US troops hamper media coverage: Hotel searched for arms
BAGHDAD, April 15: US hopes of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people were sorely tested on Tuesday by persistent protests and an international press corps increasingly frustrated by the lack of information on the reconstruction effort.
That frustration verged on hostility when US forces hampered the media from covering the third straight day of anti-American protests by between 200 and 300 Iraqis outside Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, where US operations are housed.
For the first time, visibly angered US military officials sought to distance the media from the protest, moving reporters and cameras about 30 metres from the barbed-wired entrance to the hotel.
“We want you to pull back to the back of the hotel because they (the Iraqis) are only performing because the media are here,” said a marine colonel, who wore the name Zarcone but would not give his first name or title.
Marine spokesman and public affairs officer Captain Joe Plenzer said the military was now experiencing a different type of media behaviour than that of embedded journalists who covered the invasion of Iraq and were easier to deal with.
“What you have here is mob media,” he said. “These reporters don’t really understand what we went through to get here and the guys who were embedded and came up through the fight know what it was like.”
Hundreds of international reporters here have become increasingly frustrated with the lack of information on the reconstruction effort and the US failure to provide other than haphazard access to public affairs officers at the Palestine Hotel, which is also the nerve centre for press operations in Baghdad.
Food is scarce, tempers frayed and hotel staff frantic with just 20 of the original 450 employees reporting for work while more than 2,000 journalists seek out an elusive quote from marines attired in full metal jackets.
Plenzer remains virtually the sole point of contact.
“The military is tired and the reporters are tired and there are large numbers of both, and that makes for a volatile situation,” Evan Osnos of the Chicago Tribune said.
He said journalists who were embedded with the military during the invasion had an advantage over the other reporters because they understood marine language and knew the right people.
HOTEL RAIDED: Masked US marines who said they were searching for weapons raided rooms at a prominent Baghdad media hotel Tuesday, fuelling rising tensions between the military and press here.
A marine spokesman said the raids at the Palestine Hotel, where many journalists and the military have set up base, were in response to “reliable intelligence reports”.
Jean-Paul Mari, a journalist with the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur said three marines entered his room and ordered him at gunpoint to lie on the floor.
He said the marines, in full body armour and wearing balaclavas, checked his press accreditation papers then searched his room.
“It lasted 10 minutes,” he told AFP.
Soon after the marines left another marine entered his room and apologised but then more troops arrived and searched his room a second time.—AFP
