NEW DELHI, 7 April 2003 — An “embedded” Arab journalist who escaped after being captured by Iraqis has questioned the coverage of the war by the Western media, saying it has become an integral part of the war machine.
“Once you are embedded with them you can write only what they want you to write. You sign papers that stipulate you will get your reports cleared by them before sending it to your editors,” Waiel S.H. Awwad, the New Delhi-based Syrian journalist who was covering the war for the newly launched Al-Arabiya television channel, told IANS on his return here.
Awwad, who was embedded with the 3rd unit of the US Marine Corps, was captured two days after the war started March 20 when he ventured with his cameraman and technician into an Iraqi village to “get the other side of the story.”
He was captured by the resistance group of Iraq’s ruling Baath Party near Az-Zubayr, a small town some 20 km north of Basra.
“They thought I was a spy or an interpreter for the invading forces. They finally accepted my credentials, but would not let me go.
“They had seen my face on television as I had covered Afghanistan but said ‘you came with the wrong people. You should have come through Baghdad. You don’t have the authority of the Iraqi people. You are an infidel’,” Awwad said.
They were detained in a house as messages went back and forth between his captors and the regional Baath Party office. The final word was “don’t let them leave. We are coming to take them,” he said.
“Execution is the order for you,” his captors told Awwad and his colleagues.
But on the eighth day of their captivity, freedom came in the form of two Kuwaiti informers. The three were bundled into a car when the guards were away and taken to an area controlled by the British.
Awwad, who returned to India on Friday, said that was the end of the war coverage for him and his crew. “We had to return because we had lost all our equipment.”
His aged parents in Damascus, who were mourning his “loss” and were receiving callers with condolence messages, were thrilled when he called them to say he was safe.
“I called my wife and children (in Delhi) next,” said the father of four, describing his experience as a “second birth.”
Awwad came to New Delhi 15 years ago to study medicine at Safdarjang Medical College but after obtaining the degree switched to the media and stayed on to be perhaps the best-known Arab face in the Indian capital.
He said the coverage of the war by the Western media had totally disillusioned him. All reports filed by the embedded journalists were censored. “If you want to be with them (US and allied troops) you have to follow what they tell you.
“They will never tell the truth of how many of their soldiers have been killed,” Awwad said, adding that near Az-Zubayr at least 20 British soldiers had been killed though the official figure given was just two.
“You can’t call it press freedom when you very well know that you are not giving the whole truth. We were the only ones who ventured out to report the other side,” he said, adding they could do so because unlike other embedded journalists they were allowed to have their own vehicle because of the loads of equipment they carried.
Awwad said it smacked of hypocrisy when Western media like the BBC prefaced reports from their Arab correspondents from Iraq that they were being “supervised” by the authorities.
“That is the irony of it. This is what bugs you. You have to submit everything that is filed from the front to military censorship. Still they sit in judgment of reports from the other side. “They call them enemy lines. Whose enemy? Are you a journalist or a soldier?” Awwad asked.
“Though they are there to write, you forget about the Iraqi people. But you lose all your objectivity. The restrictions on reporting are such that it only justifies the reason for those who wanted to go to war.”
