Iraq expels some foreign journalists
By The Associated Press
10.25.02
Iraq is expelling some foreign journalists and warning of restrictive new rules for getting back into the country, news organizations said yesterday. However, it was unclear how uniformly the expulsion orders were being applied.
CNN was told that its Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, and correspondents Nic Robertson and Rym Brahimi had to leave the country within the next few days, the network said.
The government was upset at foreign reporting of an anti-government demonstration outside the Iraqi Information Ministry in Baghdad earlier this week, said Eason Jordan, CNN president of newsgathering.
Iraqi officials claimed CNN had fabricated a report that government authorities had fired one or more guns into the air to disperse demonstrators earlier this week. Jordan said CNN had footage of the gunplay.
The Iraqi government was also angry that CNN stationed a news team in the northern part of the country, which is not controlled by Saddam Hussein, he said.
ABC News' David Wright and NBC's Ned Colt were also given orders to leave the country, representatives from those networks said. However, CBS News, which has correspondent Tom Fenton in the country, had not heard anything through last night.
The Iraqi orders did not appear to apply to all organizations, or even all personnel for the same organization. Iraqis working for foreign news organizations were being allowed to continue at their jobs.
The orders also did not apply to the BBC, the broadcaster's foreign desk in London said.
CNN was also told that when foreign journalists are allowed back in, at some unspecified time, each news organization will be limited to one non-Iraqi journalist who could not stay more than 10 days, Jordan said.
Expulsion orders aren't unusual in Iraq; Jordan said it had happened five times since CNN opened a Baghdad bureau in 1990. The expulsions last anywhere from days to months.
"We're not here to please or displease the Iraqi government or any government," Jordan said. "We're just trying to do our jobs the best we can."
Meanwhile, in Baltimore, Associated Press President Louis D. Boccardi said yesterday he was worried that the United States might go to war with Iraq away from the watchful eyes of the press and public.
Boccardi told editors at the annual Associated Press Managing Editors meeting he was concerned that the Pentagon may not allow reporters to accompany troops going to war.
"We're talking about access and doing all we can to get access," Boccardi said. "We'd like to be able to decide where we think it would be useful for a reporter to go" and not be forced to cover the war from the Pentagon briefing room, he said.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported last month that Pentagon officials continue to keep journalists away from U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
"The American media's vantage point for the war rarely has been at the front lines with American troops," the group said.
One problem, Boccardi said, is that surveys show less support from the public for the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press.
"People see some of the things that we all do and fundamentally ask themselves, 'Is that right? Is that fair'?" Boccardi said.
He said the press had to do a better job teaching the First Amendment. After all, he said, in revolutions, insurgents quickly take over the TV station and close the newspapers. "It's going into the communities that we all service and talking to the people who responded to these surveys, explaining what we do and why," Boccardi said.
Boccardi was interviewed by CNN anchorwoman Judy Woodruff at the meeting. APME is made up of news executives of the AP's 1,550 member newspapers.