Telling the Persian Gulf War Story From a Journalist’s Point of View

Traitors. Propaganda dupes. Baghdad TV. America haters. Some of the epithets directed at CNN over the phone, the fax, telex and mail. A few poorly attended demonstrations have been held at our bureaus across the United States and in Atlanta.

Why such outrage over an international news service reporting from the adversary’s camp? Or, more to the point, why is CNN in Baghdad?

At present an informal count shows at least 20 news organizations camped in the Rashid hotel, including representatives of the British, French, Germans, Japanese, Spanish and Americans and a heavy mix of Mideast correspondents and free-lance reporters from newspapers, radio, television and news wires. Hundreds more remain in Amman, Jordan, the only gateway to Baghdad, clamoring at the Iraqi Embassy with hopes of getting to the war.

It is not as though the war from Baghdad will go unreported should CNN depart. And the reason is simple: It is news. The pictures of bombed residential buildings were the first we saw of the effects of the bombing of the capital city. Those pictures also proved that the damage to civilian buildings was the exception, sustaining the coalition view as to their careful target selection, the loss of life at the bomb shelter or military bunker notwithstanding. More on that in a moment.

Until CNN and its correspondent Peter Arnett sent those pictures from its satellite up-link, the only evidence we’ve had of this conflict were the pictures taken from the nose cameras of the fighter-bombers and the day-after pictures following the engagement at Kaefge, Saudi Arabia. Yes, there were the live pictures of the Scuds as greeted by the Patriots, but that was on the coalition side, was it not? And, therefore, acceptable.

The deaths of men, women and children at the bomb shelter/command-and-control bunker (we don’t know which) showed the real face of a real war. Dreadful and painful, awful and very real.

Almost immediately after the bombing, CNN and the other U.S. networks began seeking an explanation. Within hours CNN had carried, live and uninterrupted, responses from the military briefing in Riyadh, presidential Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater from the White House, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney from a speech in Washington, Gen. Thomas Kelly from the Pentagon and several live inserts from CNN military analysts questioning with specifics whether the bomb shelter may have been a command-and-control bunker. We would not change the pictures, nor would the reasonable person wish us to do so. We could provide the other side and we did.

Even without the presence of the U.S. networks in Baghdad, the other news agencies would serve their clients with words and pictures. The world would see and judge. Should the viewers in the United States see less? Further, experts claim Saddam’s audience is not in the United States nor Europe. He seeks to sway the Arab-in-the-street across the Mideast. Television stations in those countries did have those pictures from the news agencies mentioned above as well as their own correspondents and camera crews. With or without CNN, millions of Arabs see pictures of the war in Iraq.

Neither CNN nor any of its competitors or colleagues seek to give away a battle plan or bring you live pictures of the dead and dying. We do seek to find out what is going on now. The briefers in Saudi Arabia and in Washington are intelligent and sophisticated men and women. They have a war to run. The press recognizes that. Similarly, there is a story, the biggest story of this generation--involving the lives of tens of millions, the funds of our Treasury and the future of us all. We should be able to report as the story unfolds and with that experience to reflect on what has happened and, perhaps, what it will mean.