Iraq and U.S. not supporting an Iraqi free press

"In the last year, however, as successive short-term governments have taken power in Baghdad, American support for the Iraqi news media has waned. In May the United States ambassador announced the transfer of the International Media Center, which has served as a headquarters for the international and local news media, into the hands of the new Iraqi government, which is dominated by militias and regards the news media as akin to the insurgency, something that it must defeat and suppress. In mid-July, the Iraqi prime minister threatened to close any news media outlet that insufficiently supports the Iraqi government in its fight against sectarian violence.
. . . "The American soldiers who were so helpful to us in the early days of the occupation now have a different attitude. By 2005, if an Iraqi journalist aimed a camera at a United States Army convoy, the soldiers’ rules of engagement allowed them to shoot. American soldiers have been responsible for the deaths of about 14 journalists in Iraq, the majority of them Iraqis."

source
The New York Times. Iraq’s Endangered Journalists. September 6, 2006.

posted: thursday, september 7, 2006, 12:33 PM ET