EXCLUSIVE: Fmr. Military Intelligence Officer Reveals US Listed Palestine Hotel in Baghdad as Target Prior to Killing of Two Journalists in 2003

Last month marked the fifth anniversary of the US military shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The attack killed two journalists: Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. The Pentagon has called the killings accidental, but in this broadcast exclusive Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne (Ret.) reveals she saw secret US military documents that listed the hotel as a possible target. Kinne also discloses that she was personally ordered to eavesdrop on Americans working for news organizations and NGOs in Iraq.

Just over a year ago, a Spanish judge indicted three US soldiers in the killings: Sergeant Shawn Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lieutenant Colonel Philip DeCamp. The three men were charged with homicide and committing a crime against the international community.

The Bush administration has refused to hand over the soldiers for trial and has not charged them here in the United States. The Spanish Supreme Court recently affirmed Spain’s jurisdiction over the case.

The Pentagon has defended the attack on the Palestine Hotel, calling the killings accidental. The soldiers involved claim they were targeting insurgents who had fired rocket-propelled grenades.

But several holes have emerged in the US account. The Palestine Hotel was a well-known place for journalists covering the Iraq war. The US tanks were at too far a distance to be hit by rocket-propelled grenades from the hotel. Witnesses reported hearing almost no gunfire from the area around the hotel in the hours leading up to the US attack. And earlier that day, two other media outlets had also been hit by US strikes: the Abu Dhabi television network, and the satellite network Al Jazeera, killing correspondent Tareq Ayoub.

In a few moments, I’ll be joined by an Iraq war veteran who says she has new information that could point to a deliberate US attack on the Palestine Hotel.

But first, I want to turn to the documentary Hotel Palestine: Killing the Witness, produced by Jose Couso’s network, Telecinco. It was broadcast on Spanish television. It includes interviews with numerous journalists who were inside the Palestine Hotel and helped rush Jose Couso to the hospital. This clip begins with scenes taken inside the Palestine Hotel moments after the US attack. A warning to our television audience: some footage contains graphic images.

        NARRATOR: The shell explodes before hitting the hotel facade and sprays the upper floors with shrapnel. The Reuters room suffers the dramatic consequences. Near the balcony, the cameraman Taras Protsyuk receives the full blast and collapses, mortally wounded. Paul Pasquale finds himself on the floor, covered with blood.


JON SISTIAGA: [translated] I couldn’t believe that it was the Americans until I reached Couso, who was conscious, who was awake, and he told me it was the tank.


ANTONIO BAQUERO: [translated] Suddenly we saw a damaged balcony. It was the fifteenth floor. I started to count. One, two, three, four, five…fifteen. They hit the Reuters room. The first I thought was, “Damn it, Couso is right below there.”


JON SISTIAGA: [translated] It was a tank, because Couso saw how they shot him. He was looking at the tank when he was hit. He was aware of who killed him.


ANTONIO BAQUERO: [translated] And then I saw the camera on the floor, destroyed, and the pool of blood. That moment is frozen in my mind. I remember I stopped saying, “My god, my god.”


NARRATOR: Several people help prepare Couso for transport to the hospital. They place him on a mattress and tie an emergency tourniquet. If they fail to stop the bleeding, he won’t make it to the hospital.


JON SISTIAGA: [translated] An Iraqi man who I didn’t know at all and who we should be grateful to the rest of our lives offered me his car, an old Soviet Lada, and we managed to put Couso inside with the help of Jorge Pliego, a Mexican cameraman who was extremely close to Couso.


JORGE PLIEGO: [translated] We pulled him into a car, and the whole time I was talking to Couso. I knew him pretty well. I knew his wife’s name was Lola and he had two children. On the way to the hospital, I spoke to him. “Couso, you have to put your strength into this. You have two children. Lola’s waiting for you. You have to fight hard.” I told him it had to be like in the movies. He couldn’t fall asleep or faint. He had to keep talking, so he could reach the hospital strong and determined. And he agreed. He said, “Fine, then,” just like in the movies. At one point he said, “My leg is a mess, isn’t it?” “No! When we get there, we’ll sew it up,” I said. I was especially struck by the fact that Couso complained.


JON SISTIAGA: [translated] Then he said, “Why did the tank fire at us? Where are you taking me? What’s happening? Are they filming me? Are they not filming me? Don’t let my family see it. Don’t let my children see me.”

