This is Exhibit A in support of "Dead Messengers: How the U.S. 0aMilitary Threatens Journalists."

Part I | Hearing What Eason Jordan 0aSaid
Part II | Army Failed to Probe Its 0aAttack on Palestine Hotel
Part III | Targeting the Media the 0aAmerican Way
Part IV | But What About 0aAl-Jazeera?

 

 

 

 

    Two Murders and a Lie
    By Reporters Without Borders

    Thursday 15 January 2004

An investigation of the US Army's firing at the Palestine 0aHotel in Baghdad on 8 April 2003.

    Reporters Without Borders called today for the 0areopening of the enquiry into who was really responsible for the US Army's "criminal negligence" in shooting at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April 0a2003 and causing the death of two journalists - Ukrainian cameramen Taras 0aProtsyuk (of Reuters news agency) and Spaniard Jos Couso (of the Spanish TV 0astation Telecinco).

    The call came in a report of the press freedom 0aorganisation's own in-depth investigation of the incident, which gathered 0aevidence from journalists in the hotel at the time, from others "embedded" with 0aUS Army units and from the US military soldiers and officers directly involved.

    The report said US officials at first lied about what 0ahappened and then, in an official statement four months later, exonerated the US 0aArmy from any mistake or error of judgement. The report provides only some of 0athe truth about the incident, which needs to be further investigated to 0aestablish exactly who was responsible.

    Pentagon spokespersons said right from the start that 0aan M1 Abrams tank opened fire on the hotel in legitimate self-defence in 0aresponse to "enemy fire" coming from the hotel or the area around it. This line 0awas maintained and emphasised at the highest official level in the days that 0afollowed.

    Sgt. Shawn Gibson, the 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) 0atank gunner who fired the fatal shot, and his immediate superior, Capt. Philip 0aWolford, who authorised it, denied they had fired because of shooting from the 0ahotel. They said the 4-64 Armor Company of the 3ID's 2nd Brigade, which was 0astationed on the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge soon after US troops entered Baghdad, was 0ain fact seeking to neutralise an Iraqi "spotter" monitoring and reporting on US 0amilitary activity. Some of this data caused the US Army to change its line 0aslightly in its official report released on 12 August 2003. It did not speak of 0adirect shooting but of an "enemy hunter/killer team" which required a response 0ain legitimate self-defence. This too was a lie - by omission.

    By focusing only on the rules of combat, the US 0aauthorities have remained silent about the real cause of the tragedy. The 0aReporters Without Borders investigation found that the soldiers in the field 0awere never told the hotel was full of journalists.

    The US shelling of the hotel was not a deliberate 0aattack on journalists and the media. It was the result of criminal negligence.

    At the bottom level, Capt. Wolford and Sgt. Gibson 0areacted as soldiers in a battle situation. They directly caused the death of the 0ajournalists and wounded three others, but should not really be held responsible 0abecause they did not have information that would have made them aware of the 0aconsequences of firing at the hotel.

    Their immediate superiors - battalion commander Lt. 0aCol. Philip DeCamp and brigade commander Col. David Perkins - also appear not to 0ablame. Their reactions and the accounts of embedded journalists indicate they 0atoo had not been properly informed by their own superiors.

    At a higher level, the headquarters of 3ID commander 0aGen. Buford Blount bears a heavy responsibility. The Division's command had 0aaccess to information from the Pentagon, from the US Central Command Doha base (in Qatar) and from the media.

    It is inconceivable that the massive presence of 0ajournalists at the hotel for three weeks prior to the shelling, which was known 0aby any TV viewer and by the Pentagon itself, could have passed unnoticed. Yet 0athis presence was never mentioned to the troops in the field or marked on the 0amaps used by artillery support soldiers. The question is whether this 0ainformation was withheld deliberately, out of contempt or through negligence.

    At the top level, the US government must bear some of 0athe responsibility. Not just because it is the government and has supreme 0aauthority over its army in the field, but also because its top leaders several 0atimes made false statements about the incident. They also talked regularly about 0athe dangers journalists faced in Iraq.

    White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stressed on 28 0aFebruary the Pentagon's advice to the media to pull their journalists out of 0aBaghdad before the war began. Asked whether this was a veiled threat to "non-embedded" reporters, he said : "If the military says something, I strongly 0aurge all journalists to heed it. It is in your own interests, and your family's 0ainterests. And I mean that."

    The argument that journalists had been warned of the 0adanger reappeared in the Army's 12 August report. This amounted to creating two 0akinds of journalists - those who were "embedded" and so able to report on the 0afighting while under the protection of US forces and those who were advised to 0aleave the war zone or face being ignored.

    The Pentagon thereby refused to accept any 0aresponsibility for the death of the two journalists.

    The Reporters Without Borders investigation was 0acarried out by French journalist Jean-Paul Mari, with help from the French 0aweekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, which Reporters Without Borders warmly 0athanks.

 

---

    Go to Original

    Two Murders and a Lie
    An investigation by Jean-Paul Mari
    Reporters Without Borders

    January 2004

    Contents

Introduction

1 Chronology of the War

2 The Facts

3 Reactions (with comments)

• 8 April: First version of events
• 9 April: A more official version

4 Accounts (with comments)

• Capt. Philip Wolford
• Official reactions after 10 April
• Sgt. Shawn Gibson
• Chris Anderson
• Chris Tomlinson

5 Comment on the US Army Investigation

6 Conclusion

7 Recommendation

8 Appendices

• Chain of command and communication from Washington to the Baghdad tank unit
• The soldiers involved

1. Gen. Buford Blount III
2. Col. David Perkins
3. Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp
4. Capt. Philip Wolford
5. Sgt. Shawn Gibson

• The journalists killed

1. Taras Protsyuk
2. Jos Couso

• Maps
• Visit to the tank training centre at Camp Mourmelon (France)
• Requests for an enquiry
• Result of the US Army investigation
• The Geneva Convention
• Acknowledgements

9 Other Journalists Killed

• Enquiry into the death of Patrick Bourrat

    Introduction

    An explosion shook every floor of Baghdad's Palestine 0aHotel at 11. 59 on the morning of 8 April 2003. US tanks were attacking from the 0anearby Al-Jumhuriya Bridge, in the city centre. It was Day 21 of the war and 0aBaghdad was falling.

    In the hotel corridors, there was panic, shouting and 0apeople in pain. In a devastated Room 1503, a cameraman lay face-down on a 0ablood-soaked carpet. One floor down, another journalist was crumpled on a 0abalcony alongside the remains of his camera.

    They were given first aid but there was no doctor, no 0amedicine, no surgical equipment and no stretchers. They were moved wrapped in 0asheets. The first one, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, died on his way to 0ahospital and the second, cameraman Jos Couso, of the Spanish TV station 0aTelecinco, died on the operating table. Samia Nakhoul, of Reuters, had shrapnel 0awounds in her head. Reuters photographer Faleh Kheiber was burned on his face 0aand arms. British TV technician Paul Pasquale, also of Reuters, was hit too.

    Who fired on the hotel, and why?

    The answer to the first question was clear because 0athe whole incident was filmed.

    As to why, no clear answer has yet been given.

    Just brief statements, lies, deception, arrogance, 0aexpressions of regret, condolences and calls for investigation. Efforts to have 0athe initial version accepted while attention turns to new tragedies. Fleeting 0aemotions. Life must go on.

    Protsyuk and Couso weren't famous. They didn't work 0afor big US newspapers and you couldn't see them on prime-time TV. We saw the 0afootage they produced without knowing it was theirs. They died. Four months 0alater, a US military investigation was "completed" in a bid to hastily return 0athem to anonymity.

    This report is dedicated to them.
    Jean-Paul Mari

    1 Chronology of the War

Fighting on April 8 aroung the Al-Jumhuniya bridge (photo taken from the 0aPalistine Hotel).

20 March 2003, 5. 30 0aam: The US and Britain begin a war against Iraq. The first air strikes hit 0aBaghdad, targeting buildings where the regime's leaders are thought to be. 0aAnti-aircraft defences are little use against Tomahawk missiles and F-117 0astealth bombers. Operation Shock and Awe has begun.

21 March: Air attacks continue. Ground forces advance across the 0adesert towards Basra and 320 cruise missiles are fired at Baghdad, targeting 0agovernment buildings and the presidential complex along the River Tigris.

22 March: Ground forces are now 200 kms south of Baghdad. Some 500 0acruise missiles and several hundred laser-guided bombs fall on the city, where 0aelectricity fails for the first time.

23 March: US forces are 100 kms from the city. In the south, near 0aBasra, British ITN journalist Terry Lloyd is killed after being hit by gunfire 0afrom the US-British Coalition forces.

25 March: a huge sandstorm sweeps across the country. The skies turn 0ared over Baghdad and 180,000 Coalition soldiers are brought to a halt in the 0adesert.

27 March: Half a dozen waves of bombing, the most intense so far, hit 0aBaghdad and its suburbs during the night. The information ministry and a 0atelecommunications centre are hit. Civilians are now getting killed.

29 March: A suicide-bomber blows up his car at a roadblock near Najaf, 0akilling four US 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) soldiers. With this entry of 0acivilians into the fighting, US troops become much more aggressive towards 0aIraqis, who are assumed to be "hostile. "

31 March: US troops open fire on a vehicle that "refused to slow down. " Inside are 13 women and children, seven of whom were killed and four wounded. 0aThe night-time bombing of Baghdad intensifies.

1 April: The 13th day of the war and the first major battle with the 0aRepublican Guard. About 600 US and British planes make sorties. At Hilla, 80 kms 0asouth of Baghdad, 33 civilians are killed, including several children, and more 0athan 300 wounded, apparently by cluster bombs.

2 April: Two-pronged US attack. The 3ID, whose soldiers will later 0afire on the Palestine Hotel, crosses the River Euphrates and arrives within 0ashooting range of the capital. In the southeast, Marines begin a push towards 0aBaghdad.

3 April: Just before midnight, more than 1,000 US troops begin to take 0aBaghdad's Saddam Hussein International Airport. The city, which is still being 0abombed, no longer has electricity.

Two Abrams tanks on the Al-Jumhuiya bridge.

