The words "Ministry of Information" always had an Orwellian ring to them, nowhere more so than in Baghdad, writes Lara Marlowe
For at least a decade, foreign correspondents in Iraq have been required to work out of the brown high-rise building. They were supposed to leave satellite telephones there for safe-keeping, to prevent God knows what acts of indiscretion or espionage.
But after the war started on March 20th, the US, British and French governments repeatedly contacted television network executives - who passed the word on to their correspondents in Baghdad - that the building was doomed by Pentagon planners. Nervous journalists rushed to finish work by nightfall, when bombing gets seriously under way. Many hid equipment in hotel rooms - at the risk of fines or expulsion - rather than lose a sat-phone to a US cruise missile. CNN refused to go to the ministry altogether, which led to its departure a week ago.
The US Air Force finally struck at around 8 a.m. on Saturday, knocking the cornice off the ministry building, reducing several rooftop satellite dishes to cinders, breaking the windows and riddling the entire complex with fissures. Agence France Presse's computers were smashed on to their office floor. Fortunately, no one was wounded in the attack.
The transfer of the press centre to the Palestine Hotel, where most of the journalists are staying, became a fait accompli. Mr Odey al-Tahi, the director-general of the ministry, who has a disconcerting habit of addressing all journalists, male or female, as "my dear", held a meeting with the 350 accredited journalists, photographers and camera crews to announce new regulations.
Rule number one: All journalists must travel with a driver whose name and details are registered with the ministry. Otherwise, he warned, "we cannot be responsible for what happens to you". A correspondent for New York Newsday and his photographer disappeared a week ago and are believed to be in the custody of the Iraqi authorities for just such an offence.
All journalists are to be assigned what the ministry calls "guides" - "minders" in reporters' jargon. The guides will be held responsible for our behaviour and the articles we transmit.
All "centralised" activities will be carried out in buses - a tactic used by the Serbs for travel outside Belgrade in 1999. Now, as then, reporters worry that US and British bombers may not distinguish between a convoy of buses carrying troops and one carrying foreign correspondents.
We are to be issued with new photo ID press cards for the third time in two weeks. To obtain this essential document, journalists must prove that they live in one of two approved hotels; all others are off limits. "Any journalist not living in these two hotels and the police stop him . . . we cannot protect him. We are not responsible for him," Mr al-Tahi emphasised.
"This is war," he kept repeating. "During war, the laws are very severe."
Mr al-Tahi recalled how, at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, he personally announced that censorship was lifted. A colleague and I headed for Najaf and Kerbala. The denizens of the Shia holy cities could not have cared less whether censorship was - in theory - lifted. They had just been massacred in an ill-fated uprising, and aside from a few Republican Guards in the battered sanctuaries, no one would speak to us.
Finally, we got to the real purpose of the reorganisation. From now on, during air raids (which is more or less round the clock), television cameras and photographers can shoot only from the second-floor terrace on the east side of the Palestine Hotel, with extremely limited visibility of the city. Had this rule been enforced during the night of March 21st, the world would not have seen the dramatic pictures of the presidential palace and weapons procurement ministry in flames.
The Iraqis are apparently worried that images can be used by the US and Britain for targeting purposes. From now on, anyone caught filming from a balcony will have their cameras confiscated. "The more you behave, the more you co-operate, the more information you get," Mr al-Tahi concluded. "It's a matter of being professional, respecting reality. We don't seek propaganda. We hate propaganda . . ."
George Orwell would surely have understood.
