Are There Free Fire Zones In Iraq?
BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- A major European news network aired a video last night that showed the results of a U.S. bombing of a suspected terrorist safehouse in Fallujah. The video contained graphic images of four dead Iraqi infants. The airing of the video caused deep consternation among U.S. military officers in Baghdad, who threatened to seek the removal of the reporter and producer responsible for writing and taping the piece. "I don't like your f ----- ing work," a military officer said to one of the newsmen. "Well, we don't like your f ----ing work," the newsman snapped back.
The exchange symbolizes a subtle but important shift in military-press relations, which have been slowly deteriorating over the last several weeks. American (not just European) reporters say that their relationship with senior military U.S. officers "is still very cordial, but things are getting a little edgy." Most recently, European reporters have questioned military terminology -- with a focus on two phrases now common in U.S. military parlance: "precision strikes" and "no go zones."
The two terms have been used most recently to describe the Fallujah strike ("there was nothing precise about it," a European reporter told us) and the fighting in the town of Tal Afar, which was described by the military as a "no go zone." One reporter said that when he asked a senior U.S. military officer what "no go" meant, it was described to him in the following terms: "It means that anyone who is a friendly should not go there -- or they will be considered an enemy." The reporter noted that the term sounded very similar to the phrase "free fire zone" from the Vietnam War -- in which anyone who moved in a particular region was automatically considered the enemy, and could be killed. The senior military commander strenuously disagreed with that description. "They're not the same at all," he said, but could not explain the difference.
An Israeli reporter who covers the Israeli Defense Forces in operations in the West Bank and Gaza had this judgment: "My God, I am in awe of what your guys [U.S. military forces] are able to do in Iraq. You get one sniper and you bring down a whole house. And you do that every day. And no one says a word. Can you imagine the hell we would get if we did that in Nablus, or Ramallah, or Bethlehem?" |