    Delay 0ahas had a message from the Pentagon saying "Don't worry we know where you are. " 0aBut the day before, a false alarm in an e-mail to the AP gave everyone a fright. 0aIt advised everyone to leave the hotel at once and take shelter because it was 0agoing to be bombed. After a check with New York and Doha, a second message came 0asaying they could stay put because no bombing was planned. The next morning, 0aDelay spends three hours on the 17th floor. He sees a tank point its gun at the 0ahotel and fire. He feels the floors below shake and runs to the stairwell.

    Seamus Conlan, an Irish photographer for World 0aPicture News, is on the hotel roof. At 7. 30, "short bursts" of gunfire that 0aseem to be from an M-16 rifle are fired towards him from a US position on the 0aother side of the river. A couple of bullets whistle by him and he runs to get 0aout. As he goes, there are four more. He has been on the roof since dawn and 0aseen no sign of any Iraqi weapons or fighters. He is the only person on the 0aterrace.

    In room 1632, a journalist from the French weekly Le 0aNouvel Observateur has been writing a story since 4 am. to meet a midday 0adeadline. He frequently goes onto the balcony to see how the fighting is going. 0aJust after 11, he notices the shooting has stopped and things are calm again.

    Caroline Sinz, of the French TV station France 3, has 0abeen waiting to do a live telephoned report in room 1408. Her crew's cameras are 0aset up in room 1405, facing the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge. She has noted down the 0aevents of the morning - at around 5, fighting starts; at 9, the first tank 0aarrives at the bridge; 9. 30, the tanks are firing continually in fierce 0afighting; 9. 45, firing at the Mansour Hotel and the Al-Jazeera offices; the 0agun-turret of a tank points at the Palestine Hotel, where lots of journalists 0aare on the balconies, but does not fire; 10, Sinz and her cameraman go onto the 0aroof where they find a crew from the French TV station TF1 who have some 0abinoculars they take turns with; 10, fighting in the south-southeast of the 0acity, with the tanks firing continuously. Planes fly overhead. The set-up 0acameras film the scene. No sign on the roof of any armed Iraqis or artillery.

    Sinz goes back to her room to do her midday live 0apiece. She notices everything is silent now. The last explosion was in the 0asouth, in the opposite direction from the bridge. Since then it has been quiet. 0a11. 59: Paris comes on the line and says she will be on the air in one minute. 0aSuddenly there is a huge explosion and everything shakes. Sinz hears people 0ashouting: "They're dead! They're dead!" She drops the phone and runs to 0aTelecinco cameraman Jos Couso's nearby room, on the 14th floor. The balcony is 0aburned, the window broken and a blackened, partly-melted camera is on the 0aground. Couso, who is lying on a mattress, is taken away.

    Room 1403 has been struck and Couso hit while filming 0afrom the balcony. He has a serious open leg wound and another on his face. His 0aleg is amputated at the hospital, where he then dies. Another Spanish journalist 0ain the room, who escapes because he had gone to the toilet, is in shock.

    Delay reaches the corridor to Couso's room and sees 0ajournalists carrying him away. They tell him someone else is hurt, upstairs in 0aroom 1503. He goes there and finds Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk lying on his 0aback on the balcony, half inside the room.

    The Nouvel Observateur reporter on the 16th floor 0ahears a big explosion and runs down to the Reuters office on the floor below and 0ahelps Delay give first aid to Protsyuk, who has a very serious stomach wound. He 0ais taken away in a sheet and dies on the way to hospital.

    Reuters reporter Nakhoul is on the balcony next to 0aProtsyuk's. Seven Reuters people are working in her room. After seeing an orange 0aflash, she finds herself on the floor with her face burning from shrapnel. She 0acan't see any more and her face and head are bleeding badly. Reuters 0aphotographer Saleh Kheiber, who has been on the balcony with her, is burned in 0athe eyes and face. Nakhoul does not know Protsyuk has been hit on the 0aneighbouring balcony. She is taken from one hospital to another amid all the 0ashooting. Shrapnel is eventually removed from her head.

    After the wounded have gone, journalists gather in 0athe hotel lobby and corridors to try to figure out who fired and why. Many think 0ait was an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) to intimidate the foreign press 0awatching the fighting from the hotel. The Iraqi information ministry, more 0aconcerned with showing the world hospitalised victims and bombing damage and 0asteering journalists to ministry press conferences or guided visits, have never 0aallowed foreign journalists to go to the front line.

    Herv de Ploeg, of France 3, says he is sure it was 0athe Americans who fired. The orange flash from the cannon of the Abrams tank, 0aits turret directly facing the hotel, and the sound of the shell hitting the 0ahotel immediately afterwards - it has all been filmed.

    3 Reactions (with comments)

Stills taken from footage of the shelling of the Palestine Hotel taken 0aby French channel France 3.

    These 0apictures are immediately relayed around the world. The US Army is obliged to 0aadmit its mistake but says the shell was fired in legitimate self-defence. Here 0ais some of what was said:

    8 April: First Version of Events

    13:05 (Baghdad Time)

    One of the first reactions was from a Pentagon 0aofficial, speaking anonymously barely an hour after the incident, saying "we 0ahave reports of Iraqi snipers in the vicinity of the hotel, operating from the 0ahotel, proving that this desperate and dying regime will stop at nothing to 0acling to power. " (N 1)

    13:46

    In Iraq, 40 minutes later, Gen. Buford Blount, 0acommander of the 3ID, which the tank that fired belonged to, said: "A tank was 0areceiving small arms and RPG fire from the hotel and engaged the target with one 0around. After that, there was no more shooting. " This very confident statement 0abacked up the version that a tank came under Iraqi fire from the hotel and by 0areturning fire destroyed the enemy position. But none of the many journalists at 0athe hotel saw or heard any shooting from the building. All of them were very 0aclear about this. (N 2)

    15:37

    US Col. David Perkins, commander of the 3ID's 2nd 0aBrigade, said: "We've directed troops not to fire on the hotel even if they 0areceive fire from it. " This statement, made after the shelling, refers to 0ainstructions given after the incident. (N 3)

    17:09

Two injured cameramen, Taras Protsyuk and Jos Couso, being evacuated 0afrom their wrecked hotel rooms.

    Pentagon 0aspokesman Bryan Whitman expressed "deep regret" for "the loss of any innocent 0acivilian life. We don't target civilians," he said, but Baghdad "is a dangerous 0aplace for journalists" and the regime was in the habit of "intentionally putting 0acivilians in danger. "

    He said the Pentagon knew there were journalists in 0athe hotel but said US troops had been targeted by rocket fire from the hotel and 0athat their duty was to respond. Four hours after the shooting, the line was 0astill legitimate self-defence, but the Pentagon admitted it knew reporters were 0ain the hotel. (N 4)

    Soon afterwards, Centcom chief spokesman Gen. Vincent 0aBrooks said Coalition forces operating near the hotel had been fired on from the 0ahotel lobby and had responded. When a journalist noted that the lobby was on the 0aopposite side of the hotel and on the ground floor, Brooks corrected himself and 0asaid he "may have misspoken on exactly where the fire came from," and added: "We 0apotentially take fire from those locations and decisions have to be made at a 0avery low tactical level. This coalition does not target journalists so anything 0athat has happened would always be considered an accident. " He stressed that 0aBaghdad "was a very dangerous place. " The mistake by Brooks, which everyone 0anoticed, seemed more like inaccuracy than contradiction and is not significant. (N 5)

    19:50

    Centcom spokeswoman Maj. Rumi Nielson-Green said 0afield commanders had reported heavy enemy fire from the hotel and that Coalition 0aforces had responded. (N 6)

    Gen. Brooks accused Saddam Hussein of using the hotel 0afor military activities. "We had some awareness of how the hotel might be used 0aand that there are a variety of activities that occur there. All who are not 0apart of the regime should be aware that it uses places like the Palestine Hotel 0afor other purposes. We have tried to mitigate the risk wherever we can and in 0asome cases, the risk cannot be driven to zero. " (N 7)

    "We don't know every place a journalist is operating 0aon the battlefield. We know only those journalists that are operating with us. " 0aThis contradicts what Pentagon spokesman Whitman said earlier. (see N 4)

    The excuse of legitimate self-defence was strongly 0amaintained by all US officials.

    The Right to Fire Back

    Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice-director of 0aoperations for the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on 8 April that US forces "had the inherent right of self-defence. When they are fired at, they have not 0aonly the right to respond, they have the obligation to respond to protect the 0asoldiers with them, and to accomplish the mission at large. " (N 8)

    Several US statements stressed that US forces acted 0ain good faith and were not against the media. Pentagon spokesman Whitman said: "Not only are we not trying to silence" journalists, "we're one of the few 0acountries that have not expelled them. " (N 9)

    Other remarks, less official, revealed up a different 0amilitary view of journalists in the war. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard E. 0aTrainor said on 8 April that "there's nothing sacrosanct about a hotel with a 0abunch of journalists in it. " (N 10)

    In the US media, various official sources gave their 0aopinions on the incident. Pentagon officials in Washington admitted 0aoff-the-record that the tank may have fired in haste after mistaking the 0ajournalists' cameras for weapons.

    A "senior defence official" was quoted as saying US 0atroops in Baghdad "were not briefed as thoroughly as pilots on what targets to 0aavoid or treat with particular caution" and that the rules of engagement were 0adifferent on the ground, with soldiers fired on having the right to respond, 0awherever the shooting came from.

    Pentagon officials stressed that independent, "non-embedded" journalists were at great risk if they stayed in Baghdad. One 0asaid: "If we go through town again and we receive hostile fire from that 0abuilding, I wouldn't want to be in the building. "

    Others said British troops were trained to pay more 0aattention to civilian casualties than US soldiers were. A US Army general said 0aon 8 April that British forces in the southern city of Basra had illustrated 0athis. "Americans tend to see the fight as a medieval clash of the titans, with 0athe population on the sidelines," he said, "while the British view it as a fight 0abetween two sides for the support of the people."

• Observations at the end of 8 April

    A few hours after the attack on the hotel, the excuse 0aof legitimate self-defence was repeated endlessly by officials and widely 0abroadcast. The error was described as a normal, legitimate and inevitable 0areaction and a right and a duty of any soldier who came under armed attack. 0aThere was no discussion of the fact that a shell, meant to destroy an enemy, had 0ahit only journalists. Or of the claim that the tank's reaction had, according to 0athe Pentagon, ended Iraqi firing. "Legitimate self-defence" dominated media 0acoverage and discouraged any challenging of it. It became the first version of 0aevents.

