The death of a cameraman, who was shot and killed in Iraq by an American soldier, has been ruled tragic, but justified.
From Reuters:
The report, made public seven months after Dana died, found that the soldier's "decision to fire at Mr. Dana, though tragic and regrettable, was justified based on the information available to him at the time."
Reuters said it could not agree that the death of Dana, a prize-winning Palestinian cameraman, was justified and called for the urgent implementation of recommendations in the report to improve the safety of journalists in war zones.
It said Dana would not have died in the shooting outside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison on August 17 if the recommendations had been in place.
The Army report said the soldier, who shot from a tank, had a "reasonable certainty" that Dana was about to fire a rocket- propelled grenade (RPG), having mistaken his camera for a launcher. But it said the tank commander recognized Dana was holding a camera immediately after the fatal shots were fired.
This is indeed a tragic situation, but I have to side with the Arm on this one. If Reuters would like its media personnel to be safer in combat zones then maybe they should be a little less aggressive when sending them in. Are soldiers have all they can handle keeping themselves and other innocent citizens who get caught in the crossfire safe, they shouldn't have to worry about reporters getting underfoot as well.
I don't blame the soldier for shooting the cameraman. He was in the midst of combat when he saw a Palestinian man kneeling and pointing something large and black at him. What was the soldier to do, wait and see if a rocket came out of the black thing first? That's like asking a police officer to wait until a bullet comes out of a gun before deciding if its a toy or not.
Sometimes a little personal responsibility from the victim is in order.
Article comments
1 - simon b
==quote==
I don't blame the soldier for shooting the cameraman. He was in the midst of combat when he saw a Palestinian man kneeling and pointing something large and black at him. What was the soldier to do, wait and see if a rocket came out of the black thing first? That's like asking a police officer to wait until a bullet comes out of a gun before deciding if its a toy or not.
==end quote==
interesting... am I reading too much that you seem to imply it was as much the murdered journalist's fault for being "Palestinian" (by which I'm guessing you mean "not American-looking") as for having a "big black thing" pointed at the soldier?
By the way: shouldn't a trained soldier be able to tell the difference between a grenade launcher and a camera in the same way that any journalist would be able to spot the difference between the two?
2 - SFC Ski
In a combat environment, especially an urban one like Baghdad, the enemy does not conveniently walk up in the clear terrain from 300 meters away and give a soldier time to ensure that what he is holding is indeed a weapon, and yes he is intending to shoot it at the soldier.
Here in Baghdad, the civilian crowd can, and have, been used to conceal an attacker. We are trained to notr fire back if the attacker is among unarmed civilians, and we very often are forced to receive fire and move away rather than fire back and kill innocents. By the way, the enemy here in Baghdad does not give us the courtesy of wearing a uniform in order to distinguish himself from the civilians around him
To make things more complicated, the enemy will sometimes blow up and explosive charge in one spot, then hit from another angle. Therefore, if an attack happens, soldiers are trained not to focus only on the point of origin of the attack, but for others moving in to ambush from another quarter.
Let me add in this factor. In many of the places in Iraq, there are crowds of people standing around, waiting to cross a busy street, waiting for a ride, working on a car that might be damaged, or might just be a car they can hide behind and shoot at soldiers driving by. THe abandoned car, dog corpse, or bag of trash might be just what they appear to be, they might also be used to hide explosives inside as boobytraps.
NO amount of training gives you 360 degrees of vision, nor does it give you instant awareness of what a person is carrying concealed, or allows us to know the intent of a person skulking behind a car. I am sorry that the newsman was killed, but it was almost surely unavoidable.
3 - Rob
Right, I do mean "not-American looking." The people the soldiers are fighting in Iraq don't have light skin. They have dark skin. I was simply pointing out another factor that could have confusion. I certainly did not mean to imply that the camerman deserved to be shot because he was Palestinian.
4 - Anonymous
Your comments on the Reuters’ story are crass and unjustified. Before making further comment I suggest you read Mazen Dana obituary at Reuters.
http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial/mazendana/
5 - Rob
Its a tragedy, I'll agree. Its sad that anybody has to die in a war. My problem is with Reuter's trying to hold the U.S. Army responsible for it.
Our soldiers have enough to worry about out there. They should be concentrating on keeping themselves safe and accomplishing their mission, not worrying about where the reporters are at.
6 - Steve Rhodes
The US should be held responsible. Dana's death wasn't the only one. There were many more including the attack on a hotel which also killed a Reuters cameraman.
If the commander could see it was a camera, why couldn't the soldier?
Before he died, Frontline World ran a story which featured him and other journalists (scroll down for streaming video).
7 - Steve Rhodes
The US should be held responsible. Dana's death wasn't the only one. There were many more including the attack on a hotel which also killed a Reuters cameraman.
If the commander could see it was a camera, why couldn't the soldier?
Before he died, Frontline World ran a story which featured him and other journalists (scroll down for streaming video).