of dictators like Hitler and Saddam and the ‘occupation’, however badly planned and executed, of a country for positive ends, as in the Coalition effort in Iraq.” (my emphasis)

John Pilger comments on the attitude revealed by this exchange: “An invasion is not an invasion if ‘we’ do it, regardless of the lies that justified it and the contempt shown for international law. An occupation is not an occupation if ‘we’ run it, no matter that the means to our ‘positive ends require the violent deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, and an unnecessary sectarian tragedy.”

You don’t have to look too far to find motives for the US/UK invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan very different from those ascribed to them by the bulk of the mainstream media. Henry Kissinger has been heard to joke in private that: “I supported the invasion of Iraq for geostrategic reasons, but it never occurred to me that they would be stupid enough to try to turn the country into a democracy.” (Gideon Rachman, “The world may regret the end of the neo-con era”, Financial Times September 4 2006)

In contrast, many of the media’s senior managers have been stupid enough to believe Bush and Blair’s cant about bringing democracy to the Middle East, and continue to do so.

Dave Crouch

The news director of the public radio station in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has directed his staff to “ignore national stories quoting unnamed sources.” He also called on other news outlets to join this policy.

Bill Dupuy sent the following to his news staff:

Effectively immediately and until further notice, it is the policy of KSFR’s news department to ignore and not repeat any wire service or nationally published story about Iran, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia or any other foreign power that quotes an “unnamed” U.S. official.

What we have suspected and talked about at length before is now becoming clear. “High administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity,” “Usually reliable Washington sources,” and others of the like were behind the publicity that added credibility to the need to go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our news department covers local news. But, like local newspapers and others, we occassionally are taken in by national stories that we have no way to verify.

This is a small news department with a small reach. We cannot research these stories ourselves. But we can take steps not to compromise our integrity. We should not dutifully parrot whatever comes out of Washington, on the wire or by whatever means, no matter how intriguing and urgent it sounds, when the source is unnamed.

I am also calling on our colleagues in other local news departments — broadcast and print — to take the same professional approach.

Iraq is experiencing the largest movement of civilians in the Middle East since the exodus of Palestinians after the creation of Israel, the United Nations says, but the rest of the world is failing to step up to the plate, the Financial Times reports.

Two million Iraqis have become refugees in other countries, with most heading to neighbouring Jordan and Syria, while another 1.8m have become displaced within their own country.

Assuming a total population of around 26m that is a “staggering” amount, says Gonzalo Vargas Llosa from the UNHCR refugee agency, and the numbers “are rising every day”.

Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, yesterday revealed plans for the US to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees – who have already fled to neighbouring countries – to settle in the US over the next year. Until now the US has allowed only 463 Iraqi refugees into the country since the war began in 2003.

The announcement came after Ms Rice met António Guterres, the head of the UNHCR, who has recently returned from a tour of the Middle East where he had complained that the burden of the refugee crisis meant that “a very limited number of countries is paying a very heavy price”.

The UN last month issued a $60m appeal, warning that there was “currently no end in sight to the massive and escalating displacement in the face of extreme violence”. The US yesterday pledged $9m for a worldwide resettlement and relief programme but the UN effort remains seriously underfunded.

Without that money, the UN says, “UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies lack the resources to cope”, even as increasing numbers of people are cut off from social networks and struggling to subsist.

“Large numbers of Iraqi refugees are poor and live in low-income areas,” the appeal warned. “There are reports of women and young girls forced to resort to prostitution . . . and children forced into labour or other forms of exploitation in order to survive.”

A UN assessment in Syria found that 30 per cent of Iraqi children were not attending school and the appeal cited growing reports that Syria, Jordan and Lebanon had reached “saturation point”.

The UN on Tuesday said the number of Iraqis wanting to register with the UNHCR in Damascus and Amman had “dramatically increased over the past few days”. It added that many Iraqis were afraid of being deported under newly reinforced Syrian immigration regulations, despite Syrian government assurances that it would not force them across the border.

At the same time, most of the displaced inside Iraq “are now running out of resources”, Mr Vargas Llosa says, but security problems meant they were cut off from outside help.

“I am not sure if there is a crisis today in Africa where there are basically 4m displaced,” he said. “But the issue has not been given the prominence and visibility it deserves. It’s very important for the international community to recognise the enormity of the problem.”

Despite the renewed attention, the UN appeal remains mostly empty. It has received $6m from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund, and a further $1m from the UN-managed International Trust Fund for Iraq.

But the only donor country to contribute directly has been Sweden, with $2m. Some others have pledged funds but the money has not yet arrived, while the UK, for example, has not even pledged. The UNHCR says it had to dig into its emergency reserve just to pay this month’s salaries for its Iraq operation staff.

The UN also wants rich countries to be more generous in offering resettlement. “This is not a solution for the vast majority,” says Mr Vargas Llosa, but “certainly you could resettle more than has been the case so far”.

In the meantime, the UN says Iraq’s neighbours – with outside help – must continue to offer social services. “We understand this is a great burden on them, but the fact is for many Iraqis there is no option but to cross borders,” it says. “They should be able to lead dignified lives in Jordan and Syria.”

The International Federation of Journalists has backed new calls from Sudanese and Arab world journalists for the release of Sami al-Haj, a cameraman working for Al-Jazeera, who has been held for five years, tortured and accused of terrorism offences at the notorious Guantanamo detention centre in Cuba. He has never been charged or brought to trial.

“We understand that our colleague is in poor health as a result of his inhuman treatment,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “It is time for this ordeal to end.”

The IFJ says that Sami al-Haj is being victimised for working for the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera. He was captured by the Pakistani Army on the Afghan border in December 2001 then handed over to United States troops before being transferred to Guantanamo in June 2002.

According to his lawyers he was forced to confess alleged links between al-Jazeera and the terrorist group al-Qaeda. He has undergone regular torture, has been sexually assaulted and has been subject to more than 150 interrogation sessions.

“This case represents a singular injustice that casts a shadow over journalism worldwide,” said White. “It is a shocking and shameful case that makes a mockery of American democracy.” The IFJ is supporting new calls from journalists in the Sudan and around the Arab world for al-Haji’s release. The IFJ is backing appeals this week from its German affiliate the Deutsche Journalistinnen- und Journalisten-Union in ver.di to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to intervene in the case.

