Reporters Without Borders outraged over Pentagon's sham investigation

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage and disappointment today at the US Department of Defence's announcement that an official investigation has cleared the soldiers who shot and killed Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana on 17 August in Baghdad. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. George Krivo, yesterday said the investigation concluded that "although it was a regrettable incident," the soldiers "acted within the rules of engagement." Dana's employers, the British news agency Reuters, were not told prior to the announcement that the investigation had finished or what its findings were. "Whether it's the shelling of the Palestine Hotel that killed two journalists or Mazen Dana's death, attributed to a soldier's mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, the Pentagon settles for sham investigations that totally lack transparency and offer no answers," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "Only the conclusions - identical in each case - are released and not even those directly concerned are told," Ménard said. "This casualness, combined with the absence of measures to prevent more tragedies, is an insult to the journalists who have been victims of the US army's blunders." Ménard concluded: There are many blunders but investigations are non-existent or ineffective, since they all conclude that the US army is infallible." Reporters Without Borders also said it was extremely concerned at the likelihood that more tragedies involving journalists and US soldiers could occur, given the high level of violence and the repeated attacks against the coalition forces in Iraq. The organisation wrote to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on 18 August asking that soldiers in the field be given very clear instructions to act with restraint and care in order to respect the freedom of movement of journalists and not expose them to excessive danger. This request elicited no response and further incidents have occurred since then. Tragedy was only narrowly avoided when American soldiers opened fire on a press vehicle clearly marked with the letters AP - the initials of the US news agency Associated Press - on 18 September in Khaldiya (about 80 km west of Baghdad). Soldiers fired several bursts with automatic weapons as AP reporter Karim Kadim tried to film a military convoy that had just come under attack. The vehicle was hit by a score of bullets which shattered the windscreen and burst the tyres. Under fire, Kadim ran and took shelter behind the corner of a building. He said the letters AP were clearly visible but the soldiers opened fire all the same. According to witness reports, the US forces suffered heaving losses in a series of attacks on the convoy in Khaldiya. Dana, 41, was shot dead by a US soldier while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in a western suburb of Baghdad on 17 August. US army Capt. Frank Thorp said the same day in Washington.