UPDATED - ColdType

emphasized that bombing a television station
“simply because it is being used for the purposes
of propaganda” is illegal under international
humanitarian law. “The onus,” said Amnesty, is
on “coalition forces” to prove “the military use of
the TV station and, if that is indeed the case, to
show that the attack took into account the risk to
civilian lives.”
Likewise, Human Rights Watch affirmed
(3/26/03) that it would be illegal to target Iraqi TV
based on its propaganda value. “Although stopping
enemy propaganda may serve to demoralize
the Iraqi population and to undermine the
government’s political support,” said HRW, “neither
purpose offers the ‘concrete and direct’ military
advantage necessary under international
law to make civilian broadcast facilities a legitimate
military target.”
Some U.S. journalists, however, have not shown
much concern about the targeting of Iraqi journalists.
Prior to the bombing, some even seemed
anxious to know why the broadcast facilities hadn’t
been attacked yet. Fox News Channel’s John
Gibson wondered (3/24/03): “Should we take Iraqi
TV off the air? Should we put one down the stove
pipe there?” Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (3/24/03) agreed: “I
think they should have taken out the television,
the Iraqi television. . .Why haven’t they taken out
the Iraqi television towers?”
MSNBC correspondent David Shuster offered:
“A lot of questions about why state-run television
is allowed to continue broadcasting. After all, the
coalition forces know where those broadcast
towers are located.” On CNBC, Forrest Sawyer
offered tactical alternatives to bombing (3/24/03):
“There are operatives in there. You could go in
with sabotage, take out the building, you could
take out the tower.”
BATTLEFIELD BLUES
131
They call it intelligence
NEVER mind thinking about how these tough
guys in the “take out” squad would feel if, god
forbid, Iraq had the capacity to “take out” their
pulpits? What is worse than the showboating
and macho messaging is the lack of real perspective
on the war itself. It seems as if U.S. intelligence
was anything but, just as intelligence on
the air is so often missing. Even Murdoch’s London
Times realizes that the neocons who have
been pumping a war for years before Bush was
elected, got it wrong. Richard Beeston and Tom
Baldwin report:
“British and American intelligence badly miscalculated
the level of resistance that coalition
forces would encounter in Iraq, with analysts
predicting that troops would reach Baghdad in
days and defeat President Saddam Hussein in a
matter of weeks. As thousands more U.S. soldiers
began deploying in the Gulf for what could
be a campaign lasting months, there were growing
questions in London and Washington over
the failure to anticipate the stubborn resistance
being encountered.
“At the start of the war, British military officers
were confident that the southern city of
Basra would fall quickly, that the Shia Muslims in
the south would rise up against Saddam and that
there would be token resistance on the road to
Baghdad. ‘The intelligence assessment seriously
underestimated what to expect,’ one Whitehall
source, who briefed Downing Street on the dangers
before the war, said. His advice was largely
ignored, even though Saddam was openly making
careful preparations to defend himself. He
armed and trained irregular forces, bribed tribal
leaders and used propaganda to portray the