In a counterinsurgency, the media battlespace is critical. When it comes to mustering public opinion, rallying support, and forcing opponents to shift tactics and timetables to better suit the home team, our terrorist enemies are destroying us. Al Qaeda's media arm is called al Sahab: the cloud. It feels more like a hurricane. While our enemies have "journalists" crawling all over battlefields to chronicle their successes and our failures, we have an "embed" media system that is so ineptly managed that earlier this fall there were only 9 reporters embedded with 150,000 American troops in Iraq. There were about 770 during the initial invasion.
Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them. Most military public affairs officers are professionals dedicated to their jobs, but it takes only a few well-placed incompetents to cripple our ability to match and trump al Sahab. By enabling incompetence, the Pentagon has allowed the problem to fester to the point of censorship.
My experiences with the U.S. military as a soldier and then as a writer and photographer covering soldiers have been overwhelmingly positive, and I feel no shame in saying I am biased in favor of our troops. Even worse, I feel no shame in calling a terrorist a terrorist. I've seen their deeds and tasted air filled with burning human flesh from their bombs. I've seen terrorists kill children while our people risk their lives to save civilians again, and again, and again. I feel no shame in saying I hope that Afghanistan and Iraq "succeed," whatever that means. For that very reason, it would be a dereliction to remain silent about our military's ineptitude in handling the press. The subject is worthy of a book, but can't wait that long, lest we grow accustomed to a subtle but all too real censorship of the U.S. war effort.
I don't use the word lightly. Censorship is a hand grenade of an accusation, and a writer should be serious before pulling the pin. Indeed, some war-zone censorship for reasons of operational security is obviously desirable and important. No one can complain when Delta Force will not permit an embed. In fact, I have turned down offers to embed with some Special Operations forces because the limitations on what I could write would not be worth the danger and expense. But we can and should complain when authorities willfully limit war reporting. We should do so whether it happens as a matter of policy, or through incompetence or bureaucratic sloth. The result is the same in any case. And once the matter has been brought to the attention of the military and the Pentagon--which I have quietly done--and still the situation is not rectified, it is time for a public accounting.
For generations journalists have been allowed to "embed" with various U.S. military units, including infantry outfits. Infantry is perhaps the most dangerous, underpaid, and unglamorous job on the planet. Infantrymen are called grunts, trigger-pullers, cannon fodder, and ground-pounders. Long hours, low pay, and death, death, death. If they survive, they get a welcome-home party. Sometimes. And that's it: Thanks. In World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, reporters were given wide latitude to travel with the infantry, even if few could stand it for long. Up to last year, this war was no different. A journalist could stay out with the infantry for as long as he could take it. I spent most of 2005 in Iraq, and most of that was with infantry units in combat.
I went to Iraq initially at the behest of military friends who insisted that what Americans were seeing on the news wasn't an accurate reflection of the reality on the ground. Two of my friends died on consecutive days. When the charred remains of American contractors were strung from a bridge in Falluja, I put aside a book I was writing to attend the funerals. In Colorado we laid to rest a Special Forces friend who'd been killed in Samara; then on to Florida for the funeral of the friend who'd been murdered and mutilated in Falluja. A photo of the dang ling corpses won a Pulitzer.
I purchased and borrowed the equipment required for the journey. Camera, satellite phone, laptop, body armor, helmet, and so on. Like most of the people who would later be called "alternative media," I bore these expenses myself, including the flights to Kuwait. Without media affiliation, I went, saw, wrote, and photographed. There was a dearth of information about the daily experiences of our troops in the U.S. media, and my work, published as a series of photo essays on my website, filled some of that void. My military background helped me navigate the system and provided critical context that informed my observations. I didn't need to be told when to duck, or what not to photograph, or why there had to be a red lens on my small flashlight (it's dim: harder for the enemy to see and saves your night vision). My reports and photographs from 2005 were seen by tens of millions of people.
I believe now as I did then: The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.
By allowing only a trickle of news to come out of Iraq, when all involved parties know the flow could be more robust, the Pentagon is doing just that. Although the conspicuous media vacuum can be partly explained by the danger--Iraq is arguably more dangerous for journalists than Vietnam or even World War II, when reporters were allowed to land on D-Day--some of the few who will risk it all are denied access for no good reason.
This information blockade is occurring at the same time that the Pentagon is outsourcing millions of dollars to public relations firms to shape the news. This half-baked effort has the unintended consequence of putting every reporter who files a positive story under scrutiny as a possible stooge. A fraction of those dollars spent on increasing transportation support might persuade more reporters to request an embed. A reasonable expectation of being able to get to units and get stories filed on time is all most reporters ask. The media people I encountered in Iraq were not looking for four-star accommodations. They knew full well what to expect from a war zone, but they cannot waste days, sometimes weeks, stranded in logistics limbo, held up for reasons that almost never have anything to do with combat.