    9 April: A More Official Version

    02:54 (Baghdad Time)

    Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said she 0aregretted the death of the journalists but noted she had reminded the media 0aseveral times that war was a "dangerous, dangerous business and you're not safe 0awhen you're in a war zone. We are at war. There is fighting going on in Baghdad. 0aOur forces came under fire. They exercised their inherent right to 0aself-defence," she said, adding: "We go out of our way to avoid civilians. We go 0aout of our way to help and protect journalists. " (N 11)

    US Vice-President Dick Cheney said the suggestion 0athat US troops had deliberately attacked journalists was "obviously totally 0afalse. You'd have to be an idiot to believe that. " He regretted the deaths but 0asaid US forces could not guarantee their safety. "The attack on the hotel was 0asimply the act of troops responding to what they perceived to be threats against 0athem," he said, adding that "we do the very best we can, but it's still a war 0azone. " (N 12)

    But British forces dismissed a Pentagon spokesman's 0astatement the previous day that the hotel had been a US military target for the 0atwo days before the shelling because it was a place where Iraqi officials met 0aand that journalists knew it was a target.

    19:21

    British foreign secretary Jack Straw told a press 0aconference in Madrid that it was very unlikely the hotel had been designated a 0amilitary target. He said things could go wrong during a military operation but 0adid not know if this is what had happened and would wait for the results of the 0aenquiry under way. He promised that Britain, as a military power in Iraq, would 0ado all it could to find out how the journalists had come to be killed. (N 13)

    Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp, commander of the 3ID's 4th 0aBattalion, 64th Armor Regiment, said he had no idea where "these hotels" were. "I'm sorry to say it, but I'm the guy who killed the journalists. I'm really 0asorry, and I feel badly for their families, but I had no choice. My soldiers' 0alives were in danger. " (N 14)

    Maj. Kent Rideout, the battalion's executive officer, 0asaid that when there was direct fire there was no protection and troops had the 0aright to fire back. He said enemy forces were clearly very active on the other 0aside of the river at the time. (N 15)

    Unofficial military sources said the soldiers were 0athe target of mortar fire from several places apparently near the hotel and had 0ainformation that Iraqi "spotters" were using large buildings to watch US troop 0amovements.

• Observations at the end of 9 April

For the Record Extract from a press conference given by White House spokesman Ari Fleisher 0aon 28 February, shortly before the war began. Question: The Pentagon yesterday delivered a rather strong warning to 0anews organizations, that they should get their journalists out of Baghdad 0abecause it would be a very unsafe place once a conflict begins. Some of the news 0aorganizations that received that warning said they suspected that at least one 0aof the purposes of delivering it was that the Administration doesn't want 0ajournalists in Baghdad to witness what goes on in the case of a war. Is there 0aanything to that suspicion? Fleisher: No. I think that if there is war, there is one thing I have 0ato say to the journalists who are going to be in harm's way, doing their duty 0afor our country and our people - and that is I can only urge you all, 0aindividually, as people I know and to your colleagues, to listen to the 0amilitary. This is not a light matter. And if the military says something, I 0astrongly urge all journalists to heed it. It is in your own interests, and your 0afamily's interests. And I mean 0athat.

    The 0afirst version of events was repeated and confirmed but also adjusted as 0acontradictions became evident. The legitimate self-defence line was still 0amaintained but at a higher official level. It was amended by ruling out any "deliberate" action against the journalists and adding the idea of the "danger 0aof war zones" (Pentagon spokeswoman Clarke) and Baghdad as a "war zone" (Vice-President Cheney). The supposed firing from the hotel was now described by 0aCheney as "perceived threats" by the troops to themselves. DeCamp said he did 0anot know where "these hotels," including the Palestine, were. Unofficial sources 0abegan to speak of mortar fire coming from near the hotel instead of from the 0abuilding itself. The element was also introduced of a hunt for Iraqi "spotters," 0aequipped with binoculars and radios to help direct mortar and artillery 0afire.

    4 Accounts (with comments)

    Account of Capt. Philip Wolford,
    commander of the Alpha 4-64 Armor Company

    On the morning of 10 April, after the fighting had 0aended between the Palestine Hotel, Saadoun Avenue and the Youth Building, a 0areporter from Le Nouvel Observateur went to the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge from where 0athe Abrams tanks had fired on the hotel two days earlier. The 3ID tanks and 0atheir commander, Capt. Wolford, were still there. A description and extracts of 0awhat was said:

    "Two days after the fighting ended, the bridge is 0astill littered with burnt-out vehicles and thousands of spent machinegun 0acartridges. An unexploded rocket is sticking out of the road, the bridge's 0arailings are broken and the ground is scarred with the impact of ammunition - 0amachinegun bullets, rockets and Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles - fired during 0athe four hours of battle on 8 April.

    Wolford, who was calm, open and thoughtful and talked 0afor two hours, said all his tanks took direct hits. He gave a tour of them, 0ashowed smashed bulletproof glass on the turret of one, impact marks on another 0aand a cannon burned by an incoming RPG. He said he was directly behind the tank 0awhich fired on the hotel and that he authorised the firing.

    The night before, the tanks had spent eight hours 0amopping up around the vast presidential complex on the west bank of the river. 0aThe next morning, the tank column went out to occupy the intersection that led 0ato the bridge. The tanks went a little further on, to the start of the 300-metre 0abridge, and immediately met a barrage of fire from the other side of the river.

    The whole riverbank was lit up with the red and white 0aflashes of guns being fired, he said. Right opposite was a building from which a 0alot of rockets and missiles were being fired. On the left, towards the Al-Sinnaq 0aBridge, were two missile-launchers and on the right, far away but very 0aeffective, was another one.

    He also mentioned RPG fire able to smash tank tracks 0abut said he especially feared the powerful 106 mm shells delivered by the Kornet 0amissiles. He had counted between 20 and 30 four-man RPG teams all along the 0ariverbank. Some were trying to get into barges to move beneath the bridge 0atowards the tanks. It was the fiercest resistance they had run into since 0aarriving in the city. Four of his men were wounded.

    He decided to pull back and call for artillery 0asupport. Intense gunfire was battering all the buildings along the river. When 0athey came back, 23 buses of enemy soldiers were waiting on the bridge. They 0aincluded black-clad pro-Saddam fedayeen and many foreign Arab volunteers. The 0atanks destroyed the enemy firing positions one by one. The bridge is about 15 0ametres above the riverbank, so the shells were not visible until they arrived, 0amaking it hard to see whether the enemy fire was coming from the riverbank, the 0afoot of a building or from the lower floors of one.

    Wolford said he strongly suspected an enemy spotter 0awas directing the fire. He was told there was a man with binoculars on the roof 0aof a building, well to the right of the bridge, from the area where the 0adeadliest missiles were coming. This was the Palestine Hotel, whose upper-floor 0arooms with balconies were all occupied by journalists filming the fighting with 0alarge cameras.

    The informant did not see this activity. The tank 0aunit had been under continuous fire for several hours, from there and elsewhere, 0asaid Wolford, and he returned the fire without hesitation, in accordance with 0athe rules.

    A second tank opened fire at the 15th floor of the 0aHotel. Wolford said he found out 20 minutes later that he had hit a hotel full 0aof journalists. Yet all the TV and radio journalists, news agency and newspaper 0areporters - from Europe, the Americas and Asia - had been working for weeks out 0aof the hotel, which had become as famous as other wartime media headquarters in 0aBeirut and Sarajevo. Embassies, the Pentagon and other US officials had been 0atold of this and the building had been described and its GPS location given.

    So Wolford did not know this? He said he did not. So 0awho held back the information? Wolford's command includes A Company tanks (nicknamed "Assassins"), C Company "Cyclone" tanks, a mechanised "Attack" 0acompany, psyops personnel with loudhailers, a 155 mm artillery group and 0amortarmen. Their badge is an elephant with tusks and their camp is called 0aHannibal.

    Wolford is in constant contact with his battalion 0acommander, Lt. Col. DeCamp, who is in touch with brigade commander Col. Perkins, 0awho in turn reports to 3ID commander Gen. Blount.

    Wolford said he could not for a moment imagine how he 0awould not see any piece of information that was passed down from headquarters. 0aThe conclusion must be that either Washington, divisional headquarters or 0asomeone along the chain of command did not want to or did not see fit to pass on 0athis information.

    Fortunately the news of the journalists' death 0areached the bridge, since a plane was set to drop a guided bomb on a building on 0athe other side of the river. The death of the journalists delayed this so as to 0abe sure this time not to hit the "suspicious" Palestine Hotel. The bomb was 0aeventually dropped on a building occupied by Arab fighters 300 metres away from 0athe hotel. It would have killed and wounded dozens of journalists if it had been 0adropped on the hotel. When asked about all this, Wolford lowered his eyes and 0asaid: "I feel bad. My men feel bad. " Later, he said his training was that when 0ain doubt, return the fire and check afterwards. "

• Observations at the end of 10 April

    The talk with Wolford, who was on the spot, 0aauthorised the firing of the shell and who spoke personally, shows that:

1. The shell was not fired to neutralise or silence an Iraqi gun position. 0aWolford said he was told about a man with binoculars on the roof of a building 0aand it was this man, thought to be a spotter, that the tank intended to "neutralise."
   
2. The shape of the bridge and its height in relation to the riverbanks made it 0avery hard to see where any shooting was coming from. Especially as it was coming 0afrom the sides and a long way away. (This applies to the area of the Palestine 0aHotel. The Al-Sinnaq Bridge was on the left at 11 o'clock position, the Youth 0aBuilding 400 metres straight ahead, at 12 o'clock, and the Palestine Hotel was 0aat 1. 30 o'clock nearly two kms away.
   
3. The officer in charge of the fighting did not know, because he did not have 0athe information, that the large building that was the Palestine Hotel was 0aoccupied by journalists. Even less that the hotel was the headquarters of the 0aforeign media. So he treated the building like any other on the opposite side of 0athe river which were all assumed to be "hostile."
   
4. The nature of the hotel was not communicated to him by his immediate 0asuperiors (battalion commander, brigade commander and division headquarters).
   
