Nate Thayer

SAS close in on capital

Sydney Morning Herald

SAS close in on capital March 31 2003 Members of Australia's SAS unit were on the front line with many fast-moving vehicles close to Baghdad, a US journalist said today. Correspondent Nate Thayer said the Australians detained him and his colleagues after he was expelled from Baghdad before letting them continue. Mr Thayer said the Australians were calm, in control and close to the Iraqi capital. "They detained me at gunpoint and the others that were accompanying me, ordered us on the ground, determined who we were and debriefed us," Mr Thayer told Sky News from Jordan. "They were very close to Baghdad." Mr Thayer said he promised Australia's elite soldiers he would not reveal their exact location. But he said driving out of Baghdad, the Australians were the first military personnel of any significance he encountered. "They were very professional, they were fully equipped, they were very mobile ... they were in control of the major highway outside Baghdad city," Mr Thayer said. "They had many vehicles, they were fast-moving vehicles, they were clearly at the very front line of reconnaissance. "They were calm, there was no fear in any of their eyes, they were in control. Their morale was very good." Mr Thayer said he and his colleagues were treated well by the Australians before being allowed to continue their journey. AAP

A Live Report From Baghdad: The Road From Baghdad

A Live Report From Baghdad

The Road From Baghdad

By Nate Thayer
Posted Friday, March 28, 2003, at 2:38 PM ET

Nate Thayer is covering the war in Iraq for Slate.

Last night my room at the Palestine, the hotel where journalists are staying in Baghdad, was ripped apart by Iraqi secret police. They found an illegal satellite phone and told me to be out of country by 7 a.m. today. Though I've been ordered out before, they made very clear that this time I would be arrested if I didn't go.

To get out of Baghdad is not easy. Along with Marco DiLauro, an Italian photographer who was also being expelled, I managed to rent a GMC 4-wheel drive. A little after 7 a.m., we set off on the road that leads west toward both Jordan and Syria. We were going to make our decision about which border to head for depending on the military situation we encountered.

In Baghdad, nearly all the men on the streets are armed. But after passing Iraqi military positions on the way out of the city, we saw no Iraqi forces whatsoever. At first, we couldn't tell who was in control of the highway. But less than 50 miles on, we ran into what looked like American forces. We stopped the car and got out, waving white handkerchiefs. We walked 100 yards to a position of what turned out to be Australian special forces, armed with artillery and about a dozen Humvee-type vehicles.

Despite the fact that they surrounded us, making us get down on our hands and knees as they searched us, we were delighted to see them. Once the Australians determined we were friendly, they were happy to see us too—and interested in how little military presence we'd seen exiting Baghdad. Then they sent us on our way toward Jordan.

The desert road was surreal, littered with the carcasses of dozens of burnt-out vehicles, including Iraqi armored personnel carriers with incinerated bodies inside. We saw ruined bridges and what looked like the skeleton of a Syrian tourist bus. Red Crescent vehicles passed in the other direction, ferrying medical supplies toward Baghdad. At one point a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter bore hovered above, but it left us alone after making out the letters "TV," which we'd applied to the roof of our truck with black duct tape.

For 350 miles, we saw no Iraqi military presence at all. But at the border, Saddam loyalists were still in control of the Iraqi side—200 feet from our nominal allies the Jordanians. Customs officials elaborately searched our bags and stamped our passports. They checked to see that the serial numbers on our computers matched those indicated on our entry documents—as if we were leaving some normal country.

A Live Report From Baghdad: More American Bombs, and More Iraqi Defiance

 

A Live Report From Baghdad

More American Bombs, and More Iraqi Defiance

By Nate Thayer
Posted Monday, March 24, 2003, at 6:18 PM ET

Nate Thayer is covering the war in Iraq for Slate.

BAGHDAD, Tuesday morning, 12:30 a.m.—This morning, hundreds of Iraqis filled the lobby of the Palestine Hotel to watch the broadcast of Saddam Hussein's speech. Their mood was defiant. They clapped and cheered as Saddam rallied them to war. "Americans have bombed civilian areas," Saddam said, according to my translator. "They are trying to weaken us, but they are stupid. They will never win."

Iraqi TV rejoiced over yesterday's battles. All day long, it broadcast the interrogation of the captured American soldiers. Rumors spread through the capital about two British pilots captured in Baghdad, but they haven't been seen on TV.

The atmosphere on the street gets more and more menacing every day. There are groups of people chanting anti-American slogans. The military presence has increased dramatically. Outposts and bunkers are on every corner. Roadblocks are set up on all the main streets. The oil trenches ignited over the weekend continue to burn—casting a literal black cloud over the city. Iraqis assume that American forces will encircle Baghdad, and they are preparing for a siege.

