US admits cameraman was shot dead at close range

[Resistance]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=435156

The American army admitted yesterday that its soldiers killed an award-winning Reuters cameraman. Mazen Dana, a Palestinian, was shot dead by a US tank crew at close range while trying to film outside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison on Sunday, after a mortar attack on the prison.

Mr Dana's colleagues said the tank was 30 metres from him when it opened fire. Television cameras do not look like RPG launchers: at such close range it should have been impossible to confuse the two.

Mr Dana was no novice in war zones. His hometown, Hebron in the West Bank, is a dangerous place. In 2001, he won the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) International Press Freedom Award for his work in Hebron. He was shot three times in 2000.

[grytpype]

1. One atrocity after another.

One atrocity after another. I predict Bush will be the first president to pardon himself right before he leaves office (yes he can do that).

[Zhade]

22. WHAT!

He can?

How the hell can that be Constitutional??

[QuietStorm]

2. This is what they are admiting

"The Americans claimed that the soldiers mistook the camera Mr Dana was holding for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher - a claim that was immediately rejected by journalists who witnessed the killing."

Is that an admission. With Blitzer trying to get a Palestinian woman to comply with his contention regarding how easy it would have been to mistake his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Seems that is the story and they are sticking to it. I aborted at that paragraph I just snipped I have to go back and finish the article now.

[QuietStorm]

3. "The Reuters team had identified themselves to American soldiers

guarding the parameters of the prison", says the article and like bats out of hell comes these tanks in a frenzy?

Resistance what do you think?

[JackSwift]

4. He'd be a fool not to

But his pardon does not affect either state claims for murder, or international claims for war crimes or crimes against humanity by the ICC.

[QuietStorm]

5. could it be possible

Dana was on a hit list? comprised well in advance. There is the belief this cameraman worked in collusion with Palestinian terrorists. So could it be possible that he is on a list of wanted.

If you are familiar with the Naylor's segments, Seaman took both Dana's and his partner, Niles Shankee's press cards away in Hebron a while back, both had been shot out (Shankee quite dramatically so). Reuters Identified the reporters. Comes the tank on order. What does the soldier know but that he's told Dana is a guerilla.

Food for thought.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. You bestowith too much Credit

There are stories every day about Iraqis getting murdered by this occupation force. With all this killing going on, once in a while the guy who gets shot is bound to be "somebody"

[berry]

14. For some disturbing evidence of this, try to catch the C-Span2 program

Tues. morning at 6:58 am ET on War Photography (conference of Asian American Journalists Assn). Various embedded and loose photographers, but all working for well-known outlets. They put together presentations of their photos--many more than you would get to see from reading Newsweek or the NYT. Interesting too on the various attitudes they showed toward their experiences. (The program lasts 1:48 hr--and I have yet to see the last hour myself.)

One woman (working for Dallas paper) showed a minibus (empty by the time she took the picture) that had run a checkpoint. Apparently all the passengers were civilians, and all killed by the Americans. I'm a little foggy about this--I do remember a family most of the members of which got shot. But a whole minibus? The reporter didn't mention numbers of the dead.

Some (not all) of the photographers were a little cavalier as they spoke. And the camera panned to two other probable Asian Americans in the audience--but they were not East Asian, rather Middle Eastern or South Asian maybe. They looked disturbed. The photographers who presented were Korean-, Japanese-, Filipino-Americans and the Dallas woman whose origin I couldn't identify. I'm going to have to tune in in the morning--in case there was a question period.

[QuietStorm]

17. This has been out of hand

for a while now. Shit that is very early for me. what are the chances of this cspan 2 going into archive to be viewed at a later time?

[leftchick]

23. what a contrast...

to what I saw on cspan a few days ago. There was a photogragher from the military. He only had soldiers injured and on the job photos. It came across as everything is hunky dory in Iraq. I did not catch the whole thing but it sure smelled of US propaganda to me.

[stickdog]

30. Yeah. Nothing to see here.

Just an award winning cameraman shot six times from 30 yards away.

