Reporters threatened in Iraq for reporting the truth

In an incident similiar to the one I relayed on August 18, Iraqi police stormed a hotel in Najaf and arrested 60 reporters. Their crime? Telling the truth.

Around 60 journalists from local and foreign news organisations including the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Independent as well as the BBC, were held for almost an hour while police officers delivered what one correspondent described as an "unexpected press conference at gunpoint".

Correspondents in the Najaf Sea hotel said around a dozen policemen, some masked, stormed into the rooms of journalists and forced them into vans and a truck.

The Independent's Donald Macintyre reported that the police, some masked, "shouted threats and abuse at the reporters, along with their Iraqi drivers and translators, and fired about a dozen shots inside and outside the hotel before taking them before the police chief, Major-General Ghaleb al-Jazaari, to hear his emotional complaints about media coverage and the sufferings of police officers during the present crisis".

Najaf police chief Ghalib al-Jazaari told the journalists they were being detained because the satellite television channel al-Arabiya had reported that Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani would arrive in Najaf today to lead a demonstration.

Separately, the al-Jazeera website was today reporting that Iraqi police had arrested five members of al-Arabiya after they reported that US planes had fired missiles within metres of the Imam Ali mausoleum.

And we wonder why Iraqis aren't grateful for the "freedom" we've brought them.
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Republican Congressman calls for withdrawal from Iraq

Jim Leach, a Republican Representative from Iowa's 2nd District, was one of the few Republicans to vote against the 2002 resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq. Subsequent events have proven him right.

Instead of focusing on his campaign like other stump speakers at the Iowa State Fair this week, U.S. Rep. Jim Leach emphasized the need for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

“My sense is that the basis for disengagement should be advancing democracy,” he said. “The longer we stay in Iraq, the more troublesome the circumstances will be in that country. … in the United States and in other parts of the world.”

While Leach supports the call for a strong military in America, he believes that muscle should be balanced with caution and restraint rather than a tendency toward intervention.

Bush brings freedom of the press to Iraq

One of the alleged goals of the invasion of Iraq was to introduce democracy to the country. Democracy, of course, not only includes freedom of the press it requires a free press to preserve accountability in government and an informed electorate. Let's see how free the press is in Iraq

IRAQI police have threatened to kill every journalist working in the holy city of Najaf, where US forces are locked in a tense stand-off with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

After a series of veiled warnings to leave on Sunday, two marked police cars pulled up at dusk outside the Sea of Najaf hotel on the outskirts of town, where Arab and Western journalists are staying.

Ten uniformed policemen walked into the hotel and demanded that the al-Arabiya, Reuters and AP correspondents go with them.

Journalists told them they were not there, but the policemen found and arrested Ahmed al-Salahih, the al-Arabiya correspondent, who the day before had been given a special exemption from the earlier eviction orders.

A uniformed lieutenant then told the assembled journalists and hotel staff: "We are going to open fire on this hotel. I'm going to smash it all, kill you all, and I'm going to put four snipers to target anybody who goes out of the hotel. You have brought it upon yourselves."

One Republican wises up

In a four-page letter to his constituents, retiring Representative Doug Bereuter (R-Nebraska) states that his support for the war on Iraq was based on faulty and misleading intelligence, and he now believes the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.

I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.

That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said.

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."

As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Let's hope more politicians see the light and find the courage to speak the truth.
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