U.S. Reporters Unable to Probe Killings in Fallujah
By Editor & Publisher Staff
Published: April 15, 2004 10:25 AM EST
NEW YORK Normally, when charges of high civilian casualties in war emerge -- as they have this week in Iraq -- independent reporters attempt to arrive on the scene for a full assessment. But with kidnappings and other threats to the security of journalists rising in Iraq, those kinds of eyewitness probes, at least from Western reporters, may be few and far between.
This has already had dire consequences, with the truth in hot dispute, as the U.S. military denies wrongdoing in the siege of Fallujah while Arab television and other press accounts document an estimated 600 dead in that city and 1,200 wounded, many of them women and children.
The accusations of mass killings in Fallujah, and on a smaller scale in other cities in the past week, have led some Iraqi Governing Council members to criticize the U.S. military and threaten to resign. It has also fed rising anti-American anger in the country. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both expressed concerns about the civilian toll.
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