Sami al-Haj has been accused without proof of having interviewed Osama bin Laden and to have been involved in arms trafficking for Islamic terrorists is typical of the fate suffered by many of his fellow detainees. Al-Haj is the only confirmed journalist now imprisoned at Guantanamo.

The US alleges that he worked as a financial courier for Chechen rebels, and that he assisted al-Qaeda and extremist figures But he has been held on the basis of secret evidence; he has not been convicted or even charged with a crime. And until last year the military would not even acknowledge he was in custody.

Al-Haj’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says there is no credible evidence against him. “There is absolutely zero evidence that he has any history in terrorism at all,” he says contending that al-Haj is a political prisoner and that the focus of US questioning has not been alleged terrorist activities but obtaining intelligence on Al-Jazeera and its staff.

The 38, who boarded the flight in handcuffs, are believed to be the third batch of asylum-seekers to be sent to the area against their will. Although less troubled than the rest of Iraq, the region faces a threat from terrorism.

The Home Office says such removals are essential to “maintain the integrity” of the asylum system and that no one will be put at risk by being returned. But Dashty Jamal, of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, said: “We are very worried for the lives. We believe they are in danger.”

Within hours of their arrival in Iraq, a truck rigged with explosives blew up near a Baghdad college, killing 18 people. The previous day, bomb blasts ripped apart two crowded city markets. There has also been a wave of killings in Kirkuk, 60 miles from Arbil, over the past month.

A spokesman for Amnesty International said: “These forced removals are sending a wave of fear throughout the Iraqi community in the UK.

“They are putting people’s lives at risk. In post-conflict situations, people should only be returned if there is stability and a durable peace. Only a fantasist could say that of Iraq.”

Anna Reisenberger, the Refugee Council’s acting chief executive, said: “To return what amounts to a token number of asylum-seekers to a place where their safety cannot be guaranteed is alarming.”

The allegations against Iran are similar in tone and credibility to those made four years ago by the US government about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the invasion of 2003.

Senior US defence officials in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believed the bombs were manufactured in Iran and smuggled across the border to Shia militants in Iraq. The weapons, identified as “explosively formed penetrators” (EFPs) are said to be capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

The officials speaking in Baghdad used aggressive rhetoric suggesting that Washington wants to ratchet up its confrontation with Tehran. It has not ruled out using armed force and has sent a second carrier task force to the Gulf.

“We assess that these activities are coming from senior levels of the Iranian government,” said an official in Baghdad, charging that the explosive devices come from the al-Quds Brigade and noting that it answers to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. This is the first time the US has openly accused the Iranian government of being involved in sending weapons that kill Americans to Iraq.

The allegations by senior but unnamed US officials in Baghdad and Washington are bizarre. The US has been fighting a Sunni insurgency in Iraq since 2003 that is deeply hostile to Iran.

The insurgent groups have repeatedly denounced the democratically elected Iraqi government as pawns of Iran. It is unlikely that the Sunni guerrillas have received significant quantities of military equipment from Tehran. Some 1,190 US soldiers have been killed by so-called improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But most of them consist of heavy artillery shells (often 120mm or 155mm) taken from the arsenals of the former regime and detonated by blasting caps wired to a small battery. The current is switched on either by a command wire or a simple device such as the remote control used for children’s toys or to open garage doors.

Such bombs were used by guerrillas during the Irish war of independence in 1919-21 against British patrols and convoys. They were commonly used in the Second World War, when “shaped charges”, similar in purpose to the EFPs of which the US is now complaining, were employed by all armies. The very name – explosive formed penetrators – may have been chosen to imply that a menacing new weapon has been developed.

At the end of last year the Baker-Hamilton report, written by a bipartisan commission of Republicans and Democrats, suggested opening talks with Iran and Syria to resolve the Iraq crisis. Instead, President Bush has taken a precisely opposite line, blaming Iran and Syria for US losses in Iraq.

In the past month Washington has arrested five Iranian officials in a long-established office in Arbil, the Kurdish capital. An Iranian diplomat was kidnapped in Baghdad, allegedly by members of an Iraqi military unit under US influence. President George Bush had earlier said that Iranians deemed to be targeting US forces could be killed, which seemed to be opening the door to assassinations.

The statements from Washington give the impression that the US has been at war with Shia militias for the past three-and-a-half years while almost all the fighting has been with the Sunni insurgents. These are often led by highly trained former officers and men from Saddam Hussein’s elite military and intelligence units. During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, the Iraqi leader, backed by the US and the Soviet Union, was able to obtain training in advanced weapons for his forces.

The US stance on the military capabilities of Iraqis today is the exact opposite of its position in four years ago. Then President Bush and Tony Blair claimed that Iraqis were technically advanced enough to produce long-range missiles and to be close to producing a nuclear device. Washington is now saying that Iraqis are too backward to produce an effective roadside bomb and must seek Iranian help.

The White House may have decided that, in the run up to the 2008 presidential election, it would be much to its political advantage in the US to divert attention from its failure in Iraq by blaming Iran for being the hidden hand supporting its opponents.

It is likely that Shia militias have received weapons and money from Iran and possible that the Sunni insurgents have received some aid. But most Iraqi men possess weapons. Many millions of them received military training under Saddam Hussein. His well-supplied arsenals were all looted after his fall. No specialist on Iraq believes that Iran has ever been a serious promoter of the Sunni insurgency.

The evidence against Iran is even more insubstantial than the faked or mistaken evidence for Iraqi WMDs disseminated by the US and Britain in 2002 and 2003. The allegations appear to be full of exaggerations. Few Abrams tanks have been destroyed. It implies the Shias have been at war with the US while in fact they are controlled by parties which make up the Iraqi government.

The article’s main allegations come from “People Without Names” or PWN, described as “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies.” A “still classified American intelligence report that was prepared in 2006″ is also cited.

An “American intelligence assessment “is quoted as saying that “as part of its strategy in Iraq, Iran is implementing a deliberate, calibrated policy – approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force – to provide explosives support and training to select Iraqi Shia militant groups to conduct attacks against coalition targets.”

While it is plausible that Iran might be providing weapons to its allies in Iraq, it is not so obvious that Iran actually has any incentive to support attacks on US troops – since Iran is allied with the Iraq’s Shiite government and wants it to succeed. A careful report in the Los Angeles Times indicated that top Iranian officials are not so eager for U.S. forces to withdraw (“Iraq Pullout Talk Makes Iran Uneasy,” Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2006.)

