BBC reported this as having been timed and arranged for US breakfast
television.
It appears that no British reporter was among the select band in the
improvised courtroom, which I find an amazing lack of tact among
"coalition allies". Or just possibly it was British low key
calculation of where their interests best lie.
There were comments about who had selected the parts that were
broadcast and whether it would be possible to see the whole
transcription.
A legal commentator with an English accent (?) on CNN, Jonathan
Goldberg, described it as "incredibly incompetent" that the judge had
insisted on Hussein answering incriminating questions without a lawyer
present.
UK media, television and newspapers all seem to assume an
interventionist perspective, that it is normal and a good thing that
justice should be imposed on a sovereign country like Iraq by outside
intervention and pressure, few commenting on the legality of this. But
in other respects by the standards of an emerging concept of
international humanitarian justice, my impression is that the
commentaries are looking for errors and blunders.
One of the most fundamental divisions, courteously debated, is between
those who think the trial should have been organised with
international judges and advocates, and those who think it should
somehow have the character of an Iraqi trial.
What happened yesterday from the presentation on US breakfast
television to the reports of the sounds of his chains falling to the
ground in the ante-room where he had been escorted by US guards,
suggests that this trial may fall between both stools.
Their best bet is probably to concentrate on hearings of the other 12
and hope that will discredit and incriminate him, and now to keep him
out of the lime-light. Salem Chalabi, the Iraqi minister for this
area, indicated he did not think it desirable that Saddam Hussein's
words should be broadcast live, and that was somehow a mistake.
As was presumably the clumsy filming of the judge which was supposed
to be from the rear to protect him from future assassination attempts
but showed enough of his face for Iraqi's in the know probably to work
out who he is.
Chris Burford
London
- Original Message -
From: "Kenneth Campbell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 12:50 AM
Subject: [PEN-L] Saddam on TV
> For what it's worth...
>
> I saw Hussein on TV this morn, and Peter Jennings did an excellent
job
> of old Murrow-style radio reporting... describing scenes without the
aid
> of a TV camera. Jennings described a beaten down man, thin, polite,
> alert, tangling with the judge once.
>
> I have since seen the usual American news stuff about that -- CNN
> subheaders included "Look, the pimp is speaking" and accredited the
> statement to an anonymous janitor. Great journalism.
>
> BBC was better -- including some factual reporting on what he said
about
> Kuwait and the chemical weapons against Kurds.
>
> Jennings remains the objective reporter, as far as I have seen. He
was
> in the court room.
>
> Rather than get outraged at the media's false editorializing, I
would
> encourage people to actually ask people to look at the statements.
> Mention Jennings' objective reporting.
>
> Ken.
>
> --
> I am the passenger
> And I ride and I ride
> I ride through the city's backside
> I see the stars come out of the sky
> Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky
> You know it looks so good tonight
> -- "The Passenger"
> Iggy Pop, 1977
> www.american-buddha.com/iggy.passenger.htm
>
