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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (444329)8/17/2003 4:29:19 PM
From: CYBERKEN  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 769670
 
<<So it still leaves the possibility of terrorism>>

They weren't referring to enviro-whacko terrorism, which spent decades in courts and the halls of the Congress bringing the power failure about. That's the debate NOW, and, again, it's long overdue...



To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (444329)8/17/2003 7:47:19 PM
From: Skywatcher  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 769670
 
U.S. Troops Shoot Dead Reuters Cameraman in Iraq
35 minutes ago

Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead an award-winning Reuters
cameraman while he was filming on Sunday near a U.S.-run prison on the
outskirts of Baghdad.

Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank
shot at Mazen Dana, 43, as he filmed outside
Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had
earlier come under a mortar attack.

Dana's last pictures show a U.S. tank driving
toward him outside the prison walls. Several
shots ring out from the tank, and Dana's camera
falls to the ground.

The U.S. military acknowledged on Sunday that
its troops had "engaged" a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought
his camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher.

"Army soldiers engaged an individual they thought was aiming an RPG at
them. It turned out to be a Reuters cameraman," Navy Captain Frank Thorp,
a spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters in
Washington.

Journalists had gone to the prison after the U.S. military said a mortar bomb
attack there a day before had killed six Iraqis and wounded 59 others.

Recounting the moments before the shooting, Reuters soundman Nael
al-Shyoukhi, who was working with Dana, said he had asked a U.S. soldier
near the prison if they could speak to an officer and was told they could not.

"They saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission,"
Shyoukhi said. The incident happened in the afternoon in daylight.

The soldier agreed to their request to film an overview of the prison from a
bridge nearby.

"After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led
by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film. I followed him
and Mazen walked three to four meters (yards). We were noted and seen
clearly," Shyoukhi said.

"A soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I
saw him scream and touching his chest.

"I cried at the soldier, telling him you killed a journalist. They shouted at me
and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back, but please help,
please help and stop the bleed'.

"They tried to help him but Mazen bled heavily. Mazen took a last breath
and died before my eyes."

AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST

Dana's death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who
have died in Iraq (news - web sites) since war began on March 20. Two
others have been missing since the first days of the war.

Dana is the second Reuters cameraman to be killed since the U.S.-led force
invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

On April 8, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian based in Warsaw, died when a U.S.
tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, the base for many
foreign media in Baghdad.

"Mazen was one of Reuters finest cameramen and we are devastated by
his loss," said Stephen Jukes, Reuters global head of news.

"He was a brave and award-winning journalist who had worked in many
of the world's hot spots," Jukes said.

"He was committed to covering the story wherever it was and was an
inspiration to friends and colleagues at Reuters and throughout the
industry. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family."

Dana, a Palestinian, had worked for Reuters mostly in the West Bank
city of Hebron.

Paul Holmes, former Reuters bureau chief in Jerusalem, recalled a
towering, chain-smoking bear of a man with a ruddy complexion and
expansive heart.

"The amazing thing about him was he was like the king of Hebron. Every
journalist in the city looked up to him and any journalist who covered the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict will know and love Mazen," he said.

Reuters Chief Executive Tom Glocer said he hoped there would be "the
fullest and most comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy."

Married with four young children, Dana was one of the company's most
experienced conflict journalists and had worked in Baghdad before,
shortly after U.S. troops entered the city.

He was awarded an International Press Freedom Award in 2001 by the
Committee to Protect Journalists for his work in Hebron where he was
wounded and beaten many times. (additional reporting by Charles
Aldinger in Washington)

CC