AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, but when we come back, Zoriah, I want to ask you about what it was you felt you had agreed to in being embedded in the Marines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Zoriah is an American journalist, a war photographer embedded with the Marines, now barred from Anbar province by them for showing the photographs of dead Marines. He photographed a suicide bombing that killed three Marines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We continue with the American photojournalist, Zoriah, war photographer embedded with the Marine Corps at Anbar province in Iraq, now barred for documenting the Marines because of photographs showing three Marines killed in a suicide bombing that he posted to his website. What is the agreement you make with the military, Zoriah, when you are embedded? What is it that you sign?

ZORIAH: It’s called the media hold harmless agreement. There’s several different clauses and several different bits of information in it. The ones that pertain to this, to my case, are, first of all, you’re not allowed to publish any images that have identifiable features before the family of the soldier that has been killed has been notified. And by “identifiable features,” it’s referring to nametags, it’s referring to tattoos, it’s referring to clear shots that show the individual’s face, and you could say, you know, “I know who this person is.” And, you know, this is something that I followed to the letter, and even beyond it, I made sure that there were no identifiable features in the post, even after the family had been notified.

Like I said before, the other issue which they claim that I had violated, the official reason for the termination of my embed, had been providing the enemy with information on the effectiveness of attack. You know, I don’t see how you could have any photo that comes out of Iraq after an attack that, you know, they couldn’t say, if they wanted to, that this photo or this information could potentially provide the enemy with some information that they could use. I mean, pretty much any documentation of any—you know, even where an attack had been three weeks ago, you could use this clause to disembed somebody, which is the really kind of disheartening thing about this, is how incredibly easy it is to remove an embedded journalist under the system that they have now.

And I think another really interesting thing is the fact that the morning of, I guess—or the evening of the 30th, when I was officially notified that my embed would be terminated, the reason they gave me was that I had shown—I had depicted a Marine that was injured or killed and that was identifiable by the camouflage pants and the boots. Then, three days later, the official, in writing, reason for my termination of my embed was the fact that I had provided the enemy with information on the effectiveness of an attack.

By the time I got to Baghdad and the Marine Corps was pressing for my blacklist from all DOD operations and any further embeds, they were saying that I had changed a photo on the website that was originally posted and then I changed later. I was able to disprove that through records with TypePad, the company that hosts the blog.

And then, after that, they claimed that I had posted the blog before the families had been notified. And once again, we were able to use time stamps as to when the blog was published to disprove that and prove that it was literally several days after the family had gotten notification that the blog post came up.

So I think it’s very interesting how many times their story had changed. And it just—it makes me wonder, you know, if they were kind of grasping for straws trying to get a reason to, you know, get me blacklisted. And I do have to say that I’m very happy that the senior officials in Baghdad were able to see through that. They specifically told me, “The Marines have not been able to prove anything that they have claimed against you,” and that’s why I’m able to keep my credentials.

AMY GOODMAN: Zoriah, I wanted to turn now to an interview that I did with James Lee in Santa Barbara. He’s a former Marine from California who served two tours of duty in Iraq in 2001 to 2004. Now he’s a journalism student at San Francisco State University. He went back to Iraq earlier this year to file reports for the college newspaper. But in April, James Lee was abruptly disembedded.

        JAMES LEE: My last assignment was in the city of Basra. I had become aware of a declining security situation in some neighborhoods around Baghdad and in Basra and decided that I wanted to go down and photograph to document the Iraqi army’s ability or inability to conduct independent combat operations in Iraq.

I arrived in Basra after a three-day convoy with Iraqi soldiers from Baghdad down to Basra. I was only in Basra about four hours, when I was notified by the public affairs office assigned to Basra that they didn’t want any Western media in Basra covering the fighting and that an aircraft was been dispatched down to Basra to pick me up to fly me back to Baghdad.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the reason they gave?

JAMES LEE: Originally I was told that an order came directly from the office of General Petraeus, that they didn’t want any Western media covering the events and—

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

JAMES LEE: Because Petraeus was in Washington at the time, and they were concerned about images coming out from Basra that didn’t support their mission at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: Is that what you speculate, or that’s what they said?