The New York Times article provides no evidence for its reported allegations that Iran is seeking to promote attacks on U.S. forces.

The 1900-word article offers no quotes from any experts who might question the allegations made by PWN, although there are many who would.

Some readers might remember the author of the article, Michael R. Gordon, from the reporting prior to the Iraq war. His most notorious contribution was an article of September 8, 2002 entitled “U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts,” co-authored with Judith Miller. It began:

“More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administrations officials said today. In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium.”

Vice-President Dick Cheney cited this September 8th, 2002 article the following Sunday on “Meet the Press,” to make his case that Iraq was a nuclear threat. The aluminum tubes were later determined to be unrelated to nuclear fuel production, and Iraq’s nuclear program to be non-existent.

The New York Times cited the September 8th, 2002 article and subsequent reporting on the aluminum tubes in its apology for the newspaper’s reporting leading up to the Iraq War.

It is not clear, however, how much the newspaper has learned from its mistakes.

[See also Juan Cole's demolition of the NYT's claims: "It is obvious that if Iran did not exist, US troops would still be being blown up in large numbers. Sunni guerrillas in al-Anbar and West Baghdad are responsible for most of the deaths. The Bush administration's talent for blaming everyone but itself for its own screw-ups is on clear display here."]

By these robust standards George Bush is doing a moderately competent job in suggesting that if balked by Iran on the matter of arming the Shi’a in Iraq or pursuing its nuclear program he’ll dump high explosive, maybe even a couple of nukes, on that country’s relevant research sites, or tell Israel to do the job for him.

In Washington there are plenty of rational people in Congress, think tanks and the Pentagon who think he’s capable of ordering an attack,– albeit not a nuclear one — with bombers carrying conventional explosive and with missiles from US ships in the Persian Gulf.

Colonel Sam Gardner, who’s taught at the National War College recently sketched out on this site the plan as it could unfold: already the second naval carrier group has been deployed to the Gulf area, joined by naval mine clearing ships. “As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.”

Gardiner cautioned that “It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

“First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led_group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff.”

As regards “the outrage stuff”, here on cue comes the New York Times’ Michael Gordon with a front page story today, February 10, headlined “Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made by Iran, US Says”, and beginning “The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.”

It’s no doubt true that Iran has been arming the Shi’a. What Gordon fails to mention is that over 90 per sent of the IEDs used against US troops in Iraq have been detonated by the Sunni insurgents , who of course are not supplied by Iran. More generally, the prime point of interest of the intelligence briefings given to Gordon and other journalists is the timing. At any point in the past couple of years the US could have gone public with roughly the same accusations.

Shades of the Ho Chi Minh trail! Year after year first Johnson then Nixon would claim that the resistance in south Vietnam was not indigenous but created and armed by North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and China–which these days has flourishing economic ties with Iran, particularly in the field of energy.

Another tripwire for escalation would be the UN Security Council Feb 21 deadline for Iran to suspend “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA,” the International Atomic Energy Agency.

There’s certainly disquiet in Congress, particularly after Bush’s State of the Union address January 17 where he reprised his notorious “Axis of Evil” address of January 2002, identifying Iran as the number one troublemaker and fomenter of terror in the region.

“Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take unilateral action against Iran, in the absence of a direct threat, without Congressional approval?” the Virginia Democrat, Senator James Webb recently asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice said she’d get back to him.

The Bush administration is capable of almost any folly, but is it likely that it would bomb Iran’s nuclear research labs? Would it really prod Israel into taking on the job?

Israel of course has been making plenty of quite predictable hay out of President Ahmadinejad’s crack about how “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.” Of course the let’s-stay- calm types say it was just a stale old one-liner from the Ayatollah Khomeini and please to note he used the word “regime”, not “Israel”. Plant that one in the graveyard of wimpy rationalizations. Along with the recent”holocaust conference”, it’s probably the biggest leg-up for Israeli bond drives since the Yom Kippur war. Prime minister Olmert quotes it on an almost daily basis, echoed by his rival, Netanyahu.

Aside from the rhetorical haymaking, the notion of Israel nuking Iran’s N-plants is very far-fetched. Indeed, the military wisdom here is that as a practical enterprise, it can’t, since among many technical limitations Israel’s bombers would require refueling over hostile territory.

Aside from this, Israel still won’t officially admit to having a nuclear arsenal. It would a stupefying jump, from that disingenuous posture to being the first power in the region to explode a nuclear device. The point of having a nuclear deterrent is to deter, not to use. Iran is well aware that in 1999 and 2004 Israelis bought Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles. As President Chirac asked in his recent press conference, what good it would do Iran to have a nuclear bomb, or even two. “Where would it fire that bomb? At Israel? It wouldn’t have traveled 200 meters through the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.”

(Reservations among Irael’s elites about attacks on Iran are the topic of an excellent piece by Gabriel Kolko on this site today.)

So the job of attacking would fall to the US Air force and US Navy and there are certainly generals, particularly in the Air Force, telling Bush it would be a snap, just as Curt LeMay, at that time head of the Strategic Air Command, told President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis that SAC could “reduce the Soviet Union to a smouldering irradiated ruin in three hours”.

But Air Force credibility is low at the moment. LeMay’s heirs told Bush that “shock and awe” bombing in 2003 would prompt Saddam to run up the white flag. It didn’t. US ground forces carried the day–at least at the outset. But there aren’t any US ground forces available to invade a country many times bigger than Iraq, filled with a large population mostly loyal to the regime. After sorties against Iran with bombs and missiles what would the US do?

The problem is that brinkmanship suits everyone’s book. Ahmadinejad, facing serious political problems, can posture about standing up to the Great Satan. Olmert can say Ahmadinejad wants to finish off Israel and kill all the Jews. Bush sees Iran as a terrific way of changing the subject from the mess in Iraq and putting the Democrats on the spot.

The Democrats take the lead of their presidential hopefuls, who have no intention of being corralled by the Republicans as symps of holocaust deniers who want to destroy Israel. These days, to be a player, any candidate for the US presidency has to raise about $100 million, of which a large tranche will come from American Jews. Barack Obama and John Edwards call for swift withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. When it comes to Iran they roar in unison with Hillary Clinton that no option can be left off the table. In other words, if it comes to it, nuke ‘em .

