WITH U.S. FORCES NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Mudhhir al Zahery, a dapper 47-year-old Iraqi in a sweater vest and dress slacks, stood in the mud and gravel and stared at the young U.S. Marines walking around with their M-16s. A reporter with a Baghdad-based newspaper, Zahery was about to take his place in the U.S. battle plan to win control of Fallujah. One of six Iraqi journalists who'll be "embedded" with American and Iraqi troops, he'll file reports that American commanders hope will persuade Iraqis that insurgents in towns such as Fallujah are anti-Iraqi terrorists, not nationalist resistance fighters. "When I left (home), I said goodbye to my wife, and she was crying because Fallujah is very dangerous," Zahery said. "My family is praying to God that the war does not happen."
| He's about as safe as someone could be in Iraq, surrounded by Marines. |
1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said many of the problems American soldiers had faced in Iraq, particularly in Fallujah, were the result of a disinformation campaign waged by insurgents to drive a wedge between the population and the American presence. There've been a litany of apocryphal stories about U.S. troops using binoculars capable of seeing through women's clothing and intentionally shooting into ambulances full of wounded civilians. "If (insurgents) can get Iraqis to believe that, it will make their cause," Gilbert said. Iraqi reporters, military officials hope, will counter such tales.
The strategy comes with some risk. Zahery works for a newspaper, al Sabah, that was started with U.S. funding and is widely considered pro-American. His view of Fallujah is that it's being held hostage by foreign terrorists. But another of the journalists, Mohammed M. Mohammed, is a correspondent for al Diyar, an independently owned Iraqi news channel, and believes that Fallujah is being defended by local freedom fighters against a foreign threat. "It's the same principle as the Palestinian people," he said. "All of the people in Fallujah are fighters." |