[IndianaGreen]

8. I see little evidence of command and control among US troops

In every incident of shooting of civilians by US troops, there is no one giving the orders to shoot, there is no command and control!

We have a bunch of brainwashed Freepers in military uniforms acting out their deep seated racism and shooting at anyone that looks non-Western to them. This is one of several recent incidents in which US troops have killed innocent civilians under rather questionable circumstances.

We are digging our own grave in Iraq, as the British did before us!

[QuietStorm]

10. I agree we dig our own grave

Of course you may be correct, however, why would we see evidence of command, doesn't it suit higher ups to not reveal any and instead always make it look like a panic situation or mayhem. guided by that senario they can more easily get away with killing whomever they want. and say they are whoever they need. In this instance however, the US has not suggested Dana was anything but a journalist. Not in this article.

I thought, however, in an earlier report, Blitzer imply Dana was terrorist sympathetic. I may not be recalling that correctly. I thought I read a poster here today who had recounted that after seeing Blitzer's report on Dana's death. Again I may not be recalling the post correctly as I did not see Wolf's report myself.

[berry]

19. I just went looking for the transcript of Wolf's segment,

and found it! I did report on this on another thread, but this is better--you can get the feel of it, and no problems with misrememberings. I've lifted the whole thing (hope that's o.k.--anyway, it's the 2nd or 3rd segment)

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/18/wbr.00.html

<<Journalist groups are outraged over the weekend death of a Reuters cameraman in Iraq. They're demanding a full investigation into the incident in which 43-year-old Mazen Dana was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): This is Mazen Dana's final work. He was filming Sunday outside a prison west of Baghdad, the scene of a deadly mortar attack the day before. Dana turned his camera toward an approaching U.S. tank. Then, shots rang out and the camera fell to the ground.

AL-SHYOUKHI: He screamed one time and he was putting his hand on his chest and fell down on the ground. (Unintelligible) you know. I saw him bleeding.

BLITZER: U.S. officials in Iraq say the soldier who shot Dana mistook his camera for a grenade launcher. At least six shots were fired. One hit Dana in the chest.

AL-SHYOUKHI: I looked. I saw the American soldiers around us and I spoke to the same soldier who shot him. Why did you shoot him you know? We're TV. You see him with a camera. Why did he shoot him? And I told him you shot him. Please to stop the bleeding. He's bleeding too much.

BLITZER: A U.S. coalition spokesman in Iraq promised a full investigation.

SHIELDS: We offer our condolences to the family and the coworkers. This is a tragic incident. It is under investigation and we will do everything in our power to make sure things like this do not happen again.

BLITZER: In the West Bank, a group of journalists marched in mourning for their fallen colleague carrying a camera on a stretcher and journalist organizations around the world are calling for full accountability.

Dana, a Palestinian father of four was an award-winning photographer who spent years covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where he said he'd been shot and beaten. He's the 12th journalist killed in Iraq and the second Reuters employee killed by American fire. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And, as we mentioned a U.S. official now says the soldier mistook Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. They've been used in numerous deadly attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. You can see here that the two from a distance certainly could get confusing.

Wafa Amr is joining us now from Ramallah. She's Reuters' Jerusalem correspondent and was a friend of Mazen Dana, Wafa thank you very much for joining us. Tell us about this remarkable cameraman.

WAFA AMR, REUTERS JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Mazen is a very committed cameraman. He's also a very good journalist. He had deep feelings that he was - he had a message and a mission to his camera that he wanted to expose the truth, to tell the truth, to show the world what was happening both in the West Bank and in Iraq.

He firmly believed in his mission. He hardly had time for his family. He was always out on the streets following the news, covering the story. He was everywhere and he was a very popular journalist. He was known by everybody and loved by everybody.

BLITZER: There have been these kinds of incidents in the West Bank and Gaza, Wafa as you well know, Israeli forces firing on cameraman saying that they're confused by the camera thinking it could be a bazooka or a shoulder-fired missile or a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Mazen fully understood the dangers given his experience in the Middle East.

