Posted on 02/11/2002 2:26:03 PM PST by Lady In Blue
Feb 11, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Monday that U.S. soldiers were justified in keeping a newspaper reporter away from the scene of a deadly U.S. missile strike in Afghanistan.
The officials said they didn't know if soldiers had threatened to shoot Washington Post reporter Doug Struck, as the Post reported.
"We don't know the circumstances of what happened on the spot," Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said at a news briefing.
The newspaper reported Monday that U.S. soldiers held Struck at gunpoint on Sunday. Struck wrote that the troops' unidentified leader said the reporter "would be shot" if he went any farther toward the missile strike site.
Philip Bennett, the Post's assistant managing editor for foreign news, said the incident "was baffling to us."
"We have questions about exactly ... on what basis the military in Afghanistan prevents American reporters from reporting on aspects of military operations in Afghanistan," Bennett said.
The reporter and the soldiers were investigating an attack last week by a missile fired from a remote-controlled CIA spy plane. The attack in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan killed several people who U.S. officials believed were al-Qaida members.
The military team has left the site, but no conclusions from its investigation are available, said Clarke and Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Clarke said the situation in Afghanistan is so chaotic that soldiers can't be sure that someone who identifies himself as an American reporter really is one. Days before the Sept. 11 attacks, anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah Massood was assassinated by two men posing as journalists, Clarke noted.
Bennett said the incident occurred in a relatively calm situation in the middle of the day, and he said he thought Struck was able to convincingly demonstrate that he was an American reporter.
"Once the situation was explained, I see no reason for them to continue to train weapons on an unarmed American civilian," Bennett said.
Stufflebeem said one priority for the troops at the scene was to keep everyone, including reporters, away from the area.
"To believe that a U.S. serviceman would knowingly threaten, especially with deadly force, another American is hard for me to accept," Stufflebeem said.
"It would make a lot more logical sense to me that he is pointing out that there are hazards in this area. ... I would think that if there was any reference to physical harm in there, it's just a reality of the situation and not that the U.S. forces would bring that upon someone."
In an audio interview posted on the newspaper's Web site, Struck said he asked the soldiers' leader what would happen if he ignored their warnings and continued to the missile strike site. That's when the soldier said the reporter would be shot, Struck said.
"It wasn't delivered in a joking way," Bennett said of the threat. "I've never heard of an exchange quite like that, between an American soldier and an American reporter."
AP-ES-02-11-02 1701EST
This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAKMTTUKXC.html
I couldn't agree with you more,Thud!
people like you are real funny. good thing you're not in charge of the True American seal of approvals.
Well we're even then, because we find reporters repulsive and unAmerican. Perhaps if they weren't so repulsive and unAmerican, we would all trust them to have access. Since they've proven themselves to be self-centered and opposed to everything this country stands for, we have absolutely no emotional attachment to them at all. They are the lowest of the low, the least of the least. I would trust a member of Al Qaeda before I'd trust a reporter.
VRN
That has nothing to do with it.
While the reporter's arrogance and ignorance is certainly symptomatic of a liberal mindset, it was his actions of trying to get past a military guard at a sensitive site that makes it acceptable to threaten or kill him.
It's not his ideology, its his boneheaded actions that would earn him a bullet.
What does that have to do with the price of poppies in Kandahar?
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