Posted on 05/24/2007 12:00:05 PM PDT by GMMAC
Reporters excluded from PM's visit to base
By Murray Campbell
Toronto Globe and Mail
Thursday, May 24, 2007 – Page A18
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper made history yesterday by going to a combat zone, but there were no news reporters there to record the event. This may have been the way the Prime Minister's Office wanted it.
Mr. Harper flew on a U.S. helicopter into the forward base that the Canadian Forces have established at Ma'sum Ghar, about 25 kilometres west of Kandahar. A separate helicopter carried two Ottawa-based photographers and a videographer, but no Canadian Press reporter to provide the pool reports that are customary when access to a story is limited.
The military had organized a convoy to take reporters to the forward base so they could be included in the Prime Minister's visit, but the PMO blocked that decision. The move angered military officials and reinforced the differing attitudes of the Department of National Defence and the PMO regarding access the news media should have to the mission in Afghanistan.
Reporters left behind at the Kandahar Air Field had to content themselves with viewing about 30 minutes of tape as the Prime Minister was briefed on the security situation in southern Afghanistan and shook hands with Canadian soldiers.
It was a remarkably low-key approach to a historic event. Colonel Mike Cessford, deputy commander of Canada's task force in Afghanistan, said the threat from the Taliban in the area around Ma'sum Ghar remains high. He said that engagements with the insurgents are routine and that a rocket attack last week had killed an interpreter and wounded another. He agreed that Mr. Harper faced a risk in visiting the camp.
"No serving prime minister, in my opinion, has been closer to combat operations than this Prime Minister today," Col. Cessford said, noting that he has a doctorate in history.
The military began planning its convoy to Ma'sum Ghar last weekend after it was notified of Mr. Harper's desire to visit the base after stopping in Kabul to see Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In a briefing on Monday night, the day before Mr. Harper's arrival, a senior officer offered reporters the trip. "We thought we would get ahead of the game a little," a spokesman said.
Neither the proposal for the convoy or its cancellation could be written about earlier because it involved a future event and under the military's strict operational security rules such information is subject to an embargo.
No one in the military had notified the PMO of the plan to send in journalists by land, however, and deputy press secretary Dimitri Soudas nixed it shortly after Mr. Harper's plane landed in Kandahar on Tuesday evening. A few hours later, however, press secretary Sandra Buckler denied that her office had scrubbed the convoy.
"If the military has arranged something for you, I know nothing about it," she said.
Military officials warned that journalists travelling to Ma'sum Ghar on their own would not be admitted to the forward base.
By late in the day, military officials were dismissing the cancelled convoy as a "miscommunication" between the task force and the PMO. The senior official blamed it on the "cookie-cutter approach" to media planning by Mr. Harper's staff. He said they had a plan in place and did not want to deviate.
Mr. Soudas acknowledged as much yesterday. "I stick to the plan, to the schedule we decided prior to the departure," he said. "I am not in a position to make any changes."
When it was noted that the convoy would not have required the Prime Minister to change his itinerary, he replied, "That's one argument, but there are several other arguments that would say something different."
The CP reporter didn't get a spot on the helicopter accompanying Mr. Harper to Ma'sum Ghar because there were only three seats available and PMO officials said they did not want to choose between photographers from CP and Reuters.
Sourced elsewhere:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper looks through binoculars
from an observation post at a Canadian forward operation base in
Ma'Sum Ghar, Kandahar province Afghanistan Wed, May 23, 2007.
Photograph by: Canadian Press
Don’t you just love the sound of the Clown Car media screaming in the morning?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.