The Tragic Blindness Of The Embedded BBC
ZNet, MA White Phosphorus, Fallujah And Unreported Atrocities by David Cromwell November 28, 2005 (m) Â Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, said earlier this year:
“We are committed to evidence-based journalism. We have not been able to establish that the US used banned chemical weapons and committed other atrocities against civilians in Falluja last November. Inquiries on the ground at the time and subsequently indicate that their use is unlikely to have occurred.” (Email forwarded to Media Lens, July 13, 2005)
Sadly, their use has occurred, as the Pentagon has now been forced to admit.
Readers may recall from previous media alerts that we did not know then whether unusual or banned weapons - including cluster bombs, depleted uranium, napalm, white phosphorus and poisonous gas - had been used in Fallujah, or whether atrocities had been committed by ‘coalition’ forces against civilians. We did know, however, that the BBC had consistently overlooked credible testimony from multiple sources suggesting such weapons had been used and such acts had taken place.
Last November, Fallujah was placed under “a strict night-time shoot-to-kill curfew” with “anyone spotted in the soldiers’ night vision sights… shot”; male refugees were prevented from leaving the combat zone; a health centre was bombed killing 60 patients and support staff; refugees claimed that “a large number of people, including children, were killed by American snipers” and that the US had used cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons in the offensive. [more]