Tonight's bombing started just over an hour ago, following another day of intense raids. We could see fighter planes today. Tomahawk strikes, by now almost routine, took out city buildings. We also heard that B-52s were bombing the outskirts of the city.

I'm too distracted to follow tonight's assault very carefully. Iraqi officials are continuing to harass us. I was just told that we will be expelled first thing in the morning. They said we will have to drive to Syria—a 20-hour ride on a highway that we've heard is under bombardment from the coalition. It's a suicide drive, and I am not going to do it. I have about six hours to figure out how to get out of it.

A Live Report From Baghdad: Baghdad Gets Scarier

A Live Report From Baghdad

Baghdad Gets Scarier

By Nate Thayer
Posted Monday, March 24, 2003, at 1:18 AM ET

Nate Thayer is covering the war in Iraq for Slate.

BAGHDAD, Sunday evening—Today, for the first time, the bombs fell and the missiles struck in daylight. The assault lasted all day. And it came not only from long-range missiles but from coalition planes that are flying over our heads and dropping their payloads in the neighborhood of the Palestine Hotel, where most of the foreign journalists remaining in Baghdad are staying.

Today is also the first time that I am truly frightened. It is not the American bombs I am primarily afraid of. What frightens me and Mary—the name I'll give a photographer with whom I've become inseparable—is the mood of the people. The city is thick with anger and defiance, and we are Americans.

Every day since Mary and I arrived by road from Jordan, we have been threatened with expulsion. This morning, once again, we were ordered out. "You have two choices—you can be a human shield or you can leave the country," said my government minder. He offered this without his usual smarmy smile.

"But what about my visa?" I asked.

"Your visa is now to heaven," he said, forcing a laugh.

I talked my way out of it once again. My minder said we could obtain visa "extensions" provided we take HIV tests. I brought my own syringes, and I swabbed Mary's arm and extracted a vial of blood in my room. She did the same for me. We then went to the so-called HIV center together, with bombs dropping around us, to submit our blood to the Iraqi government. Of course, they insisted on taking their own samples. Cruise missiles launched 900 miles away exploded around us, incinerating government buildings as we partook in this ridiculous charade.

This absurdity over, we returned to the Palestine, where we are as prepared as we can be for whatever may come next. We have 300 bottles of the water and have filled the bathtubs in each of several rooms for reserve. We've stockpiled enough food for weeks. Should the power fail, we have a generator and jerry cans filled with petrol purchased on the black market. If a bomb blows out our window, the duct tape we've covered it with should protect us from flying glass. All of our electronics—computers, cameras, communications devices—are wrapped in aluminum foil against so-called e-bombs that will destroy all the data of electronic devices.

At 4 p.m. Baghdad time, an American fighter jet dropped its payload so close that the concussion sucked the air out of our lungs. Mary and I got in our car and drove toward the site of the explosion.

As we crossed one of the four Tigris bridges, there was an enormous traffic jam. Hundreds of armed men and civilians were looking down to the river below. Scores of cars had stopped in the middle of the bridge. We grabbed our gear and got out.

The rumor was that an allied plane had been shot down. Word spread through the crowd that two pilots had parachuted from the downed plane and were floating down the river. One had supposedly already been captured. Whether there were any pilots in the river, I don't know.

Small boats with heavily armed soldiers searched among the reeds. From the banks, people took pot shots at objects in the river. Under the impression that the airman had been captured, thousands of cheering Iraqis chanted and clapped, shooting AK-47s in the air for joy. People in both uniform and civilian clothes eyed us with hostility during this celebration.

"Where are you from?" demanded an armed Iraqi, looking at me.

"Germany," interjected my government guide, abruptly grabbing me by the arm and yanking me away.

"Do not tell them you are American," he whispered as he rushed me to the car. "We must leave. It is very dangerous here."

Then we were on the western side of the Tigris, where the coalition bombardment has struck hardest. The sounds of imams on speakers reverberated through the streets—calls for the people to kill all the Americans. We raced through Baghdad's most dangerous area, passing Saddam's palaces, now piles of burnt rubble. The Foreign Ministry was a concrete shell with no windows and only sullen soldiers at the entrance. Apartment buildings recently filled with civilians were charred, burnt, collapsed, and empty. Hundreds of apartments and no people—where did they all go? Western medical sources have reported some 300 civilian injuries in Baghdad but very few killed.

The Iraqi military had now closed all the Tigris River bridges. Mary and I were stuck. We had to drive north for an hour as bombs continued dropping around us. "This is the road to Babylon," said our government minder. It felt like Babylon. We then took another road—the road to Kuwait, our guide said. We had to drive north of the city, then east, and then south to enter Baghdad on the east bank of the Tigris and return to our hotel.

Explosions are rocking my computer as I write. For the first time, small-arms fire can be heard throughout the city. Anti-aircraft emplacements are set up around the perimeter of our hotel. It's not a good sign. Yesterday those 500 meters from us were destroyed, completely destroyed, by American missiles.

