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The Back Page: 'Sure it's dangerous...but it's worth the risk'
Dan Scemama, the Israeli TV reporter ejected from Iraq, defends his right to roam and castigates his fellow journalists over their coverage
The expulsion from Iraq of Israel Television correspondent Dan Scemama by the American military authorities raises key questions about the role and freedom of the media in war. Should correspondents be "embedded" with the troops, and therefore limited in what they can see and report? Or should they be free to move around the war zone to convey an independent picture to their audiences? And is such unaccredited and unprotected roaming around the battlefield mere foolhardiness or a courageous attempt to provide an objective counterweight to the restricted, government-controlled view?
Scemama says he flew to Qatar, where he got a visa to enter Kuwait in his French passport. Together with another French- Israeli, Boaz Bismuth of Yediot Aharonot, and two Portuguese reporters, he rented a jeep and they drove through a Kuwaiti and a British checkpoint into Iraq. After roving freely around the war zone for a few days, they were detained by American troops on March 26. He says they were cruelly treated, forced to lie face down in the desert sand, and then confined to the jeep they had been traveling in, without food or water, for close to two days. They were then flown to Kuwait by helicopter.
Scemama has run afoul of the authorities before: Covering the Lebanon war in 1982, he was barred from entering the war zone for two months by the Israeli army after recording an anti-war protest song sung by Israeli paratroopers.
The Report spoke to Scemama after he had returned home, two days after his expulsion from Iraq:
The Jerusalem Report: How did the Americans pick you up and why do you think they treated you the way they did?
Dan Scemama: We turned up at one of their bases en route to Baghdad looking for an American journalist we knew. We were stopped at the entrance. Maybe they thought we were suicide bombers. They stripped us bare. They said we were spies. They took all our phones and electronic equipment, even a Discman, which they said, absurdly, we could use to give the Iraqis our position.
I don�t know whether they really thought we were spies... But the bottom line is that the Americans don�t want any journalists there they don�t control. That�s clear. All the journalists there wear uniforms and they are all attached to military spokespeople.
What�s your view on "embedded" reporting?
I think it�s terrible. It�s just like it was with us at the start of the Lebanon war. Then, we, Israel TV, were drafted into the army. All the broadcasters were in uniform. Two or three weeks later, after strong press protests, the IDF canceled it. And that was the end of it. After that we were free to move about as we wished.
In Iraq, I don�t know if the journalists have actually been drafted. But they are all in uniform, they all have military escorts, they all travel in army vehicles and they are all told what to say. They put on flack jackets and gas masks and proudly tell the viewers, �I can�t tell you all I know.� What kind of journalists are they?
And that leads to disinformation?
Plenty. What does any journalist there know beyond what the major he or she is with wants them to know? Even if they want to know more, they can�t. Their movements are restricted. And they are told not to say this or that because it�s dangerous for security.
I�ve just seen a Sky News report from Baghdad. The reporter had an Iraqi official next to him and said he couldn�t reveal everything he knew. That�s just the same as the reporters with the American forces.
You went in without accreditation. Was that deliberate, so that you could be more independent?
I am a journalist and for me there are no limits and no borders. Once we were in Iraq, heading north, American soldiers told us to be careful, because there was a lot of shooting going on just ahead. They suggested we tag on to a column that was about to go through. So we did. We went along with that column for 22 hours. They treated us fine. Then we went off on our own.
Wasn�t that dangerous, foolhardy?
Sure it�s dangerous. But if the journalists are willing to take the risk, let them.
In Lebanon, you recorded soldiers singing the macabre song about fighting for then-defense minister Sharon and going back home in boxes. How did the authorities here react?
They barred me from going back into Lebanon for two months. They claimed I had given the escorting officer the slip, and that I wrote the words of the song and taught the soldiers to sing it!
Did the trauma you underwent in Iraq change your attitude to the conflict?
No. I met some wonderful American soldiers. When they let us go at six in the morning there was one who burst out crying with us. A Sergeant-Major. He hugged us and said he was ashamed. It was very moving.
But I can tell you one thing after those ten days in Iraq: War is a terrible, terrible, terrible thing, and people should do all they can to prevent it. When I saw the Iraqi prisoners, the American and British soldiers, I felt sorry for them all. And I felt sorry for the Iraqi people. Everyone I met there asked me for food and water. War is terrible. Even when you are right it is terrible. Even when you win.
And if someone said you could go in again to cover this war, would you?
Like a shot.
Jewish World
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