5. When he learned that journalists were there and that two had been killed, 0amilitary plans were immediately revised (the delay in the aerial bombing) and US 0aforces took care not to hit the hotel again.

    So the first version of events was not true. The 0astatement, repeated at the highest US government level, that the hotel was fired 0aon in legitimate self-defence against RPG, mortar and other fire coming from it, 0awas a lie.

    What Wolford said invalidates some of the earlier 0aquestions but also raises important other ones. The question is no longer "Who 0afired?" because we now know the answer. Or even "Was there firing from the 0ahotel?" which all the journalists denied and which was anyway not the reason for 0athe tank firing. It is "Why did the tank unit not know that the foreign media 0awas based at the hotel?"

    Official Reactions after 10 April

    21 April: US secretary of state Colin Powell 0asays in a letter to Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio that the use of force 0awas justified. US forces had responded to "hostile fire" that seemed to come 0afrom a place later identified as the Palestine Hotel, he said, and the force 0aused was proportionate to the threat to US forces. State Department spokesman 0aLou Fintor says Powell's remarks were "based on our intelligence, which we never 0acomment on. "

    1 May: Powell tells a Madrid press conference 0athat the soldiers acted in legitimate self-defence. The US regretted the 0aincident, he said, but considered it an accident in wartime conditions. Young 0aAmerican soldiers trying to liberate that part of the city came under enemy fire 0aand their lives were in danger so they responded. He said the US would "continue 0ato see if we can gather any more" evidence "to see if there was anything done 0awhich was improper or inappropriate," adding that he did not think the soldiers 0ahad done anything wrong.

• Comment

On two occasions - a month and then two months after the shooting - speaking 0aor in writing, Powell kept to the original explanation, thus making it into a 0alie by the government.

    Account of Sgt. Shawn Gibson,
    commander of the tank that fired at the hotel.

    Just as important as what Wolford said is the 0aevidence of the gunner, Sgt. Gibson, who actually fired the shell after 0aidentifying the target, asking for Wolford's permission to fire and then firing. 0aWolford did not look at the target himself. Gibson's account was filmed as he 0aspoke to Pascale Bourgaux, of Belgium's RTBF radio and TV. Some extracts:

    He said he saw a person on the balcony with a pair of 0abinoculars, talking and pointing. He did not aim at him immediately. He called 0ahis superiors to say what he had seen and after 10 minutes they gave him 0apermission to fire and he then did. He said he did not know there were 0ajournalists at the hotel and said that if he had known, he would not have fired. (Wolford spoke of a man with binoculars on the roof, while Gibson said he was on 0aa balcony. )

    Gibson said nobody told him the hotel was an 0ainternational media centre. He had "never, never" known this and the soldiers 0ahad no access to TV or radio while they were in combat. (Most soldiers and 0aembedded journalists confirmed that during a month of fighting in the desert and 0aespecially in the tough last days nearing Baghdad, shut up in their tanks, they 0ahad no access to the major media. )

    It was wartime, but his superiors would not have 0ahidden that kind of information, he said. Soldiers did not do that and the US 0agovernment never hid that kind of information. He said he did not see anyone 0afiring or any cameras, just a man with binoculars.

    He said the soldiers were told there was an artillery 0aspotter there and they were looking for him. He said he scanned the building 0afloor by floor, from left to right, from bottom to top, and saw the man with 0abinoculars high up. He paused and called Wolford, who was in the tank behind to 0aask for permission to fire.

    After the shell was fired, people at the hotel put 0aout white flags. He said he was surprised journalists had not taken more 0aprecautions and said they should have put out white flags or sheets before they 0acould be fired at. (Journalists were under strict Iraqi surveillance at the 0ahotel, even during fierce fighting. The white flags some journalists displayed 0aout of their windows after the shell was fired were quickly snatched away by 0aBaath Party security officials who were in the hotel).

    Gibson said off-camera he had used a high-explosive 0ashell that went off when it hit the target. (This would explain the sound heard 0aat the time and the extent of the damage done to balconies on several floors. ) 0aHe said the distance indicated by his viewfinder between the tank and the 0abalcony was 1,740 metres. His viewing system allowed him to see clearly up to 0afour kms (which was confirmed at Camp Mourmelon - see appendix).

• Comparison of what Wolford and Gibson said

    The difference between the Wolford's "man on the 0aroof" and Gibson's "man on the balcony" seems to be more inaccuracy than 0acontradiction, the difference between a man who saw the figure and a man it was 0asimply reported to. It does not seem significant.

    Much more troubling is Gibson's emphatic statement 0athat he did not see any cameras on the balconies. The journalists at the hotel 0aall said they were crowded with photographers and cameramen, especially that 0amorning as the fighting raged on the bridge and the riverbank, as the hotel was 0athe best place in the city to watch it.

    Ruling out the unlikely possibility of dishonesty and 0aa major lie, which would have serious consequences for any soldier (How would he 0anot have been surprised by journalists being there? Why would he have concealed 0atheir presence from Wolford? Was he sure other tanks had not seen the same 0athings? Why would he have taken responsibility for what seemed a grave error?), 0aother reasons for the mistake might involve the fact that:

1. Nearly all the hotel's balconies had lattice-work screens (see photos), 0awhich the journalists often used so they or their cameras would not be seen.
   
2. The balconies of the rooms targeted (1503 and 1403) did not have such 0ascreens.
   
3. Anyone standing on these balconies, which were at the end of the building, 0awas especially visible against the sky in the background.
   
4. These were the only balconies fired at.
   
5. There was a human factor in that the shell was fired after several hours of 0afierce fighting that began at 8:30 that morning and after fighting at the 0apresidential complex the day before that lasted until late at night. All this 0aafter a difficult month in the Iraqi desert.

    But these explanations have their limits.

    The versions of Gibson and Wolford, each in their 0adifferent locations, are coherent. So the key question looms larger: Why did 0athey not know what they were firing at?

    An answer may lie in the information available to the 0atroops entering the city and arriving on the west bank of the Tigris that 0amorning. What were their orders? Journalists were "embedded" in these units.

    Account of Chris Anderson,
    freelance photographer working for the 0aindependent photo agency Seven.

    He was embedded in 3ID's 2nd Brigade, Alpha Company 0a1-64 (nicknamed "Wildbunch") commanded by Capt. Andy Helms. An armoured company 0acomprises 12 Abrams tanks, two C-113 armoured vehicles and about 50 soldiers, 0aincluding two medics and a communications unit. The nearest company was the 4-64 ("Cobra"), where Wolford was. Anderson was in a C-113, which is similar to a 0aBradley.

    Late on 6 April, 1-64 was south of Baghdad and the 0anext day was told to go into the city to take control of the Rashid Hotel while 0a4-64 took over the presidential complex. The Rashid was chosen because the 0amilitary thought the journalists, the Iraqi information ministry press centre 0aand the minister's press conferences everyone saw on TV were still all located 0athere.

    In fact, the journalists had moved out of the Rashid 0amore than three weeks earlier and gone to the Palestine Hotel and the minister, 0aafter using the press centre at the ministry, near the Mansour Hotel, had been 0aspeaking to journalists on the terrace at the Palestine, where all the satellite 0aequipment had been set up.

    The purpose of seizing the Rashid was to put an end 0ato these press conferences and show that Baghdad had fallen, Anderson said. The 0aPalestine Hotel meant nothing to the soldiers. They had the latest very detailed 0asatellite-produced maps, with the Tigris, Saddam Hussein's Parade Ground and the 0aRashid marked. He said 1-64 set out at around four in the morning from 10 km 0asouth of the city. The 1-64 took the Parade Ground (near the Rashid) and 4-64 0athe presidential complex.

    Anderson recognised the Palestine Hotel from his tank 0abecause for the past year he had studied maps and photos of the city. The 0afighting was very fierce and confused because the soldiers were not ready for 0aurban guerrilla type resistance, which they thought was for the 101st Division 0aor the Special Forces to deal with. They were scared. He said his tank was 0aparked slightly away from the Jumhuriya Bridge, near an amusement park.

    The unit took some harmless mortar fire and Anderson 0alistened to the communications radio. He said Capt. Helms was very concerned 0aabout not hitting civilians. Each time he was asked to authorise hitting a 0atarget, he would ask whether there were civilians, were they armed and were they 0afiring. Then he would give an order to fire or else to hold fire.

    There was mortar fire about every quarter of an hour, 0awhich seemed to come from near the Palestine Hotel. Twice a group of armed men 0agathered in front of the hotel, Anderson said. Helms referred to "the Palestine" 0aduring the fighting because he had seen it on the map. But he did not know there 0awere journalists there, said Anderson, who did not know either.

    Suddenly there was an explosion at the top of the 0ahotel. Helms exclaimed angrily and asked what was going on. One lieutenant said 0ahe didn't know and another said he would try to find out. Helms wanted to know 0awho had fired at the hotel. It had not come from his company. There was a second 0aexplosion. He asked for the brigade to be called but there was no reply because 0ait had just been hit by an Iraqi missile. Helms then learned that Wolford's 4-64 0ahad linked up on his right flank and when asked, it confirmed one of its tanks 0ahad fired at the hotel. Helms was furious and criticised a member of 4-64 for 0anot consulting him before firing.

    Where, at this moment, was 3ID commander Gen. Blount? 0aAnderson said he thought he was outside the city and said he had seen him two 0adays earlier at the airport.

• Comments

1. Three weeks after journalists had moved across the river to the Palestine 0aHotel, the tank entering the city thought they were still at the Rashid.

2. They were ordered to take the Rashid, so as to put an end to the 0ainformation minister's press conferences and show the world that Baghdad had 0afallen.

3. So for the soldiers, the Palestine was a building like any other that they 0apaid no special attention to.

    Account of Chris Tomlinson,
    an Associated Press (AP) reporter embedded in 0athe "Attack" infantry company, part of 4-64.

    What he said is especially valuable because he spent 0aseven years in US military intelligence before becoming a journalist.

    He said there were four companies in 4-64 - Wolford's 0aA Company ("Assassins"), C Company ("Cyclone"), the infantry company "Attack" 0aand an engineering company known as "Beast. "

    He said "Attack" was south of the city, where the 0aairport had fallen, on 6 April, parked in a field and then attacked by Saddam's 0afedayeen (who wounded four US soldiers) before getting orders in the evening to 0aenter Baghdad the next morning around 4 am. 4-64 was told to take control of two 0apalaces, while 1-64 took the Convention Centre and the Rashid Hotel. On the 0abanks of the Tigris, near the Republican Palace, was a Republican Guard training 0acamp. Wolford began the attack and at 4 am on 8 April, he entered the palace.

