The U.S. government and the newly elected Iraqi government are training tens of thousands of armed security forces in Iraq. Why are not scores of Iraqi journalists and media persons being trained and sent about the country to report live on Iraq as it is today?
Surely, the locals would allow Iraqi journalists in plainly marked press vehicles to venture into Sadr City and Fallujah in order to report on life in Iraq under the current situation. Surely, insurgents would avoid attacking journalists who could document the wretched conditions in the country that have provoked the insurgency.
It would be very interesting to see a city of Fallujah right now. Interviews with citizens of Fallujah, with medical personnel, with survivors and orphans and widows and widowers would help the world to understand the "liberation" of Fallujah from the local point of view.
If media could film checkpoints and behaviors of American troops and document the fears and aspirations of the Iraqi people, perhaps we could understand the situation there better than by receiving canned reports from hotel-bound journalists who often do not even speak Arabic.
A free Iraq deserves a free media. A free media in Iraq should not be controlled by the military of Iraq or America. It should not be responsible to political hacks. A free media in Iraq should be there to show the world what the Iraqi people see and experiences on a daily basis.
