SwiftVets.com

[southerndelite]

New York Times

NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 18 - The American photographer whose videotape of what appears to be a marine shooting a wounded Iraqi is generating a storm of outrage in the Arab world maintained his steadfast silence on Wednesday, saying he wanted to continue reporting on the incident before commenting.


"As sensitive as this is, we want to make sure the world has an accurate picture of the events," the photographer, Kevin Sites, a freelance cameraman working for NBC News, told a reporter at the military base near Falluja where he is staying.

The videotape shows a group of marines on Saturday entering a mosque in Falluja, where several wounded Iraqi prisoners lay on the floor. One marine is shown shooting and apparently killing one Iraqis. The marines were members of the Third Battalion, First Regiment, with whom Mr. Sites was embedded.

An unedited version of the videotape, which was distributed to other news agencies as part of a pool report, was being broadcast several times an hour on Arab satellite television stations on Wednesday, and American commanders have said it has already yielded a huge propaganda victory for the anti-American insurgency. Some Arab commentators have even compared it to the scandal surrounding mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

Yet many questions about the shooting remain unanswered, human rights advocates and senior military officials agree. In the videotape, the soldier, before firing at the prone body, can be heard yelling that the Iraqi prisoner was only pretending to be dead, suggesting that he may have believed he was acting in self-defense. It is unclear from watching it whether the prisoner was moving before the shot.

Mr. Sites would appear to be in a unique position to shed some light on what happened, but he declined repeatedly to comment on Wednesday.

He did say he had received hate mail and threats since the broadcast, in edited form, on the initial NBC News report. A comment section on a Web site he maintains has been shut down because of death threats.

A lanky man with shoulder-length hair and a goatee, Mr. Sites has maintained a low profile since emerging from the fighting in Falluja, avoiding the area where other reporters on the base are billeted.

Several other reporters said he might be concerned about legal or other complications stemming from the shooting, and was staying silent for that reason. Agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are conducting an inquiry, and the marine who fired the shot has been removed from the battlefield.

A spokeswoman for NBC News, Allison Gollust, said by e-mail, "Given that there is an investigation on behalf of the marines into this incident, it just doesn't make sense for Kevin to be commenting on it at this point."

On www.kevinsites.net, his Web site, Mr. Sites has posted photographs and writings from the days he spent with the marines in Falluja. In one journal, he wrote, "The marines are operating with liberal rules of engagement."

It goes on to quote a marine saying everything to the west of his position in Falluja was "weapons free." It continues, "Weapons free means the marines can shoot whatever they see - it's all considered hostile."

His entries on the site say nothing about the shooting or the videotape. But the site has links to a comment page maintained by a Web administrator, with a fierce exchange of views about the tape. Some viewers support his videotaping of the shooting, while others criticize it, some using obscene language. A number of comments have been deleted by the administrator.

His Web site describes Mr. Sites as a "pioneering, multimedia journalist" who has worked in Afghanistan, Latin America and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East. It features a photograph of him in a black T-shirt sitting next to a machine gun, gesturing, with the words, "Dispatches from a life in conflict." It recounts an incident in which he and his team were abducted outside Tikrit by members of the fedayeen, Saddam Hussein's paramilitary troops, and threatened with death, before their Kurdish interpreter negotiated their release after four hours.

Mr. Sites has worked for several networks and has a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, according to the site.

[Barbie2004]

I distinctly heard Greg Kelly of FOX News say that the agreement between the media and the military that allowed for "embedded" media to accompany troops on missions was that there would be no films nor "releases" of "soldiers or enemy combatants" having been shot or injured being released or aired. (He worded it slightly different from this, so I am paraphrasing somewhat.)

I heard this last Sunday, I believe it was on Oliver North's program. Sorry I don't have the ability to tape, or I would post.

Didn't this traitor, Sites, have the same agreement. Anyone know more about this?

Also, sorry if this has been posted elsewhere, but more media crying! My gosh, they are in a war zone! The last thing our troops need is to babysit a bunch of whiney media traitors out to sabotage them!

Here is the article:

[Sgt-Keeper]

In all of my years of reading about, participating in, and watching war movies, never have I ever been privy to this information; reporters are killed in battles! What the heck kind of a war are we fighting over there that when reporters volunteer to be placed "in harms way", they are getting injured or killed? I thought they had special immunity from harm. That only the troops would be in danger. Doesn't this enemy know that? Dang, just when I was going to take my 8mm camera and do some reenactments over there.
The reproters need to have better training. Hollywierd never loses people in war. Maybe they should be doing the civilian reporter training. Nuts, my bad. They already are in charge of the reporting!
_________________
Fix the problem, not the blame.
USMC E5 Nam vet 65-66

[OKLady]

Can we also talk about the other people who go over to a war zone to work?

They should realize they are in a dangerous situation! Why are these people over there? It is to make money - the pay rate is probably fantastic since it is so dangerous! It is a known risk. So why do they wonder about being taken hostage and being used by the enemies?

It is a risk - they signed up for it - if they were told to go there , they could have quit! We are in a free country - you can quit working at a company if you don't like the job, especially if it puts you in harms way. But what I have seen on the media is the report that the pay in this zone is so good that it is worth the risk. Then they cry when someone is taken hostage and killed.

I think people in the military understand the risk factor. I think most military families also understand the risk. How come other people cannot seem to understand this risk factor?I suppose it relates to the same attitude of people who get involved in extreme sports and then expect to be rescued when they get in trouble (of course, at no expense to them)

grrrrrr.....