    The initial plan was for 1-64 to take two bridges and 0afor Wolford to stop at the presidential complex to avoid getting hit by "friendly fire," Tomlinson said. "But this was not possible because of an Iraqi 0aattack from the north. Iraqis with RPGs arrived at the bridge. 1-64 could not 0amove and Wolford, who was under attack, could not stay where he was. Ahead of 0ahim were RPGs and 82 mm mortars.

    Tomlinson said four Bradleys in his company took 0adirect RPG hits. The Abrams crews were very scared of artillery and, faced with 0aboth this and RPGs, were very jumpy. They were trying to take out all the 0asources of firing, even the RPG positions. Battalion commander DeCamp decided to 0asend the Cyclone company to the Al-Sinnaq Bridge and the Killers company to 0aAl-Jumhuriya Bridge.

    Wolford counter-attacked on Al-Jumhuriya Bridge at 0aaround 8 am. He called for and was given mortar support and then aerial sweeps 0aby an A-10 and British planes to flush out the area.

    An Iraqi prisoner had a radio, he said, and the 0ainterpreter listened in and heard a spotter directing fire from the roof of a 0alarge building. Everyone started looking for him.

    In his tank, Gibson saw a man with binoculars on the 0abalcony of the Palestine Hotel. He was given permission to fire.

    Afterwards, brigade commander Perkins got a call from 0aGen. Blount, saying one of the tanks had fired on the hotel, which was full of 0ajournalists. Perkins asked him where and what was the Palestine Hotel and said 0ahe thought the journalists were at the Rashid.

    Perkins came and asked Tomlinson to describe the 0aPalestine to him, but did not say a tank had fired at it. He just said he needed 0aan air strike and wanted to be sure not to hit the hotel. The journalist called 0aDoha to get a description and its GPS location and said journalists there should 0aput white sheets out at their windows. He was told the hotel could no longer be 0acontacted. In the end, a journalist in Amman who knew the hotel gave a 0adescription of it and this was passed on to Perkins.

    Tomlinson learned the hotel had been hit when he 0aheard DeCamp ask Wolford on the radio why he had fired on the hotel and talked 0aabout wounded people there. It was 2 pm. Later he heard there were two dead.

    DeCamp and Perkins later confirmed to Tomlinson they 0awere never told journalists were in the Palestine before it was shot at by the 0atank.

    Tomlinson said his editors told him the Pentagon had 0aasked journalists to move out of the Palestine and had assured the AP that the 0achain of command had been told the hotel was full of journalists.

    Each unit has a "fire support officer" whose job is 0ato call in artillery fire and air raids. He has a map with all important places 0amarked, including strategic buildings, hospitals, mosques and targets to avoid. 0aPlaces not to be bombed are called Non Firing Areas (NFA).

    Tomlinson looked at these maps to see if what Perkins 0aand DeCamp had said was true. It was. Mosques and hospitals were marked to be 0aspared except in extreme cases of self-defence. But the Palestine was not 0amarked. The only other NFA was the Republican Palace (where US Administrator 0aPaul Bremer is now based). Perkins, DeCamp and Wolford just had a two-year-old 0asatellite-photo map of the city.

• Comments

1. Tomlinson confirmed that the tank fired at an "Iraqi spotter" and not a gun 0aposition.
   
2. He throws light on an intended air strike that would avoid the Palestine and 0athat was not mentioned until after the firing to justify a request for a 0adescription of the hotel after it had already been hit.
   
3. Nobody in the field command - Wolford or his superiors DeCamp and Perkins - 0aknew about a Palestine Hotel, full of journalists.
   
4. Apparently 3ID headquarters did know and its commander, Gen. Blount, called 0ato say a mistake had been made.
   
5. The hotel was not marked anywhere as being a NFA that was not to be 0aattacked.

    5 Comments on the US Army Investigation

• On 14 October 2003, Reporters Without Borders formally asked the Pentagon, 0aunder the Freedom Of Information Act, to supply it with the results of 0ainvestigations into three incidents which have still not been satisfactorily 0aexplained. These were the 8 April bombing of the Baghdad offices of the TV 0astation Al-Jazeera, the attack the same day on the Palestine Hotel and the death 0aof Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana in Baghdad on 17 August. The press freedom 0aorganisation has still not received a reply.
  
• On 12 August, the US Army released the report of its enquiry into the 0aPalestine Hotel shelling (see appendix for full text). Extracts:

"The eighth of April was a day of very intense fighting for A Company, 4-64 0aArmor. Their immediate mission was to secure an intersection and deny the enemy 0athe use of the Jamurohora Bridge. (...) Enemy transmissions were being 0amonitored. [They] indicated that A Company was being observed by an enemy 0aspotter who was located across the Tigris River and was directing enemy forces 0aand fires in their direction. (... )

"A Company personnel observed what they believed to be a enemy hunter/killer 0ateam on the balcony of a room on the upper floors of a large tan colored 0abuilding. (... ) One 120mm tank round was fired at the suspected enemy observer 0aposition. Immediately following that (... ) coordinated enemy fire directed at A 0aCompany ceased. "

    In other words:

    Troops were under fire, directed by a "spotter" 0adescribed as an "enemy hunter/killer team. " The tank opened fire, in what was 0aconsidered a legitimate and proportionate response, and the supposed firing 0astopped. There was no error. Baghdad was a dangerous place. Some journalists 0achose to stay there despite repeated warnings. End of investigation.

    6 Conclusion

    The Reporters Without Borders enquiry shows there was 0alying, as well as three levels of responsibility.

    Supposed legitimate self-defence in response to 0ashooting from the hotel - the excuse offered right from the beginning and 0are-stated and maintained at the highest level of the US government - was pushed 0ain an effort to dominate the media and political discourse. This first version 0aof events became the official version and was a lie by the authorities.

    Despite the evidence, it took four months for the US 0aArmy to come up with its report, in which "direct firing" was replaced by an "enemy hunter/killer team" to justify legitimate self-defense. The new 0aexplanation is also a lie, by omission.

    By focusing debate on technical military problems, 0athe US government ignores the key to the tragedy - that the soldiers in the 0afield were never told that a large number of journalists were in the Palestine 0aHotel. If they had known, they would never have fired. When they did know, they 0agave and received instructions and took precautions to ensure the hotel was not 0afired on again. The firing of a tank shell at the hotel was not therefore a 0adeliberate attack on journalists or the media.

    The Reporters Without Borders investigation shows 0athat responsibility for the death of the two journalists and the wounding of 0athree others is as follows:

• At the lower level, Capt. Philip Wolford, who gave permission for the shell 0ato be fired, and Sgt. Shawn Gibson, who asked for that permission and who fired 0athe shell, are not responsible for the death of the journalists. Whatever the 0atechnical issues, or the US tank unit tradition of "shoot first, check after" or 0athe temperament of the officers or the orders that were given, Wolford and 0aGibson reacted as soldiers in a battle situation but without the means of 0aknowing what they had done.

At the same level, the immediate hierarchy - Battalion commander Lt. Col. 0aPhilip DeCamp and Brigade commander Col. David Perkins - also appear not to 0ablame. Their remarks and reactions and the accounts of embedded journalists 0aindicate that they too had not been properly informed by their own superiors.

• At a higher level, the headquarters of Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 0a3rd Infantry Division (3ID), bears a heavy responsibility for not providing the 0anecessary information that would have prevented the death of the journalists. 0aThe Division's command had access to information from the Pentagon, from the 0aDoha base and from the press and TV.

It is inconceivable that the massive presence of journalists at the Palestine 0aHotel for three weeks prior to the shelling, which was known by any TV viewer 0aand by the Pentagon itself, could have passed unnoticed. This presence was never 0amentioned to the troops on the ground or marked on the maps used by artillery 0asupport soldiers. The question is whether this information was withheld 0adeliberately, because of misunderstanding or by criminal negligence.

• At the top level, the US government must bear some of the responsibility. 0aNot just because it is the government and has supreme authority over its army in 0athe field, but also and especially because its top leaders have regularly made 0astatements about the status of war reporters in Iraq that have undermined all 0amedia security considerations and set the scene for the tragedy that occurred.

    An example was the response of White House spokesman 0aAri Fleisher at a 28 February press briefing. The Pentagon had just strongly 0aadvised the media to pull their journalists out of Baghdad before the fighting 0abegan. Asked whether this odd warning was a veiled threat to "non-embedded" 0areporters, the president's spokesman said: "If the military says something, I 0astrongly urge all journalists to heed it. It is in your own interests, and your 0afamily's interests. And I mean that. "

    This line was taken by other US government and 0amilitary officials. The Army's 12 August report said Baghdad was "a high 0aintensity combat area and some journalists had elected to remain there despite 0arepeated warnings of the extreme danger of doing so. "

    After the shelling, Pentagon spokesman Gen. Vincent 0aBrooks said: "We don't know every place a journalist is operating on the 0abattlefield. We know only those journalists that are operating with us. "

    This amounted to creating two kinds of journalists - 0athose who were "embedded" and so able to report on the fighting while under the 0aprotection of US forces and those who were advised to leave the war zone or face 0abeing ignored, with all the risks involved since the US Army was washing its 0ahands of all responsibility.

    This discrimination is contrary to the journalistic 0apractice and tradition of a democratic country and indicates an intention to 0aundermine efforts to provide the diverse media coverage that is needed of all 0asides in a war.

    So it is hardly surprising that the position of the 0aPalestine Hotel was not marked as a "Non Firing Zone" on the soldiers' maps. Not 0asurprising either, but in this case criminal, that information about the 0apresence of so many journalists at the hotel was not communicated by the 0amilitary hierarchy to the tank units that arrived on the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge on 0athe morning of 8 April and fired hundreds of rounds at the other side of the 0aRiver Tigris.

    It was one of these shells that killed journalists 0aTaras Protsyuk and Jos Couso and wounded three others.

    7 Recommendation

    Since the so-called "completed" US Army report on the 0akilling of two journalists at the Palestine Hotel is not in fact complete, 0aReporters Without Borders demands the reopening of the enquiry to answer the 0areal questions raised by their deaths.