AMR: I don't think that it's very difficult for a soldier to distinguish between a journalist carrying a camera and a gunman carrying a gun. It's very easy to distinguish a journalist, especially where the journalists wear flack jackets with press written all over them, so it's not really difficult for the soldier to distinguish and tell that that person is a journalist and that is a camera.

You know sometimes out of negligence or intentionally the soldier would shoot at a journalist. I mean he's got his own motive but journalists have been targeted in the West Bank and Gaza and elsewhere in war zones.

BLITZER: But in this particular case and I want to put it up on the screen and show our viewers, we showed it earlier, the kind of image. On the left you see a soldier with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. On the right you see Mazen with his camera.

From a distance, though, from pretty far away given the tensions, given the attacks on U.S. troops, Wafa, it's possible that given the moment somebody sees that image, a U.S. soldier could get nervous and fire, obviously a tragic mistake. You're not suggesting that Mazen was killed deliberately by U.S. troops are you?

AMR: I cannot tell because I wasn't in Iraq and I don't have all the details of what happened in Iraq but if it's from a short distance I think the soldier can distinguish a camera from a gun and if it's from a far distance I can understand when a soldier feels frightened but to shoot directly at a journalist, I mean, that's not understandable.

But I cannot tell exactly what the details are of what happened with Mazen Dana in Iraq. The Reuters people in Iraq know better about the details there and I think that an investigation has been opened on that subject.

BLITZER: And that's why there should be a full scale investigation, you're absolutely right. It does cry out for an investigation, Wafa thank you for joining us from Ramallah.

And, let me just read to our viewers from Mazen Dana's statement that he made in 2001 when he received an award from the International Press Freedom Association. He said this.

He said: "Words and images are a public trust and for this reason I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships and even if it costs me my life," our deepest condolences to Mazen Dana's family and all of his friends and colleagues.>>

[QuietStorm]

29. what the...

BLITZER: But in this particular case and I want to put it up on the screen and show our viewers, we showed it earlier, the kind of image. On the left you see a soldier with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. On the right you see Mazen with his camera.

What was he trying to do? well thanks for the transcript.

[stickdog]

31. You've got to get up pretty whorely in the mourning to get anything past

ol' Bluster.

[Dude_CalmDown]

7. Why is the pentagon admitting so much?

Maybe this was caught on camera or something.

[QuietStorm]

9. what do you think they are admitting

that they indeed shot a journalist? Is that an admission. The story remains in place that his camera was mistaken for a grenade launcher. Beyond that we do not know how this mistake occurred. or why.

[Dude_CalmDown]

12. Last time imaginary snipers had killed the journalists

or at least that was the story for a week and a half.

With a 10% failure rate not one of the thousands of missiles we launched could have possibly landed in that market in Baghdad a few months ago.

We still can't even get a half-truth about Jessica Lynch's "daring rescue."

The admission that it was an American kill (even though the official line is that it was an accident) goes far beyond what the usual strategy of denial at all cost is. It's just odd.

[diamond14]

11. C-span said on Monday that there were pictures of the soldier

shooting on film in the camera...it all got caught on film....didn't describe how close though...there was another guy with him on the job, and I'm sure he grabbed the camera (smart move) and got out of there...the C-span report was that the soldiers had even talked to these two guys before the shooting, and knew who they were....

[QuietStorm]

15. Yes that is consistent with most of the news reports

Reuters went out of their way to identify the crew before this wayward tank arrived. Comes the wayward tank all of sudden out of all the Reuter's journalist Dana is confused as armed. His camera mistaken for a weapon. Strange. I also recall it said he had the camera on the tank and he soldier. Thanks for clarify that via the c-span lead.

[Pastiche423]

13. Uh, his very own camera caught it

:-(

[DesignGirl]

27. World Link TV

I saw his film last night on Mosaic, it is a middle eastern news program on World Link Television.

The camera was shooting what looked like two tanks, and all of a sudden one fired and then it fell eo the ground.

[The_Casual_Observer]

16. The obvious spin is that it is much too dangerous

a place for reporters now, so they should all go home.

