Army bans S&S reporter from Mosul

There’s been a report, mostly from Stars and Stripes, about Heath Druzin, a reporter for the unofficial military perodical, who has been banned from embedding with the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division by Col. Gary Volesky, their commander. Volesky claims that Druzin empahsized malcontented Iraqis in Mosul in an article he wrote on March 8th.

Many residents want only Iraqis to handle security, to show respect for the country’s sovereignty. And some say the U.S. presence actually makes the city more dangerous by offering more targets for bombers.

“Everywhere the Americans go they get (attacked),” said Sulah Ahmed Azam, a baker in the Shadad neighborhood.

Even some in the Iraqi military want the Americans gone.

“The coalition forces, they haven’t done anything bad to the people, but the truth is anyway that they came to invade Iraq and the people don’t like it,” said Iraqi 1st Lt. Asad Mehsin, who works closely with U.S. soldiers. “My viewpoint: I would like them to leave. You’re American, would you like Russia to invade your country?”

In an article today, the S&S quotes an Army spokesperson on the embed controversy;

“Despite the opportunity to visit areas of the city where Iraqi Army leaders, soldiers, national police and Iraqi police displayed commitment to partnership, Mr. Druzin refused to highlight any of this news,” Maj. Ramona Bellard, a public affairs officer, wrote in denying Druzin’s embed request. Officials also asserted that Druzin declined to answer a commander’s questions about his future stories and used quotes out of context.

In another article today, Mark Prendergast, the ombudsman for the S&S wrote;

In a raft of e-mail correspondence between Stars and Stripes and the military that began May 11, the colonel and the major emphasized that their problem was not with the newspaper but with Druzin — another Stripes reporter would be welcome in Mosul, they said. (Army officials in Baghdad offered to let Druzin embed somewhere else.)

So, once again, Stars and Stripes becomes the news instead of the events they’re supposed to be covering. Service members can turn to virtually any other newspaper or news source in the world and read how they’re not wanted in Iraq. However, Druzin can’t be bothered to toss in a few lines about successes in the Mosul region into his *yawn* article about how some Iraqis don’t want us there.

To his credit, he did write an article on March 22d that highlighted how the Kurds want us to stay there, but then, that’s old news, too. There hasn’t been a single American soldier killed in Kurdistan since the 2003 invasion of Hussein’s Iraq.

I remember when we used to read the Stars and Stripes because we got the news that no one else would write about the good we were doing in the world – how we fit into the big picture. If Druzin wants to write the same old bullshit, let him flak for the New York or Los Angeles Times. If a commander deems it hurtful to morale or the mission, he should have the right to toss one single reporter to the curb.

And if the story was that important, the Stars and Stripes should have sent another reporter instead of making a stand against their readership.

Category: Media, Terror War