Graphic battle scenes pose dilemma for networks: Iraq Media Coverage

Graphic battle scenes pose dilemma for networks

Chicago Sun-Times

March 24, 2003 | Peter Johnson

Between "tankcams" transmitting live reports from embedded reporters in the Persian Gulf and nifty 3-D studio graphics that show everything from details of a 2,000-pound bomb to a topographical view of Baghdad, viewers are seeing and feeling the war with Iraq unlike any other.

Sunday, as the ground war heated up with reports of more American casualties and U.S. soldiers being taken prisoner, news organizations were expecting more embedded journalists to begin filing from the heat of battle.

And after five days when the most vivid TV footage was primarily of bombs exploding in Baghdad, the specter of embedded correspondents in the thick of things raised the ante for news groups.

Nowhere was this more true than in the instant medium of TV, where what to show and when to show it can be a dicey call with ramifications.

That became apparent Sunday morning when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, making the rounds at all the Sunday talk shows, was talking to Bob Schieffer on CBS' "Face the Nation."

The network aired a few seconds of breaking news video from Al- Jazeera, purportedly showing American prisoners being held by Iraqis.

During a break off camera, CBS executives huddled with Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and tentatively agreed not to show faces of the captives again until their relatives were contacted.

A few minutes later on CNN, Rumsfeld told Blitzer that it would be "unfortunate" if networks aired the footage. When Blitzer noted that airing it would let families at home know their loved ones were still alive, Rumsfeld said, "You could make that argument, if you wish." (As of midday Sunday, other networks had held off airing the video. Al-Jazeera later aired footage of American soldiers who appeared to have been executed.)

"Things are going to get a whole lot tougher from here on in," CBS News correspondent John Roberts said Sunday afternoon from Iraq, where he is with a battalion near An Nasiriyah, where the 11 U.S. prisoners reportedly were captured.

There is the possibility that embedded cameramen will show firefights between American and Iraqi soldiers on live TV, and that scenario brings with it a new set of ethical concerns for networks-- not the least of which is whether to show it.

"This is new territory for all of us," McGinnis said Sunday, noting that CBS News does not plan to show live video of, say, a soldier being wounded.

Then again, there's a risk that with all this technology, we could see someone die in a live firefight.

"It's going to get hairier from here on in," CNN's Walt Rogers said Sunday, especially as troops get closer to Baghdad. Just hours before, he said, four rounds of Iraqi 120mm shells had exploded 75 yards from him.

Of the embedding experiment, Rogers said he had no complaints and that his unit's commander had not prevented him in any way from reporting anything except his specific location, "which I'm sure the Iraqis know, anyway."

In Baghdad, Slate.com's Nate Thayer said the position of foreign journalists has become "increasingly tenuous."

Friday, he said that as he walked through the city, he and a photographer "were taken into what might be called protective custody and held for four hours. We were offered a choice between serving as human shields in government buildings or heading by car for the Iranian or Syrian border--which is impossible, since there are no roads, and incredibly unwise, since American forces might be bombing fleeing traffic. Eventually, we were returned to our hotel, with the warning that we could be expelled or drafted as unwilling shields at any time."

A Live Report From Baghdad: The Bombing of Baghdad

A Live Report From Baghdad

The Bombing of Baghdad

By Nate Thayer

Posted Saturday, March 22, 2003, at 1:45 PM ET

Nate Thayer is covering the war in Iraq for Slate.

Bombs over Baghdad

Today Baghdad is ringed with fire. The fire comes from burning oil, poured into defensive trenches that have been dug all around the outskirts of the city. Iraqi soldiers set the oil alight and a thick black smoke has begun to fill the sky. The Iraqis are hoping to obscure targets from American pilots, a hopeless plan because most bombs are guided by GPS coordinates, not by sight.

I watched last night's bombing from the roof of a high-rise on the west bank of the Tigris River. The scale of the attack dwarfed what we'd seen the two previous nights.

Tomahawk missiles took out four of Saddam's presidential palaces and other government buildings, including the Defense Ministry, with extraordinary precision. Some of the buildings seemed to implode and collapse; others went up in columns of fire when hit. As a precaution, colleagues and I duct-taped the windows of our rooms, wrapped our communications equipment in aluminum foil. The strikes were terrifying. One was as close as 300 yards, and it blew out windows in our building.

What we witnessed was surely the most sophisticated use of firepower in military history. The missiles, which are launched from ships in the Persian Gulf, come from nowhere. For the first half-hour, Iraqi positions responded with anti-aircraft fire—a completely ineffectual response, even before many of those positions were obliterated by American bombs.