Then they can get down to some serious no nonsense no questions asked style killing.

[QuietStorm]

18. bingo

[Rex]

20. The Pentagon used the code word: investigation.

Which means: to bad so sad.

[psychopomp]

21. This is deceptive

Mazen Dana, a Palestinian, was shot dead by a US tank crew at close range while trying to film outside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison on Sunday, after a mortar attack on the prison.


This quote makes it sound like this all occurred in the heat of the moment, "after a mortar attack on the prison," so the reader will be inclined to think that the confusion of battle let to this reporters' shooting by U.S. troops. However, IIRC, the mortar attack happened the night before.

Again, I put this in the "soldiers pushed beyond thier mental/physical limits shootin' anything that moves" part of the ledger.

R.I.P. Mazen Dana.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Wolf Blitzer outdid himself

by remarking in the interview offered in this link that Dana had claimed to have been harmed previously. Anyone who watched the three segments provided by Quiet Storm earlier today on another thread most definitely saw it was more than HERESAY!





http://www.cpj.org/awards01/dana.html

On edit:

Link to Quiet Storm's post containing video on Mazen Dana:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=70915&mesg_id=71089&page=

On edit: Another photo of Mazen Dana I just found:


Caption:

An Israeli soldier (L) checks the press identification of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana in the West Bank city of Hebron April 30, 2002. Dana was shot dead by U.S. troops on August 17, 2003 while working near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. Photo by Nayef Hashlamoun/Reuters

[zbdent]

32. Call me stupid, but to be fair, that first pic has a microphone

(on edit, meant second picture)

which could be mistaken for the grenade on a launcher.

Mind you, I don't agree with the assassination of a journalist (and don't forget, the US occupying forces killed a kid who picked up an unexploded RPG sans launcher). Also, the military had warned that "anybody broadcasting a signal could be considered a target" a while back, indicating that they wouldn't have a problem writing off killing a newsgroup by "accident", especially if they're keeping an eye on what's happening in a hot zone (like a hospital that they're bombing).

Also, think about this. Not long ago, a man was arrested for allegedly trying to sell a rocket launcher to an undercover agent. Now, a reporter/cameraman, carrying a large, clunky commercialTV quality camera, is "mistaken" for aiming a grenade launcher at some tanks. Now, if Bush is at a fundraiser, and he notices that somebody might have caught him on film . . . hmmm.

[QuietStorm]

33. Mazen Dana

has a history. You can not discount the history. That is why events are documented over time. For comparison, pattern, note, etc. I certainly wouldn't call you or anyone stupid. This incident is not necessarily isolated to this one random moment in time.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Here's some more details

about what happened. I think someone in the US Military didn't want Mazen around to tell the truth anymore.


The Guardian

US troops 'crazy' in killing of cameraman

Journalists who were with a Reuters news cameraman shot dead by US troops while filming outside a Baghdad prison yesterday accused the soldiers of behaving in a "crazy" and negligent fashion.

<snip>

Nael al-Shyoukhi, a Reuters soundman, said the soldiers "saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission.

"After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film.





"I followed him and Mazen walked three to four metres. We were noted and seen clearly.

"A soldier on the tank shot at us. I lay on the ground. I heard Mazen and I saw him scream and touching his chest. I cried at the soldier, telling him 'you killed a journalist'. They shouted at me and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back but please help, please help'."

[sujan]

26. incident by incident like this

my apathy towards the military turns to hatred. Good luck morons.

[Nlighten1]

28. 30 meters?

Holy shit that is almost point blank. The explaination that they thought he had a RPG now sounds like fart gas.

[QuietStorm]

34. U.S. Military Probes Cameraman's Death

Anyone interested new article is in editorials 15 hours ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=6783

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

35. 30 meters is close enough to hit someone with a pistol.

Much less a tank round. At first I saw the simularity between his camera and an RPG launcher by the photo provided in my local paper.

But after knowing the distance between the cameraman and the tank crew I have to say as a veteran I am ashamed of the soldiers that killed this journalist.