JAMES LEE: That’s what I was told by the public affairs officer; that’s what he thought the reason was. I thought that it contradicted some guidelines that General Petraeus had published to his subordinate command directly relating to the media. And I obtained Petraeus’s personal phone number a few weeks earlier from a French reporter who had interviewed him. So I called that number, and he had already left for Washington, but one of his adjutants that answered the phone said that that order didn’t come from Petraeus and that I had every right to remain in Basra.

I notified the unit that I was with about that fact, and they changed their story and said, “Well, you’re now able to stay.” But about two hours later, they reversed their position and said now a new authority was ordering me out of Basra and that it wasn’t Petraeus. I was told that it was a two-star Marine general; they would not identify who he was. And later, once I arrived back in Baghdad after being forced to leave Basra, I was told that the order now came from the Iraqi army themselves. So, they had quite a few reasons why I couldn’t be there doing my job.


AMY GOODMAN: Why didn’t they want you to see what—or what was the reality on the ground?

JAMES LEE: The reality on the ground was, more than a thousand Iraqi soldiers refused to fight the Mahdi Army, whether they were afraid that they didn’t have the ability to do it or they didn’t believe that they should be fighting the Mahdi Army. For whatever reason, many of them put down their weapons and refused to go into Basra and fight the Mahdi Army. And I think those images would have been very powerful, and I think it would have created a lot of doubt on the part of the American public about the Iraqis army’s commitment to coalition missions in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Marine James Lee went back as an embedded photographer, but then was also kicked out. Zoriah, your response about his experience?

ZORIAH: Yeah, I think it’s incredibly similar, and I think the whole subject is very, very disturbing because of the power that the Department of Defense has to control the information that comes out of Iraq. I mean, because the situation, as far as security goes, is so incredibly volatile and so incredibly dangerous now, you effectively cannot work as a disembedded journalist in Iraq, unless you have basically the money to have a private army in the form of a private security force to accompany you. So, basically, your only ability to work in Iraq right now is as an embedded journalist.

So, with the power to disembed journalists this easily, it basically gives the Department of Defense free rein over the information that comes out of Iraq. If somebody like myself does happen to capture images that are controversial, it’s very easy to make us go away, as I saw in this case. And I think James’s case is extremely similar. It happened in the same area. It happened under the same general. And it just proves how easy it is to get rid of people who are a thorn in your side.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you can return? The Marines have said no, but the rest of the US military has not barred you?

ZORIAH: Correct. That’s correct. And that comes from, you know, senior public affairs officials in Baghdad. I believe that we probably have Petraeus to thank for that, and I am very thankful for it.

But I think another thing that’s interesting to look at is the decision to accept embeds comes from the actual units in the military. So, although I’m officially allowed to be embedded and to do further embeds, there’s a very, very high chance that when applying for these embeds, I could be denied across the board. It would be very easy for them to, you know, put a head’s up to any of the units that are interested in embedding me that I had caused a controversy, and it would be very easy for them to just say, “We’re not interested in hosting him as an embed.” So, although I do maintain the right to be an embedded journalist, I have a feeling if I tried again, especially now or in the near future, it would be extremely difficult.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Zoriah, for being with us. Again, the photos are at our website, democracynow.org. You have returned to the United States. Will you return anytime soon to Iraq?

ZORIAH: I don’t know if I’ll be returning anytime soon. I have a feeling if I did, that I would probably be sent to areas where I would not be in any way able to document anything, and I think it’s, at this point, just too easy to prevent journalists from doing their work, either by keeping you in the vehicle if an incident happens or by blocking your camera if you try to photograph, after the incident by taking away your memory cards, by taking away your film, and then, if you do publish the images, you know, removing you from your embed. It’s just far too difficult to work there right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Thanks for joining us, Zoriah, and we will link to your website at ours, at democracynow.org.

ZORIAH: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Zoriah, joining us from Littleton, Colorado.

 
Source: http://www.democracynow.org/

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