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In Iraq,
captured rebels are shown confessing live on air.
Rory Carroll reports from Mosul
Twenty minutes to showtime and studio technicians
are loading the tape for transmission to Baghdad
when mortars thud outside. Four hit the lawn, three
hit the motorway, carving craters but causing no
casualties. The staff resume work, unfazed by the
latest assault on the televison station.
Aired twice a day, Terrorism in the Grip of Justice
is a popular reality show but those firing 62mm
mortars do not like it and have made the Mosul
headquarters of the state channel Al-Iraqiya
arguably the most dangerous posting in broadcasting.
With watchtowers at the gate, sandbags on the roof
and American soldiers patrolling the corridors, the
two-storey building resembles a fortress, but that
has not stopped insurgents from bombing, kidnapping
and murdering the Iraqis who work inside.
"I don't think they like the programme very much,"
says the station's director, Ghazi Faisal, 52, with
monumental understatement. Most of the staff have
fled but their boss remains, a mix of resignation,
defiance and pride. He does not stop munching his
kebab when the mortars land. "I'm the terrorists'
most wanted man in Mosul."
Launched in January, the one-hour programme features
captured insurgents confessing to a variety of
alleged crimes and vices, including pornography and
booze. Cowed and crestfallen, they admit attacking
the security forces and raping and beheading
civilians.
The impact has been electric. Al-Iraqiya was once
widely scorned as a dull Iraqi government
mouthpiece; all that changed in January when Mosul
started feeding the confessions to the main studio
in Baghdad, giving the network a national primetime
hit.
Iraqis switch on their televisions at midday and 9pm
to catch the latest confessions, which are then
debated in homes, offices, taxis and cafes. Akin to
Jerry Springer-meets-Newsnight, it is the
government's most effective propaganda against a
rebellion still raging two years after a US-led
invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
American officials say they have no involvement in
making Terrorism in the Grip of Justice but welcome
its impact. President George Bush has ramped up
spending on "public diplomacy" to win foreign hearts
and minds in his war on terror.
The televised confessions are the brainchild of a
commander of the Wolf brigade, a branch of the Iraqi
interior ministry. Known only by his nickname, Abul
Waleed, he phones Faisal at Al-Iraqiya to send a
camera crew to his police station when there is a
fresh batch of prisoners ready to be filmed.
Visually, the result is often dull: a line of
ordinary-looking men in chairs taking turns to
answer an unseen in quisitor. But the effect is
utterly compelling. Once insurgents were seen only
masked, armed and standing before a trembling
hostage in videos they posted on the internet, holy
warriors exuding power and confidence.
Al-Iraqiya turns the tables, showing alleged rebels
unmasked, twitchy and humiliated as they detail
grisly murders and, to widespread astonishment,
tales of drunkeness, gay orgies and pornography.
They took up arms not to fight the occupation, or
for Islam, but because they were common criminals
who wanted money. Executing someone earned $100,
says one man. He practised decapitating chickens and
sheep before moving on to policemen and soldiers.
Critics say the programme violates the Geneva
convention and question the veracity of what are
clearly intimidated prisoners. Sometimes the
inquisitor confesses on their behalf and they merely
nod, eager to agree.
The interior ministry says the show was an emergency
measure and hints that it will soon be reviewed.
Meanwhile, the security forces are delighted,
crediting the change in public mood with a flow of
intelligence tips.
There tends to be an especially strong response
after shows which confront alleged killers with
victims' relatives. "You burned my heart!" wailed
the mother of a murdered son, jabbing a large,
unshaven man in the chest. "May God burn your heart!
What kind of religion do you have?" He stared at his
feet, avoiding her eyes.
Human rights activists worry that the programme
marks a return to Saddam-style public humiliations
and coerced confessions, which undermine subsequent
trials. Others complain that a complex insurgency
which includes Islamic radicals, former regime
loyalists and Arab Sunni nationalists is being
depicted as nothing more than a coalition of
thieving scumbags, a caricature which could deepen
religious tensions.
Shias and Kurds tend to be fans. "Before these guys
were like ghosts. Now we see their faces and realise
that they are criminals and drunkards from our
neighbourhoods. We want them hanged," says Ahmad,
29, a Kurdish interpreter for US forces in Mosul.
There are no ratings figures to confirm the
anecdotal evidence of popularity. Nor is there
independent confirmation that the men are and did
what they say they are and did. Some have the
swollen and bruised faces and robotic manners of
those beaten and coached by police interrogators
off-camera.
Without doubt, genuine rebels loathe the programme,
as evinced by the mortar attacks. "It is really
scaring them, it opens up their security and takes
away their anonymity," says Capt Jason Hogan, an
intelligence officer with the US battalion tasked
with protecting Al-Iraqiya's regional station in
Mosul.
A maze of alleys bisected by the Tigris, Mosul is
Iraq's third city and an insurgency crucible; as the
programme's popularity has grown, so have threats
against station employees. Warnings posted in
mosques and distributed in pamphlets have kept about
50 of the 60-strong staff at home. Last month,
masked gunmen kidnapped a newsreader, Raeda Wazzan;
according to her husband, she was found dead a week
later with four bullets in her head. Gunmen also
tried and failed to snatch a producer.
Studios are dotted with mattresses for those who
sleep at work rather than risk the journey home.
Three staff were slightly wounded when a mortar hit
the main entrance but the big fear is kidnapping.
Most declined to be named or photographed.
Those who still turn up say they do so for the
monthly salary - over $400 - and to defy the
insurgents. Khalid Abdulla, 42, is a comedian and
scriptwriter who now doubles up as a janitor,
cleaner, tea-maker and electrician: "We are five
doing the job of 55."
In addition to acting, his colleague Mohammad
Haddad, 32, produces and directs their show, a mix
of chat with sketches that are increasingly direct
in lambasting insurgents. Their shows have not
criticised the occupation, even though a US patrol
mistakenly shot and killed Abdulla's brother last
December.
It is no secret that the television station relies
on Washington largesse. Built in 1969 to broadcast
light enter tainment and Ba'athist regime
propaganda, the Mosul network was bombed by
coalition planes in the Gulf war and again in 1999.
In the chaos of the March 2003 invasion it was
looted but re-opened months later as part of the
Iraqi Media Network, which is funded by the US and
operates from the heavily fortified Green Zone in
Baghdad.
The few technicians and journalists who still come
to work at Al-Iraqiya in Mosul are greeted by
similarly high security: coils of razor wire,
concrete barriers and 23-tonne armoured vehicles
called Strykers parked on the lawn. A garrison of 95
Iraqi soldiers is bolstered by a platoon of US
infantrymen who spend their free time in the canteen
playing dominos and practising first aid.
Last week, the Guardian met a Texas engineer, a
small, wiry man in a big helmet, who was plotting
more elaborate defences against possible snipers and
suicide car bombers. An entire stretch of motorway
may be sealed off. One technician said: "We are
embarrassed to have the Americans here but it does
make us feel safer."
www.guardian.co.uk
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