    8 Appendices

    The Soldiers Involved

    Gen. Buford Blount III,
    commander of the 3rd Infantry Division (3ID)

    "Buff" Blount, 54, has commanded the 3ID since 0aOctober 2001 and is described by an Army colleague as "a solid, though 0asome-times perhaps pedestrian guy. However, he will do well because he is a good 0asoldier and leader. " Another colleague called him "dignified, no ego, no bull, 0aa master soldier. "

    He has had two tours of duty in Saudi Arabia, most 0arecently as programme manager for the modernisation of the Saudi National Guard, 0athe Saudi royal family's elite troops. "There's nothing about the Middle East 0aand Arab culture he doesn't know," said one Army source who predicted he would 0asoon be promoted to lieutenant-general and given a senior job in Iraq's post-war 0areconstruction.

    Blount is a Texan, like his three superiors, Gen. 0aTommy Franks, Gen. Richard Myers and President George W. Bush. He is the top 0amilitary officer in the Savannah (Georgia) region and his command includes Fort 0aStewart and Hunter Army Airfield.

    He graduated in 1971 from the University of Southern 0aMississippi, the Hattiesburg college that did not integrate its student body 0auntil 1965, three years before Blount enrolled there and three years after the 0aUniversity of Mississippi was forced to admit its first black student. He comes 0afrom a politically-connected family. His father, Buford Blount II, is a former 0aAir Force colonel who was once deputy commander of Keesler Air Force Base and 0anow mayor of Bassfield, Mississippi.

    Col. David Perkins,
    commander of the 3ID's 2nd Brigade

    His mother Louise says he always dreamed of becoming 0aa general. "I'm proud of him for the simple fact that this is what he wanted. 0aAnd because he has worked for it, he has sacrificed for it and he is committed. "

    Perkins has a younger brother, Richard, who is a 0aMarines lieutenant-colonel. They have always been rivals. David, 45, is a West 0aPoint graduate, while Richard, 43, graduated from Annapolis. Their father served 0ain the army in World War Two but says he never pushed his sons to go into the 0amilitary.

    David, who is married with two children and was made 0aa colonel in 2001, led 70 tanks, 60 armoured troop transport vehicles and 0ahundreds of technical support vehicles across the desert to Baghdad and entered 0athe city on 5 April.

    His mother said of his role in the Palestine Hotel 0aattack that he had "nothing but the greatest respect for all of the men under 0ahim, and if they were firing on his men, he would give the command to fire. 0aThat's his duty. "

    LT. Col. Philip Decamp,
    commander of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor 0aRegiment of the 3ID.

    DeCamp, 41, has been in the army since he was 23. His 0afamily has been in the military since the time of his grandfather, who was a 0ageneral.

    Born in Fort Benning (Georgia), he has lived at West 0aPoint, in New Orleans, Washington and Vilseck (Germany) and has moved to a new 0abase every two years. He was a tank commander in the first Gulf War. He is a 0adevoted soldier and sees military missions as sacred and more important than 0ahuman concerns. He likes military regulations and drinks no alcohol. He is very 0apleased his third child is a boy, who he has named Alexander-Philip, after both 0ahis father and Alexander the Great.

    Capt. Philip Wolford,
    commander of the A 4-64 Armor Company, 4th 0aBattalion, 2nd Brigade of the 3ID.

    Based at Fort Stewart (Georgia), he joined the army 0ain 1995 after attending school in Marysville (Ohio), where he was a member of 0athe Reserve Officer Training Corps. He ordered the tank on the bridge to fire at 0athe hotel. Known as a bold and "pushy" soldier, he is married with three 0achildren.

    Sgt. Shawn Gibson,
    commander of the Abrams tank that fired at the 0ahotel.

    Aged 38, he has spent 18 years (nearly half his life) 0ain the army and fought in the first Gulf War. He has five children and is very 0areligious.

    The Journalists Killed

    Taras Protsyuk
    The 0aReuters cameraman was hit in the stomach by shrapnel and died on his way to an 0aIraqi hospital.

    Aged 35, he lived in Poland with his wife Lidia and 0atheir eight-year-old son Denis. He was born in Ivano Frankovsk (Ukraine), the 0ason of a petroleum engineer, and studied aeronautical engineering at university 0awith the aim of joining the Soviet space programme. In his last year at 0auniversity, in 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed and he decided to become a 0afreelance cameraman. In 1993, he joined Reuters and covered wars in Bosnia, 0aMacedonia, Chechnya,Afghanistan and Kosovo.

    When he worked at the Reuters bureau in Warsaw, "he 0awanted to become a Polish citizen and was waiting for his passport," said one of 0ahis former colleagues. "He was always cheerful and in Iraq, was one of the most 0aexperienced and savvy people around. He always kept his camera in his room and 0aat night he filmed the bombing. We talked a lot about the Polish journalists who 0awent missing near Najaf and he phoned the wife of one of them to comfort her. "

    Reuters editor-in-chief Geert Linnebank said the 0aagency was very upset by his death because he had done a very professional job 0acovering some of the biggest wars of the past decade.

    Jos Couso
    The 0a37-year-old Spanish cameraman was hit by shrapnel in his right leg and face and 0adied in hospital while being operated on.

    Born in the Galician city of Ferrol, he moved to 0aMadrid in the early 1990s to work for Spanish TV agencies and then for the TV 0astation Telecinco, for which he covered the wars in the Balkans, events in 0aMiddle East, the Spanish-Moroccan dispute over Perefil island, and the sinking 0aof the tanker Prestige, off Galicia. He was in the Palestine Hotel with 0aTelecinco editor Jon Sistiaga. He was married with two children, aged 6 and 3.

    Spain is one of the firmest US allies in Iraq and 0adefence minister Federico Trillo asked the Spanish general based in Kuwait to 0aget an explanation of the incident from US officials.

    Visit to the Tank Training Centre at Camp 0aMourmelon (France)

    The camp is a base for Leclerc battle tanks, which 0aare state-of-the-art like the US Abrams tanks. We were allowed to try out all 0athe positions of command and firing, observe targets and buildings in different 0aconditions of light, at a similar distance to that between the Abrams tank on 0athe bridge and the Hotel Palestine, both while stationary and on the move.

    Data Gathered:

The Abrams tank, at 70 tonnes, is heavier and consumes 56 gallons (225 0alitres) of petrol an hour. The Leclerc (55 tonnes) has a 1,500 HP engine and can 0aaccelerate from 0 to 30 km/hour in five seconds. There are four generations of 0aAbrams tanks (M1, M1-A1, M1-A2, M1-A2 SEP). The one on the bridge in Baghdad was 0aan M1-A1 with a 120 mm gun and a radio system.

• Vision

    The Abrams and the Leclerc have very similar 0aidentification and targeting systems. Both are available to the gunner - an 0aoptical system in daylight and thermal imaging at night. When visibility is 0areduced when facing the sun or by smoke or thick fog, thermal imaging overcomes 0athis. Other possible problems are large obstacles in front of it or the need for 0aquick action. The tank has an episcope at turret level, giving the commander has 0aa 360-degree view of the immediate surroundings.

• Firing

    The main weapon is a 120 mm cannon, with an ideal 0arange of 2,500 metres and, atop the vehicle, a heavy machinegun - 12. 7 for the 0aAbrams and 7. 62 for the Leclerc. Three kinds of shells: 1. Armour-piercing (anti-tank), traveling at 1,700 metres/sec. 2. Hollow. 3. "High-explosive" 0ashells that travel at 1,000-1,100 metres/sec. , for destroying troop-carrying 0avehicles or for use in towns. Smoke grenade launchers are fitted to the turret 0aand can fire up to 60 metres in all directions.

• Targeting

    The commander's line of sight (LOS) allows him to use 0athe cannon himself or to point it immediately at another target identified by 0athe gunner.

• Vulnerability

    The Abrams and the Leclerc are virtually invulnerable 0aon the battlefield. Their weak points are their tracks, their rear and the 0agunner's turret. Their biggest enemies are anti-tank planes and helicopters, 0awhich the Iraqis do not have. But mortar fire and anti-tank missiles are still a 0aproblem. Rocket-propelled grenades and rocket-launchers must be fired no further 0aaway than 100 metres and must hit the tank's tracks to be effective.

• Sighting, Identifying, Killing

    At 1,500, 1,700 metres and 2,000 metres, vision is 0agood for an inexperienced soldier, and thus for an experienced one too. A human 0afigure can be clearly seen at an open window or on a balcony, including whether 0athe person has a camera or binoculars. Sighting and destruction of an enemy 0aposition or vehicle is possible up to four kms away. Even going at 60-70 0akm/hour, the tank is stabilised by a gyro-controlled turret from which firing is 0apossible going down a two-degree slope or up a nine-degree one.

• Simulation

    Test-firing at the camp's simulation centre confirmed 0athe great precision and easy targeting possible with these modern combat tanks.

    Investigator's Conclusion:

    The "target" was observed in daylight, 1,740 metres 0aaway, for many minutes, from the gun turret of a stationary Abrams tank. In such 0aconditions, it is quite unlikely that an experienced professional such as Sgt. 0aShawn Gibson, who had already served in the first Gulf War and was familiar with 0athe tank's technology, would make a firing error, be confused or mistake a 0atarget.

A Guide in 0aBattle Military officers of all NATO countries who use tanks in wartime have a 0asimilar combat handbook known in the US Army as "Fragmentary Orders," which 0acontains combat plans, the units involved, support available, departure points 0aand targets. It gives as much detail as possible about enemy and friendly 0aforces, elements that are neutral or those to be spared (civilians, NGOs, 0amedical personnel). If troops advance rapidly, the Fragmentary Orders are 0arevised and updated carefully. A special "fire support officer" guides artillery 0afire and has maps that show "non firing" areas or zones (NFA or NFZ), which are 0aexcluded as targets.

    Requests for an Enquiry

    Soon after the shelling of the hotel, the victims' 0afamilies filed official complaints and various organisations called for an 0aenquiry, with some taking steps to improve the protection of journalists in war 0azones. These initiatives included:

• 8 April 2003: The European Union said it would contact the US 0aauthorities about protecting journalists.
  
