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<font size=3>FYI...the mid-east news stations all had extensive coverage
with sound (Mosaic TV on LINK satellite had extensive materials)<br>
c<br><br>
U.S. Military Tried to Censor Coverage of Saddam Hearing<br>
By Robert Fisk <br>
Independent U.K. via Truthout<br>
<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=537630" eudora="autourl">http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=537630<br>
</a>Saturday 03 July 2004<br><br>
A team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of
the<br>
hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen on Thursday, destroying<br>
videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded
legal<br>
submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime.<br><br>
A US network cameraman who demanded the return of his tapes, which
contained<br>
audios of the hearings, said he was told by a US officer: "No. They
belong<br>
to us now. And anyway, we don't trust you guys."<br><br>
According to American journalists present at the 30-minute hearing of
Saddam<br>
and 11 former ministers at Baghdad airport, an American admiral in
civilian<br>
clothes told camera crews that the judge had demanded that there should
be<br>
no sound recording of the initial hearing. He ordered crews to unplug
their<br>
sound wires. Several of the six crews present pretended to obey the<br>
instruction. "We learnt later," one of them said, "that
the judge didn't<br>
order us to turn off our sound. The Americans lied - it was they who
wanted<br>
no sound. The judge wanted sound and pictures."<br><br>
Initially, crews were told that a US Department of Defence camera crew
would<br>
provide the sound for their silent tapes. But when CNN and CBS crews went
to<br>
the former occupation authority headquarters - now the US embassy -
they<br>
found that three US officers ordered the censorship of tape which
showed<br>
Saddam being led into the courtroom with a chain round his waist which
was<br>
connected to handcuffs round his wrists. The Americans gave no reason
for<br>
this censorship.<br><br>
"They were rude and they didn't care," another American
television crew<br>
member said. "They were running the show. The Americans decided what
the<br>
world could and could not see of this trial - and it was meant to be
an<br>
Iraqi trial. There was a British official in the courtroom whom we were
not<br>
allowed to take pictures of. The other men were US troops who had
been<br>
ordered to wear ordinary clothes so that they were 'civilians' in
the<br>
court."<br><br>
Three US officers viewed the tapes taken by two CNN cameras,
'Al-Djezaira'<br>
(a local, American-funded Iraqi channel), and the US government.<br>
"Fortunately, they were lazy and they didn't check all the tapes
properly so<br>
we got our 'audio' through in the satellite to London," one of the
crew<br>
members told The Independent yesterday. "I had pretended to unplug
the sound<br>
from the camera but the man who claimed he was a US admiral didn't<br>
understand cameras and we were able to record sound. The American censors
at<br>
the embassy were inattentive - that's how we got the sound
out."<br><br>
The only thing the Americans managed to censor from most of the tapes
was<br>
Saddam's comment that "this is theatre - Bush is the real
criminal."<br><br>
Television stations throughout the world were astonished yesterday when
the<br>
first tapes of Saddam's trial arrived without sound and have still not
been<br>
informed that the Americans censored the material. "What can we do
when an<br>
American official tells us the judge doesn't want sound - and then we
find<br>
out that they lied and the judge does want the sound?" an American
camera<br>
operator asked.<br><br>
Video showed the face - and audiotape revealed the voice - of Judge
Raid<br>
Juhi, whose name was widely reported in the Arab press yesterday.
According<br>
to the camera crews, Judge Juhi wanted the world to hear Saddam's
voice.<br>
Nevertheless the Americans erased the entire audiotape of the hearings
of<br>
the 11 former Saddam ministers, including that of Tariq Aziz, the
former<br>
deputy prime minister, and "Chemical" Ali, Saddam's cousin
accused of<br>
gassing the Kurds at Halabja. The US Department of Defence tape of
their<br>
hearings has been taken by the US authorities so there is now no
technical<br>
record of the words of these 11 men, save for the notebooks of
"pool"<br>
reporters - four Americans and two Iraqis - who were present.<br><br>
Judge Juhi said not long ago that "I have no secrets - a judge must
not be<br>
ashamed of the decisions he takes."<br><br>
The Americans apparently think differently.<br>
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