TV AND THE GULF WAR : Even a Limited View Behind Enemy Lines Worth the Look

The experience level of many TV reporters covering the Persian Gulf conflict is something the networks shouldn’t want to brag about.

While observing some of these foreign correspondents enlightening us on the air war (CNN Jerusalem correspondent Linda Scherzer was an NBC News intern less than three years ago, for example), it occurs that perhaps we should be enlightening them.

Nonetheless, there are dramatic exceptions.

One is Bob Simon, the CBS correspondent and Middle East veteran who this week disappeared with three colleagues in Saudi Arabia near the Kuwait border.

Another is now-controversial Peter Arnett of CNN--yes, the same Arnett these days being attacked in some quarters as an Iraqi dupe. Someone as experienced and capable as Arnett a dupe? That’s just ridiculous.

Arnett is vulnerable because he’s the lone U.S. journalist that the Iraqis are allowing to stay in Baghdad and report from inside Iraq. Precisely why Iraq singled out CNN and Arnett for special treatment is uncertain, but the potential value of his reports is not.

We’ve all seen glassy-eyed POWs reading their mummified speeches in Iraqi propaganda videos broadcast on U.S. television. To some extent, Arnett is a POW, although presumably a willing one who is not reading scripts written by someone else.

As CNN and Arnett repeatedly note on the air, he has no freedom of movement and (under media restrictions much like those now being imposed in Israel and Saudi Arabia) can report nothing not cleared by Iraqi officials. Even so, his eyes and ears are invaluable.

On Friday, for example, Arnett filed a lengthy report after visiting the small town of Al Dour, where Iraqis say 24 civilians were killed in Monday’s air bombardment by multinational forces.

Regardless of whether you buy the casualty count, Arnett described extensive damage, including 23 homes that were “flattened, as though shaken by a mighty earthquake.”

A veteran war correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam reporting, Arnett insisted that the devastation could not have been staged, saying, “I’ve seen bomb damage in 17 wars in the last 30 years, and this is just typical.”

There was nothing in his tone that was judgmental, nothing that indicated sympathy for the Iraqis. Without interpretation, he reported only what he said he saw, accompanied by the appropriate disclaimers regarding censorship.

Moreover, he acknowledged that the U.S. government and military (which later responded to Arnett’s report by saying that the town was “in the vicinity of” Iraqi military and chemical installations) could use the “big picture” to justify the destruction in Al Dour.

Arnett in no way suggested that the damage he was shown justified Iraq’s targeting of Israel’s civilian population with Scud missiles. His censored report was merely a view of the terrible carnage of war from a reporter who was a relatively independent source, a view that would be unavailable if Arnett were not in Iraq.

“I think our viewers will have to get used to reports of this nature,” Arnett said. “You can’t sort of load thousands of tons of bombs on a country like Iraq with 17 million people and not to expect to get civilian casualties.”

True, but just saying it will get Arnett in even more trouble with some Americans.

Arnett is not the first reporter for a U.S. news organization to be severely criticized for reporting from behind enemy lines. Flash back to the Vietnam War.

In 1966, Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times was lambasted after he obtained a visa to visit Hanoi and subsequently reported widespread civilian casualties in North Vietnam from U.S. bombing. The U.S. government had been denying that it was even bombing Hanoi.

Unquestionably, Iraq hopes that stories about civilian casualties will soften U.S. resolve to continue the war. Moreover, there’s no telling who is looking over Arnett’s shoulder as he reports from Iraq, or what--if anything--is being pointed at his head to ensure that he not break the rules.

Nonetheless, a cloudy window is better than no window at all, and thank goodness he’s there.