There's little comfort in the supposition that this mess might be more the result of incompetence than policy. After all, what does it matter whether the helicopter crashed because it ran out of gas or because someone didn't tighten the bolts on a rotor? Our military enjoys supremely onesided air and weapons superiority, but this is practically irrelevant in a counterinsurgency where the centers of gravity for the battle are public opinion in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, and at home. The enemy trumps our jets and satellites with supremely onesided media superiority. The lowest level terror cells have their own film crews. While al Sahab hums along winning battle after propaganda battle, the bungling gatekeepers at the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) reciprocate with ridiculous and costly obstacles that deter embedded media covering our forces, ultimately causing harm to only one side: ours. And they get away with it because in any conflict that can be portrayed as U.S. military versus media, the public reflexively sides with the military.
In September, when the popular blog conglomerate Pajamas Media reported that there were only nine embedded journalists in Iraq, readers lashed out, blaming a cowardly media. But the reality is convoluted. The Pentagon permits an extremely limited number of journalists access, while denying other embed requests that would have been permitted as recently as a year ago.
Following up on the Pajamas Media report, I con tacted Major Jeffrey Pool, the Marine officer in charge of tracking media in Iraq. He confirmed the figure of only nine embedded reporters. Three were from Stars and Stripes, one from the Armed Forces Network, another from a Polish radio station who was with Polish forces, and one Italian reporter embedded with his country's troops. Of the remaining three, one was an author gathering material for later, leaving two who were reporting on a regular basis to what you might think would be the Pentagon's center of gravity: American citizens.
Although the number of embeds is in constant flux, on the day of Major Pool's report there was approximately one independent journalist for every 75,000 troops. Most embeds last for a matter of days. So, how are our troops doing in Iraq? Afghanistan? Who knows?
The bulk of the reporting on Iraq comes from the "Baghdad News Bureaus"--the mainstream media correspondents who, because of the danger, generally gather information from the safety of their fortresses by using Iraqi stringers. But there are people who would go to war and report on our troops. Walt Gaya, a highly skilled photographer who received two Purple Hearts last year as an infantryman, recently received two invitations to embed with combat troops: The first came from the 4th Infantry Division, and the second was from Brigadier General Dana Pittard to embed with military training teams. I've had invitations from countless outfits. Yet when Walt and I requested embeds, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, the director of the Combined Press Information Center, dismissed both requests out of hand.
Johnson, who has been described as "the most quoted man in Iraq," was quoted last March saying this: "We don't turn down embeds at all. When we get a request, it may be very specific or broader. We go to the unit involved. They manage their own embeds. We don't force them to take anyone; we're not going to force anyone to interact with media. We may offer advice and talk to them about their reasoning. In the end, we respect the wishes of the unit." Walt and I both had requests, and in each case the commanders had put their wishes in writing. In both cases, Johnson denied the embeds.
Johnson was pressed for an explanation during a radio interview. I have listened to the tape. He claimed to have been worried because I have no insurance. "How would Johnson know whether I have insurance?" I wondered. "He never asked." Johnson told the interviewer that he had been in communication with me. This was true, but not in the way he implied, because the only words Johnson ever sent my way were in an email on July 18, 2006, where he wrote:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr. Yon;
I do not recognize your website as a media organization that we will use as a source to credential journalists covering MNF-I operations.
LTC Barry Johnson Director, CPIC www.mnf-iraq.com
In fact, before Walt Gaya attempted to embed, he and I had a dozen or so phone conversations about his insurance policy. CPIC, for its part, never requested any information about insurance coverage. At the same time Walt and I were being given the brush-off, a blogger and freelance photographer named Chad Hunt was heading for an embed in Afghanistan. (Afghan slots are not controlled by Johnson.) When I asked Hunt if he had insurance, he replied, "Do you think I need it?" Hunt said that nobody had asked him about insurance, which didn't surprise me because it is not part of the standard process during which all embeds sign a detailed Hold Harmless agreement covering matters of injury, dismemberment, and/or death.
Johnson's emailed denial was unconditional. I take him at his word that he refused to recognize my online magazine as a media outlet he was willing to work with. His attitude may, however, come as a surprise to readers like the CentCom soldier who emailed me on October 13: "I have been a reader of your blog for some time. The stories and photographs are some of the best I have seen in the Milblog community. As you may or may not be aware, Central Command Public Affairs has been making an effort to get the military's story out via the blogosphere. The support of people like you and others in the milblog community is invaluable . . . ."
Walt Gaya, though, was intending to shoot pictures for the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine VFW, which is distributed to the approximately 1.8 million VFW members. Surely that is not a media organization with which CPIC is unwilling to work.