Is there room for sanity here? The best hope will be for Iran to finish its testing cycle, declare mission accomplished and figure out some sort of face-saving halt in its program by February 21. Can we hope for prudence from the White House? Who knows? Bush is a nutty guy. It was his insistence on democratic elections in Iraq that put the Shi’a in control. Now he’s blaming Iran for trying to capitalize on the consequences. This is not a regime that thinks things through very sensibly.

Since the first six months of the invasion we have had hardly any independent reporting in Iraq. At the beginning there was euphoria — some 260 publications sprang up. Under the sanctions no one had had access to publishing, even the official Baath newspaper “al Thawra” was cut from 24 pages to four.

So just looking at newspapers again was a real pleasure for Iraqis. People wanted a place to breathe again; after the Iraq-Iran and Gulf wars and sanctions, they were too exhausted for another war. People in general were ready for political resistance, not armed resistance — although the armed resistance was born in embryo immediately in the aftermath of the invasion. There was a feeling that things might get better.

People started organising political parties, women’s groups, student unions. The started demonstrating, particularly for the US army to leave the schools and colleges they had taken over to use as military bases during the invasion. That was how the Fallujah confrontation began — soldiers opened fire on such a demonstration and 17 people were killed.

Then Paul Bremer’s administration began closing newspapers for “inciting violence” — i.e. for opposing what’s called the political process. The assassinations began of anybody who criticised the occupation. That is why academics were targeted, and journalists. Over 150 journalists have died, including some of our most prominent women journalists.

It seems like there has been a systematic process of silencing the opposition. The Arab satellite stations al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya were closed down. The latest TV station offices in Baghdad to be closed is Al Sharqiya (based in the United Arab Emirates) for criticizing the Iraqi constitution. Only two remaining TV stations actually call the occupation an “occupation”: one is Al Baghdadiya, which broadcasts from Egypt, and one from a lorry that moves around constantly — just like the “weapons of mass destruction” that Iraq was supposed to have!

[For more detail on the Iraqi media, see Dahr Jamail's report here]

Who is targeting journalists and academics? Of course there are gangs. Kidnapping is an easy way to earn money. But this is only a small part of the violence. In the case of the academics and journalists, they are approached in the street, asked for their names, and then executed — in other words, they are targeted for who they are and what they say, not to make money.

So there are very few critical voices left in Iraq. Iraqis refuse to give interviews in Arabic — only to foreign-language media — so they can’t be so easily identified by the militias. There have been cases of people targeted immediately after they have said something on the TV or radio.

Occupation smears the resistance

The consequences for people’s lives are summed up by the fact that only 30% of children started primary school this year. This takes us back to the 1930s. Medical supplies are minimal. Women are losing all their rights — how can they compete with the militias for scarce jobs, for example? We have women members of parliament, they have not been elected but appointed by the sectarian and ethnic parties according to a specific quota. All of them represent their parties’ agenda, they hardly speak to highlight Iraqi women’s plight, most of them are covered in black from head to foot and wear black gloves, something unheard of in Iraqi society before the invasion.

In fact one of them doesn’t even speak, because she believes in Sawt Al Ma’ra A’wra — that a woman’s voice should not be heard in public, it is something to be ashamed of.
The occupation has been based on sectarianism from day one. Iraq became a black hole for corruption. When you shake hands with someone now you say I am a “Shiite” or a “Sunni”, or a “Kurd” — you have to if you want to get a job, official jobs are allocated according to the sectarian divide. And what about the occupation? The occupation is watching from a distance — who will be left standing when the fighting is over, so we can use them?

Whenever there is a successful attack on foreign troops by the resistance, however — and the Brookings Institute says there are 120 every day now — immediately there will be a huge car bomb in the middle of a crowded market in Baghdad. There is a definite sense of the occupation taking revenge — there is a definite connection in people’s minds.

We know from Vietnam and Algeria that this is counter-insurgency — you smear the reputation of the resistance.

The Zarqa massacre in January

Take the Zarqa massacre last week, near Najaf. Out of the blue we found out about a new sect, the Soldiers of Heaven (or Army of Heaven), which had never been heard of before. The US and the British committed a massacre, and they had to justify what happened — there were some 300 dead, including many women and children.

The story became more and more fantastic, like science fiction. These Soldiers of Heaven were supposed to have thousands of members and be heavily armed. Then the officials started claiming they were Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans. It was reported like this in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune.

[Here's how the Guardian reported it on its front page on January 29: "Iraqi troops backed by US helicopters and F-16 jets fought one of the fiercest battles since the end of the 2003 war yesterday… Iraqi officials said 250 members of a messianic Islamic group had been killed in a day of fighting..."

On January 30 it again described the confrontation with "mystery fighters", uncritically repeating the official explanation: "US and Iraqi forces had fought hundreds of fighters from an obscure Islamic splinter group suspected of planning attacks … A defence ministry spokesman said: "The victorious Iraqi forces, with US help, have smashed the group of terrorists who were planning to disrupt the holy day of Ashura.'"]

We rang people there and asked what really happened.

There were two tribes on their way to the Ashura festival in Nejaf. Two people were shot at a checkpoint — it happens in today’s Iraq, it’s a usual occurrence. Shooting broke out as people from the tribes retaliated. The Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint called in US airstrikes. There was a huge massacre.

The Soldiers of Heaven is a tiny sect, a cult. He has no army of thousands. But it turns out its leader is anti-occupation and also asks what is happening to the oil wealth and why it is not going to the Iraqis. [Read alternative accounts of what really happened here, here and here, or informed but sceptical opinion here]

The role of the media

What really bothers me in all this is the elephant in the living room that nobody mentions — the resistance. The media say “insurgents”, “Baathists”, “terrorists” — but not resistance. They are denying our right to resist the occupation.

Sometimes I get angry about it. But they are bound to leave sooner or later.

What happens when the troops leave? Most Iraqis believe strongly that the minute the troops leave it will be alright. It’s like the troops arrived with a virus and they will take it away when they leave. Iraq has no history of civil war. Occupation is an industry. People provide uniforms, services etc. There is the growth of a class of Iraqis who feed on this, and therefore fuel the conflict.

