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From
the Media Guardian
http://www.media.gurdian.com.uk
'Iraqis did have Scuds'
Ciar Byrne
June 11, 2003
Channel 4 News diplomatic
correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has admitted that she "self-censored" her reports
from Baghdad and did not tell viewers that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding
Scud missile launchers in residential areas, because she did not want to be thrown
out of the city.
Hilsum saw a missile launcher
in a back street of Baghdad after losing her way when driving to the scene of
the first marketplace bombing in the city, in which 14 people were killed.
Although Channel 4 News
was not censored by Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat, Hilsum decided not
to report on what she had seen for fear of being ejected from the city.
"We were not censored.
Some of the broadcasters had Mukhabarat with them all the time. Channel 4 News
didn't have any problems like that. But there was one occasion when we did censor
ourselves," she said.
"After the first marketplace
bombing we heard there had been a hit and we were able to go there in our own
vehicle. We got lost and a couple of blocks from where the two missiles had hit
there was a Scud missile launcher with a Scud on top.
"We then realised the
Iraqis were hiding Scuds in residential areas. If I'd said that I think we would
have been thrown out the next day," she told a Media Society event last night.
Hilsum thought she had
found a way round the problem when the American military issued a statement about
the marketplace bombing, saying they had been aiming at eight or nine missile
launchers in the area.
However, the Americans
later retracted this statement.
"I put in my copy: 'They
may have been aiming at missile launchers in the area'. Then the Americans realised
that if people put two and two together and realised that if they'd hit one of
those launchers a lot more than 14 people would have been killed. Then they changed
their minds and said the Iraqis must have hit themselves," she said.
When covering future combats,
Hilsum said broadcasters should ensure that if they hire security guards they
should not be allowed to carry arms, as happened in Iraq.
The issue was highlighted
when a CNN team accompanied by an armed bodyguard returned fire at an Iraqi manned
checkpoint in Tikrit. The decision to carry arms was lambasted by international
press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres, but a CNN spokeswoman denied the broadcaster
had set a "dangerous precedent".
"I know this happened
in Baghdad - that security officers hired by broadcasters carried weapons. I know
it's still going on," said Hilsum.
"If we carry weapons we
become combatants and have no right to ask any army or rebel group to respect
our independence and we have to be clear as an industry that this is going on,"
she told an audience of fellow journalists.
Hilsum also said it was
a "scandal" that three American networks pulled out of Baghdad before the war
began. On top of that, the former Iraqi regime ejected Fox News and CNN, meaning
American viewers had no home-grown account of what was going on in the city.
She blamed the withdrawal
of the US networks on "pressure from the Pentagon", adding that even small American
newspapers had reporters in Baghdad.
"The Atlanta Constitution
had two correspondents but the American networks weren't there and that's very
serious because it means the Americans don't know what happened," Hilsum said.
ENDS
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