• 8 April: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote to US 0adefense secretary Donald Rumsfeld asking for a thorough and immediate enquiry 0ainto the attacks on the hotel and the Al-Jazeera offices.
  
• 9 April: The UN Correspondents Association (ACANU) in Geneva called 0afor an independent enquiry in a letter to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
  
• 9 April: Reporters Without Borders called for an "impartial, 0aobjective and independent" enquiry by the International Humanitarian 0aFact-Finding Commission into the firing on the hotel. It had already (1 April) 0aurged the Commission to investigate the bombing of Iraqi state TV offices by 0aCoalition forces.

    The Commission was set up in 1991 under the First 0aAdditional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions to investigate serious violations 0aof international humanitarian law, but it cannot act unless asked to by parties 0ato a conflict or by countries that recognise its jurisdiction. The parties 0acomplained of must then agree to an investigation. These conditions have never 0abeen met, so the Commission has never made any investigations.

    Its president, 65-year-old New Zealand Court of 0aAppeal judge Sir Kenneth Keith, notes that the governments that set up the 0aCommission are not very keen to see it in operation and he admits it has 0aachieved nothing.

    The Commission's work is so secret that even the post 0aoffice seems not to know where it is, since letters that Reporters Without 0aBorders sent to each of its 15 members in Berne in early July were returned 0amarked "addressee unknown. " But the Commission's secretariat confirmed the 0aaddress was right and asked that the letters be sent again, adding a name to the 0aaddress. The Commission puts out a report on its activities every five years. 0aThe 2001 report is only three pages long.

    Reporters Without Borders called on Sir Kenneth on 9 0aand 23 April and again on 1 July to exercise his "right of initiative" so the 0aCommission could investigate Geneva Convention violations against journalists 0aand media covering the Iraq war. It called on him to publicly ask the United 0aStates to formally ask the Commission to investigate, in accordance with 0aprocedure.

    The press freedom organisation got only one reply 0afrom Sir Kenneth, on 22 April, in which he noted he was powerless to act, saying 0athat despite appeals by several international organisations, the countries 0ainvolved in the war had shown no interest in using the Commission's services.

    Of the countries involved in the Iraq war, only 0aBritain and Australia have recognised its jurisdiction, so an enquiry could be 0amade into these two countries' activities. It remains for the United States and 0aIraq to give special agreement in principle to such an investigation.

• 10 April: Ukrainian foreign minister Anatoly Zlenko said he had asked 0athe United States and Britain to make a "thorough enquiry" into Protsyuk's 0adeath.
  
• 10 April: The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) called for an 0aimmediate enquiry into the deaths of Protsyuk and Couso.
  
• 10 April: The socialist opposition in Spain tabled a motion in 0aparliament urging prime minister Jos Maria Aznar's government to investigate 0athe deaths "thoroughly and credibly. "
  
• 11 April: The US military's Central Command in Iraq promised to 0ainvestigate the deaths. The US ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, said an 0aenquiry should be made into what he called a "tragic accident. "
  
• 11 April: Couso's two brothers, Javier and David, filed a complaint 0aagainst the Spanish government, signing it in front of the Supreme Court, like 0aother group complaints filed by hundreds of people, with the support of the Free 0aLawyers Association (ALA). They demanded "justice for the murder" of their 0abrother.
  
• 27 May: David Couso filed a complaint in Spain for "war crimes" and "murder" against the three US soldiers involved in Couso's death. The case was 0aaccepted on 21 October by Spain's highest criminal court. Couso's widow and one 0aof his sisters formally joined the case later, as did Reporters Without Borders 0aon 13 November.
  
• 25 April: Richard Sambrook, head of news at the BBC, said "responsibility lies with certainly the Pentagon and the chain of command, which 0aknew where the international press was based. "
  
• 8 October: The CPJ in New York said the US military's "failure to 0aprovide an honest and open accounting of what occurred keeps alive questions 0aabout whether US forces are taking the necessary steps to avoid endangering 0ajournalists. " So far, it said, the military had provided "only summary 0aexplanations or no explanation at all" for the deaths of journalists in Iraq.

    Result of the US Army Investigation

    The US Army announced this on 12 August:

MacDill AFB, Tampa: The investigation of the incident at the Palestine Hotel, 0aBaghdad, Iraq on April 8th, 2003 is complete. The investigation was directed by 0athe Land Component Commander, U. S. Central Command, and concludes that a tank 0afrom A Company, 4-64 Armor properly fired upon a suspected enemy hunter/killer 0ateam in a proportionate and justifiably measured response. The action was fully 0ain accordance with the Rules of Engagement.

    The following summary provides background and details 0aof the event.

    By 7 April: Coalition forces had begun to 0aencircle Baghdad and had initiated thrusts into the city. On 8 April: Coalition 0aforces were pushing into Baghdad and being met with fierce enemy resistance. The 0aenemy was operating throughout the civilian areas of the city, firing a spectrum 0aof weapons at Coalition forces from the roofs and windows of surrounding 0abuildings. The enemy was fighting without any regard to civilians or civilian 0astructures. Coalition forces continued to fight their way toward the Tigris 0aRiver, just across from the Palestine Hotel, an area of significant enemy 0acontact.

    The eighth of April was a day of very intense 0afighting for A Company, 4-64 Armor. Their immediate mission was to secure an 0aintersection and deny the enemy the use of the Jamurohora Bridge. On A Company's 0afirst attempt to secure the intersection they were met with heavy enemy direct 0aand indirect fire from Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), mortars and small arms 0aoriginating from prepared defensive positions (bunkers) and from within and atop 0asurrounding buildings. As they approached the intersection, they suffered two 0aWounded in Action (WIA). The intersection was defended by almost a battalion of 0aIraqi Republican Guards. Fire was so intense that A Company pulled back and 0arequested Close Air Support (CAS) and additional fire support. An A-10 aircraft 0adropped a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and strafed the enemy. A Company 0areattacked. The enemy continued to resist with much of their fire coming from 0athe opposite bank of the Tigris River.

    Spot reports were continually arriving at A Company 0aconcerning increasing enemy movements and activities along the opposite side of 0athe Tigris River. Additional reports disclosed the discovery of potent Anti-Tank 0amissiles. At this point, A Company had been in heavy fighting for several hours. 0aThe Company Commander was then advised by his Task Force Headquarters that an 0aenemy radio had been recovered and that enemy transmissions were being 0amonitored. Those transmissions indicated that A Company was being observed by an 0aenemy spotter who was located across the Tigris River and was directing enemy 0aforces and fires in their direction. While still under heavy mortar, RPG, and 0amissile fire, the A Company Commander directed his people to scan the 0asurrounding buildings to try to find the enemy observer. A Company personnel 0aobserved what they believed to be a enemy hunter/killer team on the balcony of a 0aroom on the upper floors of a large tan colored building. They also witnessed 0aflashes of light, consistent with enemy fire, coming from the same general 0alocation as the building.

    One 120mm tank round was fired at the suspected enemy 0aobserver position. Immediately following that, monitored transmissions indicated 0athat the enemy observer was taking fire and coordinated enemy fire directed at A 0aCompany ceased. It was only some time after the incident that A Company became 0aaware of the fact that the building they fired on was the Palestine Hotel and 0athat journalists at the hotel had been killed or injured as a result. However, 0aintelligence reports also indicated that the enemy used portions of the hotel as 0aa base of operations and that heavy enemy activity was occurring in those areas 0ain and immediately around the hotel.

    Conclusions: A Company was under heavy enemy attack. 0aThe company had positive intelligence that they were under direct observation 0afrom an enemy hunter/killer team. The activities on the balcony of the Palestine 0aHotel were consistent with that of an enemy combatant. They fired a single round 0ain self-defense in full accordance with the Rules of Engagement. The enemy had 0arepeatedly chosen to conduct its combat activities from throughout the civilian 0aareas of Baghdad.

    These actions included utilizing the Palestine Hotel 0aand the areas immediately around it as a platform for military operations. 0aBaghdad was a high intensity combat area and some journalists had elected to 0aremain there despite repeated warnings of the extreme danger of doing so. The 0ajournalists' death at the Palestine Hotel was a tragedy and the United States 0ahas the deepest sympathies for the families of those who were killed.

    The Geneva Convention

    Extracts from Additional Protocol I (1977) of the 0a1949 Geneva Conventions concerning the protection of victims of international 0aarmed conflict:

Chapter III - Journalists

Article 79 - Measures of protection for journalists

1. Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed 0aconflict shall be considered as civilians within the meaning of Article 50, 0aparagraph 1.
   
2. They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this Protocol, 0aprovided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians, 0aand without prejudice to the right of war correspondents accredited to the armed 0aforces to the status provided for in Article 4 A (4) of the Third Convention.
   
3. They may obtain an identity card similar to the model in Annex II of this 0aProtocol. This card, which shall be issued by the government of the State of 0awhich the journalist is a national or in whose territory he resides or in which 0athe news medium employing him is located, shall attest to his status as a 0ajournalist.

    Acknowledgements

    Our thanks to everyone who contributed to this 0ainvestigation and agreed to talk to us at length, including:

Soldiers: Sgt. Shawn Gibson and Capt. Philip Wolford in Iraq.

Civilians: Chris Anderson in Paris, John Moore, J r me Delay in Iraq and 0aParis, Samia Nakhoul, Caroline Sinz in Iraq and Paris, Christian de Carn in 0aParis, Fr d ric Lafargue, Patricia All moni re, Adrien Jaulmes, Jean-Paul 0aMartin, Herv de Ploeg in Iraq and Paris, Chris Tomlinson in Washington, Richard 0aGrayson in New York, Pascale Bourgaux in Iraq and Brussels and Tom Davis in 0aWashington in the United States.

    We regret the lack of cooperation from Fox News and 0aits failure to respond to our requests for information about the death of the 0atwo journalists.

    We thank DICOD, the tank crew and the authorities at 0aMourlelon Camp for their valuable help.

    We would like to thank the news agencies: AFP, AP and 0aReuters for their cooperation, as well as the TV channels France 3, TF1 and 0aRTBF.

    9 Other Journalists Killed

    The deaths of other journalists killed by US forces 0aduring and after the war in Iraq have not been seriously investigated.