The Independent’s correspondent Patrick Cockburn was one of the few to start talking about the “Sunni-Shia divide”. I didn’t like it. In fact I was shocked. If they want a civil war they’ll have to divide our bedrooms — we are very mixed. Baghdad itself is one-third Kurdish. Ordinary people don’t have the feeling that there is a civil war.

But it’s being encouraged. It’s convenient to have these labels. Read Paul Bremer’s book about the first year of the occupation — he loved reminding people about which sect or ethnicity they “belonged” to.

The source of the conflict isn’t a Sunni-Shia divide. We never had one. Resistance to the Baath was never sectarian. In the 1940s-50s when we fought the British it was never because they were Christian. It’s different from Northern Ireland — there was never any segregation in Iraq.

The majority of the resistance are former officers of the Iraqi army, which points to the possibility of a military regime. Also there are the jihadists, who we never used to have in Iraq, but with the occupation people are despairing and religion is very powerful: there might be an Islamist government.

But there is also political opposition, such as the Iraqi National Foundation Congress (which I support), formed in 2004 as an umbrella organisation of 22 parties and groups. This could become the political face of the resistance.

I try to come back to Britain every few months. The last time I came was in October — I looked at the newspapers in Heathrow and thought I’d arrived back in the 1970s. It was just after Jack Straw had “expressed his concern” about the niqab. Not satisfied with bombing foreign countries and detaining people without due process, we were now going to tell people what to wear.

I was particularly struck by a quote I read a vox-pop in the Guardian. A 16-year-old student was asked what he thought about the niqab. He said: “I’ll go further than Jack Straw and say they need to take off their veils. You need to see people face to face. It’s weird not knowing who it is you’re passing in the street, especially late at night when someone might jump you.”

When I had left a few months earlier this whole project was about saving muslim women, “saving them from terrible muslim men making them walk behind them and wear the veil” and so on. But now the problem was Muslim women were going to jump out in their niqabs and mug you! This 16-year old’s life was endangered, apparently, by these niqab-wearing Muslim women.

Which is only slightly less bizarre than the case in Holland where, in the middle of the election campaign, the right-wing party that won the election suggested changing the constitution so that women would not be able to wear burkas. Now there are about 15 and 30 women in Holland who wear burkas. They could have sent them a letter individually!

You do not change your constitution because of what 15 or 30 women wear. If we’re going to do that then I would like all white men of a certain age to grow their hair, because every time I see a white guy with very short hair I get worried.

Jade Goody in a uniform

This time when I arrived in London it was strange. There was no longer this frenzy about the niqab and this weird consensus about who was the problem. But everybody was talking about racism. I arrived on the Saturday Jade Goody had been kicked out of the Big Brother house, Gordon Brown had waded in saying we’re a decent, tolerant group of people.

One of amazing things — I find this in the States as well — is the loss of innocence about racism: the powerful always seem to be able to find their innocence again in time for the next atrocious thing. So it was like the McPherson report had never happened. We were talking about racism as if it were something new.

And in all of this Jade Goody was perfect for this: she was a working class woman, uncouth, rude, ignorant, all the things that you can say about working class people. But nobody was going to talk about power, nobody was going to talk about systems.

And the truth is that Jade Goody in the BB house is not really the issue. But you put Jade Goody in uniform and you put her in immigration or in a police uniform and you give her the power to arrest, detain, shoot and kill — and that’s what we do, we send our Jade Goodies abroad to Iraq. (That’s not all the people in the army, but that’s certainly some of them if you look at the cases that have come up.) If you put them in a council then they can deny housing and healthcare and schools. So the real issue when we talk about Islamophobia and racism is power.

Ian Blair — get over it! Shake somebody else’s hand, it’s not a big deal. So often with these things these minor cultural things become these huge incidents because there’s nothing bigger to talk about. They’re not going to talk about power, about who has it and why and what we can do about it. And so it descends into this vicious, vile pettiness. It comes to something when you’re flying back to Bush’s America thinking: “Phew! That place is crazy!”

Racism of colour and creed

So instead the government and the establishment try to frame this discussion in terms of “essential British values”, as if there is something particular about Britain that somehow these people aren’t ready for. That there is an essential Britishness, somewhere in the ether there is an abstract, mythological Great British decency.

When it comes to race is, we’re coming down to the lowest common denominator, we’re getting worse and worse. Our racial discourse is degrading terribly rapidly.

Compared to what I read about Britain, when I do come back and I walk down Brick Lane and I see people with pierced belly buttons and in niqabs and black guys tap dancing and all the rest of it I’m thinking: where is this crisis? I’m expecting to see something terrible around every corner. You get this sense that Britain is on a precipice. In America they have a programme on CNN called something like “The Home Of Terror”, and it zooms in on the Houses of Parliament and Britain is now the nexus of international terrorism — if you believe CNN.

But the truth is that as far as I am aware it always has been that the crucial issue with Britain when it comes to things like integration is racism — it’s not Muslims, it’s not Islamophobia, it’s racism.

It’s peculiar: do you remember Ruth Kelly: “We want to have an honest and open discussion”? Whenever they want and honest and open discussion they want to talk shit about black people.

Nobody’s going to have an honest and open discussion about white people. So even though white people have most of the power and even though they are the people who start the wars and so on, that discussion is off the table.

And the truth is, all the great things we do have in this country — and I do still think that this is a brilliant country — are not there because of some innate sense of decency but because we fought for them. Notting Hill Carnival is a superb example — you cannot be a Tory leader now if you don’t go to Notting Hill Carnival. When they sold this country for the Olympics they said we’re a multiracial country, full of diversity and so on.

On the football terraces, in the cinemas, in theatres, on the streets of Brixton and Toxteth and Hownlsow and Bradford and Grunwick, and also on the streets of Nairobi and so on, we make that happen, black and white people fighting together. That’s what makes Britain the place that it is.

It didn’t come because people quite liked the idea: “Oh go on then, give us a chipati!” That’s not how antiracism happens, that’s not how the best of this country has happened. It’s happened because people have fought for it, both black and white.

But the manners and mannerisms of racism have changed. And in terms of the new racism it’s one of the things I want to concentrate on. It’s shifted. From race to religion, from colour to creed.