AMY GOODMAN: Jose Couso died in the hospital. Scenes from the attack on the Palestine Hotel from the documentary Hotel Palestine: Killing the Witness. It was produced by Jose’s network, Telecinco in Spain.

I’m joined now by Adrienne Kinne. She’s a former Army sergeant who worked in military intelligence in Iraq. She served in the military for ten years, from 1994 to 2004. She joins us now from Burlington, Vermont.

We welcome you, Adrienne Kinne, to Democracy Now! Adrienne, can you hear me? We will go to a music break. Adrienne, can you hear me?

ADRIENNE KINNE: Yes, I can.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you very much for joining us.

ADRIENNE KINNE: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Adrienne, can you talk about your work in military intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion and after the invasion? Tell us what you were doing and where you were.

ADRIENNE KINNE: I was stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and I was actually mobilized shortly after 9/11 with a group of reservists who were eventually sent to Fort Gordon to work a mission, that it was actually a brand new mission. It was something not like anything I had done in military intelligence previously. And this new mission involved the intercept of satellite phone communications in Iraq and Afghanistan and basically a huge swath of the region around those two countries. It was really brand new, and basically there were about twenty of us who were put in charge of this new mission, to stand it up.

In the very beginning, basically what we did was that we would have a front end, which intercepted satellite phone communications in that region, and then it would transmit the satellite phone conversations back to the United States, where it would just fill up this queue in our computer, and we would just go through. And all the numbers were unidentified. So, at the beginning, it was just a matter of sifting through thousands upon thousands of unidentified satellite phone communications, as we kind of tried to sort out what phone number belonged to who and kind of go through the process of identifying phone numbers in the search for intelligence that might be related to operations in Afghanistan and, later on, Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: And when were you listening to Iraq?

ADRIENNE KINNE: We started listening to the entire region pretty much immediately. I think this was December of 2001. And I was mobilized from October 2001 through August of 2003. So I was working that mission pretty much from December through August of 2003.

And over the course of my time, as we slowly began to identify phone numbers and who belonged to what, one thing that gave me grave concern was that as we identified phone numbers, we started to find more and more and more numbers that belonged not to any organizations affiliated with terrorism or with military—with militaries of Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere, but with humanitarian aid organizations, non-governmental organizations, who include the International Red Cross, Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, a whole host of humanitarian aid organizations. And it also included journalists.

AMY GOODMAN: Journalists where?

ADRIENNE KINNE: I remember bits and pieces of what we listened to while I was activated. I’d just like to say that at the time I took my clearance incredibly seriously. I had a very high clearance, military intelligence. And I never took notes. I never brought anything outside of our building. I never talked about my experiences with my friends or family. But there were certain things that happened over the course of our mobilization that struck me as being very wrong, and I remember them very specifically.

One of the instances was the fact that we were listening to journalists who were staying in the Palestine Hotel. And I remember that, specifically because during the buildup to Shock and Awe, which people in my unit were really disturbingly excited about, we were given a list of potential targets in Baghdad, and the Palestine Hotel was listed as a potential target. And I remember this specifically, because, putting one and one together, that there were journalists staying at the Palestine Hotel and this hotel was listed as a potential target, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation?

And unfortunately, my officer in charge, similarly to any time I raised concerns about things that we were collecting or intelligence that we were reporting, basically told me that it was not my job to analyze. It was my job to collect and pass on information and that someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Who was the officer in charge? Who did you tell?

ADRIENNE KINNE: My officer in charge for the duration of my mobilization was Warrant Officer John Berry.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, when you saw this list that you say, a list of targets, and Hotel Palestine was on it, why would you see this? Where were you? How did you pick up this piece of paper?

ADRIENNE KINNE: It was actually an email. And I worked in a secure building, and we were given updates about what was going on. I actually am not sure why we were emailed this list of potential targets, and I’m not even sure in what context it was mailed—emailed to us. I would assume it was just an effort to let people know what was going on in the area, considering our mission. But the only reason now that I really remember that specific email is because I knew, having listened to journalists staying at the Palestine Hotel, talking with their families and loved ones and talking about whether or not they were safe and trying to reassure their family and co-workers and loved ones that they were safe, when I saw that hotel listed, I thought there was something that was going terribly wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Adrienne Kinne, military intelligence, formerly a sergeant. We’re going to go to break, and we’ll come back to this conversation. Stay with us.