After hearing Johnson's insurance excuse, I checked back with Chad Hunt to find out if the public affairs officers he had dealt with had inquired into his insurance arrangements. Hunt's email response: "Nope. What is that?" Hunt was headed for Afghanistan, and on September 3, I emailed him again, "Did you get insurance?" "Yes, I'm here and no insurance." Chad Hunt, like most alternative media, paid his own way to cover the war. As he explained on his website, chadhuntphotography.com :
I have paid for the cost of the plane ticket, body armor, kevlar helmet, ballistic glasses and all the other gear. I never expected to make money off of this and I even had one agency tell me that they would not back me "because embedded images don't sell."
(In fact, Hunt has already sold one of his Afghanistan images. It appeared as a half-page in the October 8 issue of U.S. News & World Report.)
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson has repeatedly gone on record decrying the lack of press coverage in Iraq, all while alienating the last vestiges of any press willing to spend month after month in combat with American soldiers. Meanwhile, "the most quoted man in Iraq" has become a major media source in his own right. Too bad there is no one else to tell the story of our troops. Too bad the soldiers' families have little idea what they are up to from day to day.
As stated at the outset, many PAO officers are extremely hardworking and dedicated. My dealings with other PAOs, such as USMC Major Jeffrey Pool and Army Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, have been exemplary. But a system that so easily thwarts the work of good men and women is a system in desperate need of an overhaul.
The enemy knows that in modern day counterinsurgency, the media are an extension of the battle space. When Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the late and unlamented leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, began losing some of his media battles by broadcasting videos of hostages having their heads sawed off, Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, scolded him in a missive later recovered in a raid:
However, despite all of this, I say to you that we are in a battle and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma. And that however far our capabilities reach, they will never be equal to one thousandth of the capabilities of the kingdom of Satan that is waging war on us. And we can kill the captives by bullet. That would achieve that which is sought after without exposing ourselves to the questions and answering to doubts. We don't need this. [Translation: Just shoot them, dummy.]
During the beginning of the war, when some of us called an insurgency an insurgency, our patriotism was questioned. Is there any question now? Are there just a few "dead-enders" that we are still "mopping up"? When I called a civil war a civil war a full year ahead of the media, out came the dogs. When I predicted success in Mosul even while the guns were hot, many mainstream journalists thought I was hallucinating. But these were all things I learned from being embedded for months with our troops. There was tremendous progress in Iraq in 2005, and I reported it, all while warning about the growing civil war that could undermine everything. I reported extensively on a unit that was getting it right--the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (Deuce Four) of the 25th Infantry Division--and as I traveled to Mosul, Baqubah, and other places, I was mostly alone as a writer.
Early this spring, when I reported from Afghan farms about this year's bumper opium crop, people thought I was using that opium. Now it is common knowledge that the opium trade is fueling a Taliban comeback. Mark this on your calendar: Spring of 2007 will be a bloodbath in Afghanistan for NATO forces. Our British, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, and other allies will be slaughtered in Afghanistan if they dare step off base in the southern provinces, and nobody is screaming at the tops of their media-lungs about the impending disaster. I would not be surprised to see a NATO base overrun in Afghanistan in 2007 with all the soldiers killed or captured. And when it happens, how many will claim they had no idea it was so bad and blame the media for failing to raise the alarm? Here it is: WARNING! Troops in Afghanistan are facing slaughter in 2007!
The media do matter. Our troops are naked without them. Our people would probably still be driving down Iraqi roads in unarmored Humvees were it not for the likes of journalist Edward Lee Pitts, who got a National Guardsman to pose the now infamous "hillbilly armor" question to the secretary of defense. Seven days a week I communicate with wounded service members and families of service members killed in action. They ask, "When are you going back?" They long to hear the details--good, bad, or ugly--that bring them closer to their loved ones. Some get impatient and short with me, perhaps not realizing that Lt. Col. Barry Johnson has the final say and doesn't recognize my work or that of Walt Gaya as warranting an embed on his watch. As this magazine goes to press, military sources tell me that Johnson is on his way out of CPIC, and his successor is said to be much better. This may count as good news. But a system so dependent on the whims of a single officer cannot be relied upon.
The media are far from perfect. War reporters, like everyone else, get things wrong. Some of them, unsympathetic to the war aims, undoubtedly try to twist the news. But no coverage at all is even worse. It does a disservice to American soldiers. It is cruel to their families. It leaves the American public in the dark. If we lose the media war, we will lose Iraq, Afghanistan, and the entire "war on terror."
If our military cannot win the easy media battles with writers who are unashamed to say they want to win the war, there is no chance of winning the hearts and minds of Afghans and Iraqis, and both wars will be lost. And some will blame the media. But that will not resurrect the dead.
Michael Yon is an independent writer and photographer who embedded in Iraq for nine months in 2005. He writes on his website at www.michaelyon-online.com.