When I was growing up people used to say to Carribbeans: why can’t you be more like the Asians? They don’t want to sleep with our daughters, they don’t play their music loud, they don’t want to mix with us, they keep themselves to themselves, they work all hours — all these stereotypes would come out. And now 20 years on they are turning to the Asians and saying: why won’t you integrate with us? what’s wrong with our daughters? Why won’t you marry them? The whole parameters of racism have shifted and the way we have to fight it also.

I find it strange this squeamishness among some on the left about the involvement of religion in our politics. The Civil Rights Movement was run largely from the church. Now there were issues with that. But nobody called the 1963 march on Washington, where King made his “I have a dream” speech, no one called that the “march for Baptism”. People defend themselves where they are attacked, and if you’re attacked in your mosque, because of your religion, you will probably organise on a religious basis. That doesn’t mean that I have to be religious, that I have to refuse to shake people’s hands, but it means it is possible to create a coalition with people who are religious.

The whole emphasis has been not on racism, but on integration. “You people won’t integrate.” There are two things I find particularly weird about this. One of the people, Ruth Kelly, who has pursued this attack on fundamentalism is a member of Opus Dei. Is there no irony in this country?

Secondly, fundamentalism is a problem. I find religious fundamentalism a big problem. But the biggest problem I have with religious fundamentalism is the fundamentalism that is armed to the teeth and lives in the White House. Religious fundamentalism is not the preserve of Muslims and Islam.

Integration: it’s a weird issue. You want to ask integrate into what, and how, and who are you asking to integrate? Because the main people in Britain who have trouble integrating are white people. I don’t say that as a rhetorical device — it’s actually true. You don’t hear of black flight, or brown flight, or Asians or black people saying, oh dear, a white family’s moved in, I’m out of here. A Mori poll for Prospect last year found that 41% of whites compare to 26% of minorities wanted the races to live separately.

It’s also not true that the existence of non-white people causes racism, The most racist area of Britain is Devon and Cornwall according to a survey for the Observer in 2005, because it’s the absence of black people that allows these racist ideas to flourish.

So we have to be very clear. The biggest barrier to integration in this country is not the niqab, not the hejab, not the veil, it’s not language — it’s racism. I’m not saying that other things might not be issues at other time, although most of them frankly aren’t. But racism is the primary source.

So what are we going to do about it?

There are three things. First, we have to keep this in context. There is so little context provided for these things. I’ll give you and example. After the July 7 when they talked about home-grown terrorists, how can this be? The truth is Britain has been growing terrorists for years. We have an evening dedicated to a home-grown terrorist — it’s called Guy Fawkes night. So long as Britain has been going abroad and invading foreign countries there has been an element in Britain that has fought back on these shores in ways that are symmetrical, or parallel, to what is going on in those countries.

Second, and very important, we have to recognise the legitimate grievances of the white working class. Because that creates a pool of resentment. Often they do get left out because no one is talking about them. And some of the few people who are talking to them are the BNP. And they have a fundamentalism of their own — it’s called racial fundamentalism. White workers can look around them and see the problems that the have and they retreat into race and they attack the very people that they should be making common cause with to fight for the resources that they all need.

Finally, we have to stop this war. As long as this war is gong on — and every piece of intelligence supports this — there will be an increase in the kind of fundamentalism that makes all of our lives less secure.

In the USA there is a mood shift taking place. Over the past week or so the Democrats have wanted to do very little more than say please don’t do that [when Bush announced his troop "surge"]. The pressure has come from below from anti-war activists to force the Democrats to reassess what they need to do if they want to be re-elected.

Politics is about imagining other possibilities, and that is what we have to do right now. I was always under the impression that journalism was about talking truth to power, and not telling lies about the powers. And that is what an awful lot of British journalism has become.

This meeting will also be a chance to discuss in detail what MWAW should be doing over the next month.

Come and get involved! More details: tel. 07801 789 297

The Guardian report reveals that Whitehall officials briefed journalists early on Wednesday before all of the suspects had been found. The police said that “they suspected the anonymous briefings may have been intended to deflect attention from the prisons crisis and the cash for honours inquiry”. At least one tabloid newspaper had even been tipped off the night before the raids.

“Some of the more sensational media claims about the plot – such as reports that two young British Muslim soldiers had agreed to act as ‘live bait’ in an attempt to trap the suspects – were dismissed by counter-terrorism officials as being completely untrue. Claims that police uncovered a list of 25 intended victims were also dismissed.”

The Press Complaints Commission have launched their third investigation of Daily Telegraph political editor, Con Coughlin, in as many months, after a number of high level complaints about his latest article on Iran.

The investigation is looking at an article by Mr Coughlin on 24 January relying on an unnamed “European defence official” alleging that North Korea is helping Iran prepare a nuclear weapons test and follows the recent publication of a report detailing a catalogue of inaccurate and misleading stories about Iran.

The report, put together by Campaign Iran and published last month, revealed that Mr Coughlin, the man who ‘broke the story’ of Iraq’s 45 minute WMD capacity, is behind sixteen articles containing unsubstantiated allegations against Iran over the past twelve months.

The PCC will examine whether the stories, all based on unnamed or untraceable sources, are in breach of Clause 1 of their Code of Practice, requiring accuracy.

The veracity of Coughlin’s writing on Iran is already under investigation by the PCC following complaints about a headline article in last month’s Telegraph that claimed that Iran was “grooming Bin Laden’s successor”.

The story, universally dismissed by Middle East experts, led the organisation Campaign Iran to conduct a broader analysis of the accuracy of Mr Coughlin’s stories and the journalistic methods he uses. Analysing 44 articles by Mr Coughlin on Iran, the report finds some stark patterns in terms of his journalistic technique:

* Sources are unnamed or untraceable, often “senior Western intelligence officials” or “senior Foreign Office officials”.
* Articles are published at sensitive and delicate times where there has been a relatively positive diplomatic moves towards Iran.

* Articles contain exclusive revelations about Iran combined with eye-catchingly controversial headlines;

* The story upon which the headline is based does not usually exceed one line or at the most one paragraph.

* The rest of the article focuses on other, often unrelated, information.

The report also reveals that Coughlin has a history of breaking politically important stories that are later shown to be inaccurate. He is the journalist who discovered the “fact” that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. He was also the journalist who, in 2003, unearthed “the link” between the 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Ata, and the Iraqi intelligence.

