Report: U.S. 'negligence' killed journalists

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3965237/

The killing of two journalists in a Baghdad hotel by a U.S. shell was the result of "criminal negligence" for which President George W. Bush's government is partly responsible, a leading media watchdog said on Thursday.

Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and a Spanish television colleague, Jose Couso, were killed by the shell which was fired by a U.S. tank at the Palestine Hotel in the Iraqi capital on April 8, in the final stages of the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) watchdog said in a special report that the firing of the shell was not a deliberate attack on the media but U.S. soldiers should have been told by their commanders that a large number of journalists was based in the hotel.

"The shooting at this building was therefore not deliberately aimed at journalists or the press in Baghdad, as some people have claimed. It was, however, an act of criminal negligence for which responsibility should clearly be established," the watchdog said in a covering statement with the report.

[izzie]

1. Interesting but I see this,,,,

Bush has in some ways let it be known, even more than it was before, that Service people could get away with anything, by the laws we have not signed or we have got rid of. Also the Crusade like talk about the Middle East has not helped these young men. You hear an anything goes and shoot first style thing going on. A fighting army does not do this job well and why the Brits seem to be doing better, or so I think.

[w4rma]

2. Is Reuters *beginning* to try to protect their journalists? (n/t)