STORIES ON TARGETING JOURNALISTS IN 2003:
Instapundit
I had forgotten the BBC story, and my take on it. But Jim Geraghty remembered. If that's the basis of Eason Jordan's statement, well, that's incredibly lame.
UPDATE: Here's some real targeting of journalists in Iraq. No word on whether it will be discussed at Davos next year.
news.bbc.co.uk
posted at 04:21 PM by Glenn Reynolds
instapundit.com
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CLEARING UP THE KATE ADIE STATEMENT
Kerry Spot [jim geraghty reporting]
One of the pieces of evidence for the "U.S. troops are targeting journalists" argument is a comment from a Pentagon official to BBC reporter Kate Adie before the war began.
Kate Adie, in a radio interview, March 9, 2003:
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"I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks — that is the television signals out of Baghdad, for example — were detected by any planes electronic media ... mediums, of the military above Baghdad ... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists."
Tom McGurk: "Kate, sorry to interrupt you. Just to explain for our listeners. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite telephone method of distributing information."
Kate Adie: "The telephones and the television signals."
Tom McGurk: "And they would be fired on?"
Kate Adie: "Yes. They would be 'targeted down,' said the officer."
Tom McGurk: "Extraordinary!"
Kate Adie: "Shameless! He said, 'Well ... they know this ... they've been warned.'
>>>
From the Associated Press, March 21, 2003:
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With U.S. signal interceptors targeting satphone transmissions to locate Iraqi military commanders, analysts worry phone calls from civilians could appear as beacons for bombers.
The U.S. military won't discuss how precisely it can track people based on their satphone signals, and the satellite phone companies say they don't know. But military and intelligence experts say U.S. targeting technology is not just possible, it's getting better.
"Any satellite telephone is an emitter," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "By detecting the emissions, it should be possible for U.S. intelligence to localize desirable targets."
But distinguishing friend from foe based on a signal alone could prove difficult, he said.
"It's just yet another thing journalists now have to take into account," said Kate Adie, a British Broadcasting Corp. radio journalist.
>>>
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, March 13, 2003:
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A lot of people are upset about this story misleadingly headlined PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS IN IRAQ.
What the story is really about, though, is the Pentagon warning people who operate satellite uplinks in Iraq that they might be targeted during an attack.
Well, yeah. What makes these people think that they're entitled to immunity from what's going on around them in a battle zone? To an anti-radiation missile, a journalist's satellite uplink looks just like a military communications facility. Saying that the Pentagon is "threatening to kill independent journalists" who insist on operating one during a war is like saying the Pentagon is "threatening to kill" people by warning them that if they drive around in tanks, wearing Iraqi uniforms, they might be shot at during an attack. Duh.
My question is, do people who don't know the difference, or who know it and deliberately obscure it, deserve to be called "journalists" at all? Even if they work for the BBC?
And my answer is "no."
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