Professor Abbas Edalat of Campaign Iran said today: “The quoting of unnamed sources has always been an essential aspect of news reporting, but Coughlin is abusing the practice in order to give substance otherwise implausible political stories. These stories are repeated as fact on news outlets and websites across the world. They cannot be easily challenged because the unnamed source can never be revealed.

“During the build-up to the invasion of Iraq Coughlin was behind two very influential stories that helped pave the path to war. Both were later found to be completely untrue. We must be vigilant against similar inaccuracies being used to prepare the path for intervention against Iran, and we call on the PCC to take action against Coughlin and to safeguard the integrity and accuracy of our press.”

The report, ‘Conning the Nation: An Analysis of Con Coughlin’s Reportage on Iran’ has been compiled by Campaign Iran, based on research led by Dr Majid Tafreshi.

For more information visit www.campaigniran.org

Appendix 1

Sources used by Coughlin’s for his articles published in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph within the last year:

10/10/2006: “The West woke up too late to the nuclear threat of rogue states” Source: none.

04/08/2006: “Teheran fund pays war compensation to Hizbollah families” Source: “A senior security official”.

21/07/2006: “Meanwhile, Iran gets on with its bomb” Source: none.

14/07/2006: “Israeli crisis is a smoke screen for Iran’s nuclear ambitions” Source: none.

13/07/2006: “Cat and mouse games on border that is ‘our front line with Iran’” Source: An Israeli soldier.

12/06/2006: “Iran accused of hiding secret nuclear weapons site” Source: A senior western diplomat”

11/04/2006: “The West can’t let Iran have the bomb” Source: “An official closely involved in the IAEA’s negotiations with Iran”

07/04/2006: “Iran has missiles to carry nuclear warheads” Source: “A senior US official”

07/04/2006: “UN officials find evidence of secret uranium enrichment plant” Sources: “A diplomat closely involved in the IAEA’s negotiations with Teheran” and “A senior diplomat attached to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna”.

04/04/2006: “Iran’s spies watching us, says Israel” Sources: “A senior Israeli military commander” and “an officer with Israel’s northern command”.

06/03/2006: “Teheran park ‘cleansed’ of traces from nuclear site” Source: “A senior western official”

11/02/2006: “Iran plant has restarted its nuclear bomb-making equipment” Source: “A senior Western intelligence official”

30/01/2006: “Iran sets up secret team to infiltrate UN nuclear watchdog, say officials” Source: “a senior western intelligence official”

16/01/2006: “Iran could go nuclear within three years” Sources: “A senior western intelligence officer” and “an intelligence official”

27/11/2005: “Teheran secretly trains Chechens to fight in Russia” Source: “a senior intelligence official”

29/10/2005: “Smuggling route [from Iran] opened to supply Iraqi insurgents” Source: “The National Council of Resistance of Iran”

Presented by anti-war campaigner and leading journalist Yvonne Ridley, The Agenda has run for two years and was coming up to its 500th edition. It provides 4-and-a-half hours of live TV every week, repeated in the evening.

The Agenda has blanket coverage in the Muslim community among satellite TV owners, and a growing band of non-Muslims who found a serious broadcast which took a look at politics and current affairs at the grass roots. Last year audiences were estimated at 900,000+ in Europe alone, but the programme also went across Asia and the East. Its greatest followers are women at home during the day — those women have no political viewing because there’s no substitute.

And yet the programme has been taken off air with no explanation.

A spokesperson for the company told MWAW on January 31 that the Islam Channel is “in the process of restructuring its programming” and that this was “just a business decision” by the company. The spokesperson said it was “nothing to do with it [the programme] not being popular”.

If a programme is popular, it is usually a “good business decision” to maintain it. More importantly, there is a strong public interest case for the broadcast to continue.

FInally, if the channel is “restructuring” its programming, why was The Agenda taken off air BEFORE restructuring had been agreed?

People familiar with the Islam Channel say they fear this is a political decision, motivated by real or imaginary pressure from the authorities, or by hostilty to the programme’s critical approach.

Please contact the Channel now to register your support for the programme and for Yvonne Ridley. Yvonne is a stalwart of the anti-war movement. In 2003 she was sacked from Al-Jazeera because of her opposition to the war on Iraq, and because she set up NUJ branch at the channel.

Please contact the Islam Channel now:

mohamed.ali@islamchannel.tv

pr@islamchannel.tv

Tel. 0207 374 4511

Nevertheless, efforts to hold our politicians to account and keep their terrible abuses of power in the public conscience are to be applauded, and the story raises important issues.

The central theme follows Blair’s delusional, helter-skelter downward spiral from PM, and self-appointed world statesman, to meek obscurity, his legacy (an illegal and immoral war) haunting him throughout his grubby demise.

And grubby it is. Rather than repenting, Blair is inconvenienced by vivid apparitions from a distant, bloody war. These merely distract him from his vital purposes – setting up the Blair Foundation, dictating his memoirs, nurturing his “legacy”…

Unfortunately, this is also ultimately where the screenplay falters, stumbling between drama and farce. Thus, harrowing visions of wounded and dead Iraqis are set against Robert Lindsay’s almost amicably oafish Blair and a production line of obvious Westminster-club gags.

Obsessed with potential sales of his forthcoming autobiography My Legacy (which even his publisher ultimately shuns), Blair becomes increasingly isolated, misjudging warnings delivered by his aides, wife, former allies and enemies alike. And so he blunders through a series of Christmas Carol-esque warnings, his moment of epiphany arriving too late — on his final motorcade to Heathrow airport, this time in the back of a police van on the instruction of an extradition order.

It is a perhaps suitably low-key ending. Whether intentionally or not, however, it leaves us hollow and unsettled at the whole sorry mess. Maybe our Tony is the scapegoat, a product of the party machine and the vagaries of the political system Beaton sets out to send up – apparently to provide a plausible backdrop to events, the legal process requires the incumbent PM (a disgruntled and resentful Gordon Brown) to dob him in.

While it is true that cabinet colleagues, advisors, and political colluders — not to mention the pitifully cowed mainstream media — are all in some way culpable, this seems to drastically underplay Blair’s increasingly tyrannical ways. Specifically, such treatment fails to do justice to Blair’s zealous desire to use military means to pursue his new world order, as he explained in a recent speech in characteristically duplicitous tones.

