BEIRUT, 24 March 2003 — The scenes on TV were horrific. Iraqi civilians killed by coalition bombing in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, among them a child of about 12 shown with half of his head blown off. Al-Jazeera television anchor apologized for showing such disturbing pictures but said “the world should know the truth and what is going on.”
What the world sees on Arab stations like the popular Al-Jazeera sometimes differs in tone and emphasis from what Westerners may be used to seeing on stations like CNN. Reports in Arabic of Iraqi civilian deaths may be helping fuel the large, sometimes violent anti-war demonstrations held across the region since the bombing of Baghdad began early Thursday.
In Saturday’s report from Basra, the anchor noted that Al-Jazeera had been accused by the United States of carrying anti-American propaganda with similar reporting of the war on Afghanistan, and that it expected more complaints now.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Gen. Tommy Franks, who is directing the US attack on Iraq, said it was in the nature of war that civilians are injured or killed in a war, and said that was why war had to be a last resort. He also said Iraq had positioned weapons in and around “civilian facilities” in Basra.
“I think what we do is we remain guided by principles,” Franks said. “And the principles involve the accomplishment of our mission on the shortest time line possible, protecting innocent lives, both our own and the lives of innocent civilians.”
In a sharp contrast to the 1991 Gulf War, when Arabs had to depend on Western media like CNN for up-to-the-minute reporting, almost all Arab channels broadcast events like Franks’ news conference and air live from the Iraqi capital when missile attacks and air raids begin.
The most active of the Arab TV channels and widely seen are Al-Jazeera, followed by the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi Television and the newly launched, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya.
They also are the three Arab stations with reporters in the Kurdish-controlled area in northern Iraq, the Jordanian side of the Iraq-Jordan border, and several embedded with coalition forces.
Another channel competing to a lesser extent for the attention of the nearly 300 million viewers in the region is the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., which recently merged its news department with that of the respected pan Arab newspaper Al Hayat.
Al-Jazeera has established itself as the pre-eminent Arab broadcaster, and is courted accordingly.
It is the only foreign station the Iraqi government allows to broadcast live from Iraq’s northern city of Mosul. It also was allowed to send a correspondent from Baghdad to report from Basra independently of US troops in the south.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, trying to get journalists’ attention during a recent tour of a presidential palace that had been targeted by coalition missiles, called out to: “Al-Jazeera and the rest.”
Al-Jazeera’s popularity rests in part in its refusal to simply parrot the official line of any government.
While independent on that score, Al-Jazeera rarely challenges popular Arab opinion on such subjects as Israel and the United States.
Its reporting on Iraq has focused on suffering of the Iraqi people and what is portrayed as the Iraqi government’s cooperation with UN weapons inspectors during their work in Iraq, though it also has broadcast the anti-regime opinions of Iraqi dissidents.
Al-Jazeera has described tens of thousands of people joining anti-war rallies in Egypt in reports emphasizing Arab anger at the United States.
Among other Arab stations actively covering the war are Al-Manar, of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Egypt’s Nile News.
Kuwaiti television on Friday showed Iraqis celebrating gaining freedom from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s rule in areas captured by US Marines. Kuwaitis are strong opponents of Saddam, who occupied their country in August 1990 for seven months until the US-led Gulf War forced him to retreat.
Also widely watched these days is Iraq’s satellite channel, although it has been off and on the air several times since the war began.
The station, which has dubbed the war the “decisive battle,” mainly broadcasts images of wounded Iraqi civilians being treated in hospitals and music videos featuring such songs as: “The master of wisdom: Saddam.”