    22 March: Terry Lloyd, veteran war reporter 0awith the British TV station ITN (ITV News), was killed when his convoy crossed 0ainto Iraq from Kuwait and was caught in shooting between Iraqi forces and US 0aMarines. US firing probably killed him. The Pentagon has never produced the 0aresults of an enquiry into the incident or fully cooperated with British Army 0aefforts to find out what happened to French cameraman Fr d ric N rac and 0aLebanese interpreter Hussein Osman, both in the convoy, who disappeared at the 0asame time.

    8 April: US forces bombed the offices in 0aBaghdad of the Arab TV stations Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV. Al-Jazeera special 0acorrespondent Tarek Ayoub was killed but no officials appear to have 0ainvestigated his death.

    17 August: Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, 41, 0awas killed by a US soldier while filming (with permission) a prison guarded by 0athe Americans in a Baghdad suburb. A month later, the Pentagon said his death 0awas "regrettable" but that troops had "acted within the rules of engagement. "

    Enquiry into the Death of Patrick Bourrat

    Patrick Bourrat, an experienced war reporter and 0aspecial correspondent of the French TV station TF1, died on 22 December 2002 0aduring US manoeuvres in Kuwait, the day after being hit by an Abrams tank as he 0awarned his cameraman to get out of the vehicle's way, according to the French 0aembassy. He was the first journalist to die because of the impending Iraqi war.

    A US military spokesman, Maj. Denton Knapp, said: "We 0adid everything we could to keep him safe" but he "made a mistake and it was a 0atragic one. " The message was that it was Bourrat's own fault that he died.

    The facts seem more complicated. We have not been 0aable to see the full medical record but evidence we have suggests there were 0airregularities in his treatment that included serious medical errors. He may not 0ahave simply died as a result of the tank accident.

    This report is dedicated to Bourrat.

    The Facts

    The TF1 crew - Bourrat, cameraman Bernard Guerni and 0asound-man/technician Elie Bonnet - went with other journalists on 19 December to 0aCamp Doha, in Kuwait, to arrange coverage of the first major US Army manoeuvres. 0aMost of the French crew were quite tired after flying from Paris and not having 0amuch sleep over two days. But the middle-aged Bourrat, a slim fitness fanatic 0awho neither smoked nor drank, was in good condition.

    The journalists were briefed about the manoeuvres and 0athe safety rules and were given luminous stickers to make their vehicles more 0avisible. Then they were assigned to various tank units and the next day returned 0ato film the manoeuvres.

    On 21 December, they gathered at 7 am and were driven 0ain Humvees to a live-ammunition manoeuvre in the Kuwaiti desert, eight kms from 0athe border with Iraq.

    They were to film a minesweeping exercise along an 0aimaginary border involving breaking through a line of defence indicated by 0aplastic markers.

    Before the journalists arrived, the soldiers had set 0aoff a blast that was supposed to clear away obstacles. Around 9 am, the crew 0afilmed the minefield and then moved when the Abrams tanks approached. Bourrat 0aand Bonnet stood to one side, near a Humvee, behind some barbed-wire. Cameraman 0aGuerni moved forward on one side, outside the plastic safety markers, to film 0athe tank as it passed.

    Bourrat suddenly thought Guerni was going to be too 0aclose to the tank and ran round the barbed-wire towards him. After then he 0adisappeared from view.

    In Moscow a few years earlier, Bourrat had seen 0aanother cameraman and friend, Yvan Skopan, shot dead and was himself wounded in 0athe arm. The incident haunted him and ever since he had been very concerned 0aabout his crew's safety.

    The tank threw up a huge cloud of dust and sand as it 0acharged across the desert at top speed. It was heard to brake suddenly and when 0athe dust settled, the crew saw Bourrat had been thrown two or three metres back 0aand was tangled in the barbed wire. He called out to Guerni: "I can't breathe, I 0acan't breathe!" He was suffocating and tearing at his collar. He also said his 0aback hurt.

• 9:30 am (hitherto referred to as "T zero"): Soldiers came to help at 0aonce, cutting away the barbed-wire, and medics arrived with drips and an 0aoxygen-mask. After 10 minutes, a helicopter landed and took Bourrat to the 0aKuwaiti military hospital in Kuwait City whose second floor had been reserved 0afor US casualties (since the war had not begun, it was nearly empty). Bourrat 0adid not speak in the helicopter but was conscious and gripped Bonnet's hand. An 0aambulance met the helicopter and rushed him to the hospital.
  
• 10:00 (T+0. 30): Arrival at the emergency room. He was attended by 0aeight or nine nurses and doctors including a Dr Catras. "My ribs and back hurt," 0ahe said and they gave him morphine.
  
• 10:30 (T+1): An x-ray showed four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. 0aHe was given the necessary treatment and when he went to his hospital room, his 0apulse was normal. Dr Catras said Bourrat had been "very lucky indeed. " The 0ajournalist dozed off, then woke up and said he was in a lot of pain and was "very thirsty," usually a sign of internal bleeding. The doctors had so far done 0ano abdominal ultrasound or MRI scan (which was available). There was no reason 0anot to do one in the case of someone thrown several metres by a 70-tonne tank 0agoing at top speed (50-60 km/hour). But the doctor in charge did not seem 0aconcerned and was congratulated by the French ambassador who came to see Bourrat 0aand found the journalist "very tired but quite conscious, since he smiled and 0ashook my hand to thank me. " Bourrat said all afternoon that he still felt very 0abad.
  
• 17:00 (T+7. 30): A nurse noticed blood and clots in his urine and 0aalerted the doctor, who returned worried and asked for an MRI scan to be made. 0aBourrat was shaking a lot and longer speaking except to say he felt cold.
  
• 18:30 (T+9): The doctor was shocked at the scan, which showed a burst 0aspleen and a half cut through kidney. The doctor told Bourrat he would live if 0ahis spleen was removed. The journalist asked to be flown to the Val de Gr[ ce 0ahospital in Paris. But he was not fit to be moved and time was running out. He 0awas getting more and more tired, though was still conscious.
  
• 19:00 (T+9. 30): Bourrat was taken to the operating theatre.
  
• 20:00 (T+10. 30): Surgeon Kevin Pehn began the operation and said it 0awould take just over an hour. "You can live without your spleen, he'll be OK 0atomorrow," he told the TF1 crew, who left the hospital reassured and went back 0ato their hotel. The next Guerni and Bonnet heard was a dawn phone call from 0aParis telling them Bourrat had died. Meanwhile:
  
• 22:00 (T+12. 30): The operation went well and Bourrat was returned to 0ahis bed.
  
• Midnight (T+14. 30): Monitoring equipment gave an alert. His heart 0ahad stopped. Doctors gave him a heart massage and used a defibrillator but could 0anot revive him.
  
• 02:30 (T+17. 00) 22 December: Bourrat is declared dead.

    A note from the French embassy in Kuwait repeated the 0aversion of the medical team and said he died of internal bleeding aggravated by 0akidney failure. It said his spleen, burst when the tank hit him, had been 0aremoved. One kidney was heavily bruised but they had functioned normally until 0aabout an hour and a half after the operation, acute failure had occurred causing 0aa sudden fall in blood pressure that neither large blood transfusions or heart 0amassage (with a defibrillator) could correct.

    Comments

1. The first-aid and transfer to hospital was done extremely quickly.
   
2. However, at the hospital, simple tests that would have showed the gravity of 0ahis injuries were not done until much later (nine hours), even though he had 0aarrived straight from a serious accident.
   He was not operated on until more 0athan 10 hours after the accident. During all that time, he had internal bleeding 0abecause of his burst spleen and a large bruise was preventing one or both his 0akidneys from working. Doctors do not seem to have taken into account the force 0awith which he had been hit or the possible extent of other injuries apart from 0athose to his rib-cage, or the fact that a few hours later he was very thirsty, 0awhich is a sign of internal bleeding. When he got to the operating theatre, he 0awas exhausted and had lost a great deal of blood.
   After the operation, the 0acardiac arrest surprised the medical team and all attempts to resuscitate him 0afailed.
   
   His death was put down to internal bleeding and kidney failure, 0aboth of which could have been detected and treated as soon as he arrived at the 0ahospital.
   
3. All these facts have since been presented for an opinion to a very reliable 0amedical authority, a professor of gastroenterology, who said that (although only 0aa look at the complete medical records could confirm it) "there must've been a 0amistake at some point because there was a contradiction between the gravity of 0athe accident and the failure to consider the seriousness of internal injuries 0athat were discovered and treated too late. "

    Conclusion

1. Bourrat's death cannot just be blamed on his accident with the tank.
   
2. The case cannot be closed by saying dismissively that the journalist made a 0atragic mistake.
   
3. There is a strong likelihood of serious medical error.

    Recommendation

Patrick Bourrat, an experienced war reporter and special correspondent 0aof the French TV station TF1, died on 22 December 2002.

    We 0acall for a thorough medical investigation into Patrick Bourrat's death in Kuwait 0aon 22 December 2002. If the medical team is found to be responsible, the US Army 0ashould recognise this.

    (In December 2002, French President Jacques Chirac 0aasked the French ambassador in Kuwait to "gather all the information about the 0aaccident. " The Paris prosecutor's office has asked French detectives to start 0aan enquiry into the circumstances of Bourrat's death).

    Patrick Bourrat

    He started as a freelance with TF1 in 1979 and had 0astayed with the station ever since. Born in Tunis on 20 September 1952, he 0astudied law at Bordeaux University and also graduated from the Political Studies 0aInstitute (Sciences Po) in Paris. He worked in the foreign department of TF1 0afrom 1980 and opened the station's Jerusalem bureau in 1982 during the civil war 0ain Lebanon. In 1987, he presented TF1's late-night newscast for a while and then 0areturned to the field. He was named a senior correspondent in 1988, reported a 0ayear later on the collapse of the Berlin Wall and then went to Czechoslovakia to 0acover the "Velvet Revolution" there. In December 1989, he was in Romania for the 0afall of President Nicolae Ceaucescu. He was appointed permanent correspondent in 0aMoscow in 1992.

    He worked on the French news-magazine LMI in August 0a1995 and in early 1998 presented the TV programme " Les Fran ais sont comme a. " 0aSince late 2002, he had been part of the station's major stories department.

---

    A report by Jean-Paul Mari with valuable help from 0aS verine Cazes-Tschann, Marie Devers (research and documentation) and Mehdi 0aBenyezzar (graphics).

    Artwork Nuit de Chine.

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