Far from being a lesson learned, it seems the misguided forays into Afghanistan and Iraq are to be repeated again and again in our name, and it is more important than ever to organise effectively to oppose such misleading arguments and hold our leaders to account.

By Caroline

Not for one second have the print and broadcast media relented in their barrage of racism against Muslims. The latest example is Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary “Undercover Mosque”, broadcast on January 15. The documentary is a textbook example of Islamophobic reporting. It has set the right-wing blogosphere on fire; clips from the programme on YouTube have gone straight into the top ten.

The message of “Undercover Mosque” is that, however “moderate” Muslims claim to be, it is the fundamentalists who are really pulling the strings, using the cover of moderation to preach racism, bigotry and holy war. Shafiq ur-Rehman, president of the UK Islamic Mission, has written a powerful response to the makers of “Undercover Mosque”, which deserves a wide audience. In fact the programme was so biased that the judge at the trial of the July 21 bomb plot defendants told the jury: “If any of you saw or heard it, or if you read review of it in the newspapers, please ignore it completely. It’s a very good example of why you should close your mind completely to the media and concentrate on what is said in this courtroom.”

“Undercover Mosque” is part of an established genre, which includes John Ware’s Panorama programmes and Richard Watson’s reports for Newsnight and File on 4. Its technique is childishly simple. First, use a hidden camera — that way the viewer thinks they are being told something important that Muslims would otherwise want to keep secret. Much of “Undercover Mosque” could have been filmed as interviews, but the hidden camera is much sexier. In fact the reporter repeatedly shows video cameras set up to record the speeches that he is so daringly filming himself. So much for the need to go “undercover”.

Second, use a sound-track that sounds like something from Mission Impossible. This helps get the viewer excited about something that isn’t really very exciting. As the Press Gazette commented: “The irritating background music, which cranked into gear whenever a preacher used the word kaffir or kuffr, gave the feel of a cheap Fox News report.”

Shots of boring buildings and people also look much more threatening if you frame them in a fuzzy black circle. The programme’s allegations about links to extremists in Pakistan were illustrated with chanting Pakistani crowds — q.e.d., obviously. The programme repeatedly showed women in the niqab, while presenting no evidence that those women had anything to do with the preachers’ calls to “hit girls if they don’t wear the hijab” (and not, incidentally, the niqab). The Press Gazette, once more: “Patronising in the extreme, the decision to make dramatic cuts to footage of women in hijabs and burkhas whenever ignorant mullahs spouted off about male supremacy, was bewildering. Does Dispatches think the majority of viewers equate the hijab with the subjugation of women?”
As if to prove the point, the programme repeatedly interviewed Irfan al-Alawi, blanking out his face on the basis that he feared violence from Muslim extremists as a result of his views. However, al-Alawi featured in a recent broadcast by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (watch the video here). As Martin Sullivan has pointed out, this just goes to illustrate the dishonest scaremongering tactics employed by Dispatches.

So “Undercover Mosque” certainly worked hard to sex up its material. But as for the material itself, it boiled down to a few nasty, right-wing preachers saying nasty, right-wing things. From that the programme jumped to the conclusion that “moderate” mosques are actually hotbeds of fundamentalism, and that the extremists plan to wage a holy war and take power in Britain.

Two obvious questions follow from these assertions. First, how representative are these preachers of Muslim activity in Britain? Responding to the programme, the Muslim Council of Britain’s Inayat Bunglawala points out that the programme visited just four out of the UK’s 1,200 mosques, and used just two DVDs to smear London’s largest Islamic centre.

And secondly, what was the audience reaction to what the preachers had said? There was not a single interview with young Muslims at the mosques in question. The programme’s producers placed their interpretation on the speeches, but how had Muslims themselves understood them? How did they understand the accusations that the West lies or the exhortations for Muslims not to join the police or the army, or that Muslims should hate unbelievers?

Stepping outside the mosque, those young people would encounter a world in which Western leaders are pathological liars who have sent troops to slaughter Iraqis and Aghanis in an imperialist war for oil and power. They would encounter constant racism and hate at school, at work, in housing, policing, health, and in the streets, blighting their lives and hobbling their futures. And Channel 4 expects Muslims not to hate that racism in response, but to shut up and integrate? As Malcolm X put it: “And this devil has the arrogance and the gall to think we, his victims, should love him!”

Racism isn’t just Jade Goody’s foul mouth. It’s a system of power that filters throughout society. It’s that racism that fuels many Muslims’ anger — and it’s the right-wing Muslims who try to cash in.

Islamophobic programmes like “Undercover Mosque” put the blame for racism on its victims. Shame on its producers.

By Dave Crouch

Monday January 22, 7.30pm
Bloomsbury Central Church Hall, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2, venue details: www.bloomsbury.org.uk

Couso died when a US tank fired a shell at Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003. Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk was also killed and three other Reuters employees were seriously injured. On the same day Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a separate US attack on the network’s Baghdad bureau, raising questions of deliberate targeting of media.

The IFJ has called for independent investigations of these deaths and some 16 other deaths of media staff during the conflict at the hands of US troops.

Spain’s Supreme Court reopened the Couso case in December. As well as issuing the international arrest warrants the judge asked prosecutors to determine whether the soldiers’ assets in the United States could be frozen against any future compensation claims, according to recent press reports.

“This case, like that of ITN journalists Terry Lloyd who was killed by US soldiers just outside Basra at the start of the war, opens up the question of accountability over the killing of journalists,” said White. “We hope that the US will co-operate in trying to ensure that justice is delivered in all of these incidents.”

At least 178 journalists and media staff have been killed in Iraq since the start of the invasion in 2003. At least seven journalists and media workers have been found dead since January 1, according to reports. If the attacks continue at this pace, 134 journalists could be killed in 2007. That would be almost twice the tally of 69 killed in 2006.

“This alarming trend is threatening the complete destruction of journalism in Iraq,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “The human tragedy is shocking but this also underscores the general insecurity and lack of real democracy in the country. Journalists are being killed at a shocking rate with almost total impunity.”

The IFJ says that the chaos enveloping Iraq is overwhelming media professionals and is now preventing them to operate freely. Under a newly passed United Nations Security Council resolution on the safety of journalists, the killers of these journalists could be prosecuted as war crimes.

“International law is in place to bring the killers in these terrible crimes to justice,” White said. “It is now up to the Iraqi government to investigate and find the people responsible so that they can be brought to trial.”