US/Iraq: The US military is offering new safeguards to journalists in Iraq to prevent a repeat of lengthy detentions suffered by several reporters last year.
Abandoning a policy that denied journalists special status - and under which three Reuters staff were jailed for up to eight months - the general in charge of detentions said such arrests would now be treated as "almost unique" cases.
Reports of abuse will also be investigated, including a beating in custody that left a Reuters cameraman unconscious.
Responding to requests from international media, Maj Gen Jack Gardner said the US military would conduct swift, high-level reviews in which news organisations could vouch for any reporter suspected of hostile acts.
Troops should also be given better training - people acting the roles of journalists should be included in simulated combat exercises soldiers undertake before being sent to Iraq, he said.
"We obviously do not want to discourage the press from being present," Maj Gen Gardner said at the weekend. "It helps serve the good purposes" of the US mission in Iraq.
Accepting an argument previously rejected by the military that media personnel need special safeguards against wrongful arrest, Maj Gen Gardner said: "Probably more than most professions, journalists may be on the street" during combat operations.
Troops would now immediately report the arrest of anyone claiming to be a journalist to Maj Gen Gardner personally. He would check with employers and release bona fide reporters rapidly. "Once a journalist is detained . . . it comes to me . . . Then we work the process more quickly," he added, citing a target of within 36 hours for addressing doubts over any reporter's actions. "We'll make sure . . . we don't hold someone for six or eight months," Maj Gen Gardner said.
Watching or filming combat or meeting insurgents were not in themselves grounds for arrest, he added. Since January, no new detentions of journalists had needed his attention, he said. One reporter for foreign media was still in custody, a cameraman for the US network CBS arrested in April. Media rights groups have complained about detentions by US forces and about killings of journalists.
Four Reuters cameramen have been killed in Iraq, at least three by American soldiers. In all, 67 deaths since the US invasion three years ago have made Iraq the costliest conflict for the media since 1945. - (Reuters)