August 14, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 15, 1424

PARIS, Aug 13: A US military inquiry exonerating a US tank crew for firing on a Baghdad hotel housing journalists, killing two cameramen, was dismissed on Wednesday as a pack of lies by a media watchdog and families of the victims.

US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday that its probe into the April 8 attack concluded that the tank crew had acted properly when it fired a 120mm shell into an upper floor of the Palestine Hotel.

It said the crew had believed they were shooting at an enemy “hunter/killer team” directing Iraqi fire to their position.

The statement added the enquiry found the troops had made “a proportionate and justifiably measured response”.

But the media watchdog group Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, rejected the finding and said it was carrying out its own inquiry to be released next month.

“To say such a thing is tantamount to lying. There is nothing to support such a version” said RSF secretary general Robert Menard.

Menard said that while the attack may not have been deliberate, a full inquiry was necessary.

The blast from the shell killed a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters television, 35-year-old Taras Protsyuk, and a Spaniard working for the Spanish television network Telecinco, 37-year-old Jose Couso, and wounded three other Reuters journalists.

The US military’s version has been disputed by many of the other 100 foreign journalists in the hotel. Video footage from France 3 television showed the tank turn and raise its turret, wait two minutes, then fire.

A correspondent who was at the hotel during the attack, Jacques Charmelot, said the US report — which has not been made public — was “a whitewash and a pure fabrication” and “baseless”. —AFP