Last night's bombing infuriated minders from the Iraqi Security Service, who continue to keep a close watch on us and who sometimes lash out at Americans. At one point, an enraged Iraqi minder grabbed cameras from a photographer I've been working with and threw them off the roof of the building. Others cursed at President Bush, using a familiar local insult involving his conjugal relations with a member of his family.

Many of the buildings that were targeted in last night's bombardment are cheek-by-jowl with high-rise apartments. Though we couldn't see directly, it seems certain that there were significant numbers of civilian casualties.

When dawn broke this morning, we set off to see what we could of the damage. In the streets, loudspeakers broadcast Muslim prayers. Stores were open, but Iraqi currency with Saddam's picture on it has become essentially worthless. Prices in foreign currency rise by the hour. A bottle of vodka that cost $7 two days ago now costs $45.

On the streets, hostility toward Saddam is increasingly evident, if seldom articulated. There is kindness and rage toward Americans, in equal measure. One soldier kissed me on the cheek. Other people point imaginary weapons at us and say, "Pow-pow!" It seems clear that an American occupation will be met with at least some significant resistance—and the probability of casualties.

Throughout the day, the sounds of intermittent bombing could be heard. We made the round of hospitals, attempting to find out about civilians injured and killed. Though denied entry in some places, I spoke to a doctor at one hospital who said they had taken in 80 wounded.

The position of foreign journalists here is increasingly tenuous. Yesterday, CNN was ordered out, along with German television. They set off for the Jordanian border just as last night's bombing started.

As we walked through the city, my photographer friend and I were taken into what might be called protective custody and held for four hours. We were offered a choice between serving as human shields in government buildings or heading by car for the Iranian or Syrian border—which is impossible, since there are no roads, and incredibly unwise, since American forces might be bombing fleeing traffic. Eventually, we were returned to our hotel, with the warning that we could be expelled or drafted as unwilling human shields at any time

As for the voluntary human shields—cantankerous 70-year-olds from California and 22-year-old hippies from Spain—none of them appear to have been harmed in last night's bombing. So far, oddly, the American bombs have not targeted Baghdad's communications facilities and electrical grid, which is where the shields are staying. They may not be so lucky tonight.

 

A Live Report From Baghdad: Live From Baghdad

A Live Report From Baghdad

Live From Baghdad

By Nate Thayer

Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 11:59 PM ET

Nate Thayer is covering the war in Iraq for Slate.

BAGHDAD, 6:30 a.m.—At around 4 a.m. Baghdad time, under a full moon, I saw flashes of light high in the sky. These weren't explosions: They looked like reconnaissance flights. At exactly 4:31 a.m., I saw the first strike. An oil refinery on the banks of the River Tigris blew up, throwing up huge flames that have since turned to pillars of smoke. The oil refinery, which looks destroyed, is about 1 kilometer from the hotel where I'm staying.

Since then, I have heard and seen explosions—fairly small ones—every few minutes, mostly in the southern parts of the city, where many military targets are located. Plumes of smoke are visible everywhere. Anti-aircraft batteries started firing as soon as the assault began and haven't stopped, but it's not clear they are shooting at anything. While there is lots of anti-aircraft fire and small arms fire, the incoming attacks are limited.

Throughout the bombing, we have been able to move around unaffected. The city feels remarkably calm. There is morning traffic in the streets, people walk the sidewalks. The security presence is surprisingly light—there wasn't even a curfew last night. Communications networks, which will certainly be targets when the war gets busier, haven't been hit yet. (This is why I am able to call this story out on a hotel landline.) Everyone was anticipating a massive aerial bombardment last night: This was much less than Iraqis expected.

The mood on the streets remains somber and sullen. Stores are mostly closed, and those that are open have run out of duct tape, gasoline, and aluminum foil (which is wrapped around computers to shield them from e-bombs). People seem sad, resigned, sometimes resistant, mostly fearful. There is universal opposition to the war: George W. Bush's name is spit with venom. Yesterday, a soldier saw me on the street and shouted, "George Bush, I fucked your mother. We will win this war because you are here. You are a human shield. We are all human shields and the world is with us." Still, Iraq's celebrated hospitality remains, even in wartime. I have been greeted with kisses and hugs as often as I have with people pointing fingers at me and yelling pow-pow.

The Iraqi government has started turning on the 200-odd foreign journalists who remain here. German and Austrian TV crews were expelled yesterday, and a number of people, including Russian reporters, have been arrested for illegal use of satellite phones. (Iraq controls all satellite phones here.) Some journalists have been forced to return to a central hotel by their government minders, a hotel that had emptied because it's too close to bomb targets, notably the ministry of information. A number of reporters have been arranging backup safe houses and even backup backup safe houses in case the situation gets really bad.

That could happen today. I've heard that the decision will be made today about whether journalists will be taken into "protective custody" and sent to "secure sites." This is another way of saying today is the day we may be taken hostage.