Failing miserably in trying to control events on the ground in Iraq the Bush administration has decided to go after the one thing it must control to keep itself in power – the truth. This war has, from its inception, relied upon disseminating propaganda and suppressing truth, using its heavy influence over the corporate media. At the onset of the war, Bush had seized nearly complete control of America’s media outlets, including NPR (as in No Public Responsibility). All coverage of the war and of protests became so slanted it was running parallel to the ground.

Then the crack in the façade started. Reporters who were not embedded (or should we say “in-bedded”) with the troops, began to file reports that contradicted State Media. As a result, for the first time, the Bush regime was forced onto the defensive. Lies were no longer sticking so easily to the wall the media had built around the public – the Pentagon could not long hold onto its claim an “uprising” in Basra when there was no uprising, nor convincingly boast of capturing 8,000 Iraqi troops when said troops were still fighting the allies…etc. Thanks to media voices of reality and reason at the front, reporters back home began, for the first time, to ask REAL QUESTIONS. On Friday, 3/29, for the first time, Donald Rumsfeld was obviously squirming, flummoxed by having to come up with non-pre-scripted answers – answers he did not have.

So now, the Bush regime is prosecuting Plan B. This new “war plan” consists of a ruthless assault on media dissenters (i.e., anyone not willing to parrot the party line) and its entire infrastructure. Everything in Bush's media path, from independent journalists in Iraq to the telecommunications lines they use to communicate with the outside world, are now under a ruthless attack. The objective: a total blackout of true news of the war in Iraq and dissent at home.

In early March, veteran BBC reporter Kate Adie warned, in an interview on an Irish radio station, that the Pentagon would target both journalists and their communications facilities. She was right. Here is a rundown of PLAN B: ATTACK ON THE MEDIA (don’t expect to see this heading emblazoned across NBC, however).

The casualty rate for independent journalists covering the Iraq war is far higher (percentage wise) than for any other group in the war zone, including soldiers and Iraqi civilians in bombed areas.

DEAD or presumed dead:

3/30 Gaby Rado, ITN journalist known for his honest, outspoken reporting, in northern Iraq found dead after mysterious fall from roof
3/23Terry Lloyd, ITN journalist - one of the most experienced war correspondants around - in southern Iraq - "friendly fire"
3/23 Fred Nerac, ITN cameraman "" "friendly fire"
3/23 Hussein Othman, ITN translator "" friendly fire
3/23Paul Moran, 39 Freelance cameraman with the Australian Broadcasting Corp., no. Iraq - car bomb. The story about this death varies according to what paper you read, from a bomb in the vehicle they were in, to a "suicide bomber" in another vehicle. Also, it took scanning through five different mainstream sources to find the date of his death. The best report was in the New York Post, which stated that a taxi rigged with a bomb drew up to a group of journalists at a checkpoint and blew up - indicating that the death count was intended to be much higher than one. Was this a taxi-driver-suicide bomber? Or was it a taxi rigged with a bomb detonated by Bush operatives after the taxi driver was given a phony summons to the pick up someone in the cluster of journalists? If so, the Bush operatives achieved two things: one more dead independent journalist, and great propaganda ("Suicide bombers target Americans!"

INJURED (partial list)

Daniel Demoustier, ITN cameraman - friendly fire

Eric Campbell, ABC correspondent - traveling with Moran

MISSING:

Matthew McAllester, journalist, Newsday, Baghdad disappears from hotel room along with all equipment and writings. McAllester is known for his compassionate reporting on Iraqi civilians. Just a few months ago, McAllester was given clearance by the Iraqi government to work in Baghdad. He was was working closely with a group of human shields. Now the US claims the Iraqis expelled him and may be holding him “captive.”

Moises Sama, cameraman, Newsday, Baghdad, missing, along with McAllester, with whom he was working.

Six Italian journalists Allegedly detained by Iraqis, but now missing, no word.

DETAINED AND BEATEN BY US TROOPS

On or around March 26: Four western Journalists detained, beaten and tortured by US Troops:

Two Israelis (Dan Scemama of Israel TV's Channel One and Boaz Bismuth of the Yediot Ahronot daily ) and two Portuguese journalists (names not yet found) report that U.S. troops forcibly detained them for 72 hours, denying them food and water and forcing them to stand for an entire night in silence in the cold. One of the Portuguese journalists was beaten by a gang of five US soldiers. The journalists, though clearly not Iraqis, were accused of being spies and forcibly expelled from the country following their detention

3/25 TV station in Iraq bombed and destroyed

3/28-3/31: Bunker buster destruction of Iraqi telecommunications infrastructure - no way now to file stories via phone or for outside world to know whereabouts and status of reporters inside Baghdad.

3/28 - Al Jazeera attacked by massive, organized hack assault that spams its website and redirects those accessing the site to porn sites. (first salvo in Bush assault on the Internet?)

. 3/30 (US time) The Iraqi Information Ministry is destroyed, along with other information centers, by US bombing raid. Most western reporters in Baghdad had their offices in the Ministry building – including their computers, files, etc. The Pentagon claims it was not targeting people, because the raid occurred at 2:00 am Monday morning Baghdad time. However, 2:00 am Monday Baghdad time is early Sunday evening in the U.S. The editorial staffs of most newspapers, and undoubtedly many TV stations, work on the Monday morning news editions the evening before, usually 6:00 pm through midnight. So, I would expect that reporters in Baghdad would be VERY LIKELY to be at their computers between 2:00 am to 4:00 am or so filing stories for Monday morning. Maybe that’s what the Bush administration expected, too Because if they really wanted to avoid killing anyone, they would have struck on Satuday night, the traditional “dead period” for newsrooms.

3/31 Peter Arnett, veteran reporter in Baghdad who dared to report that Plan A had failed miserably, escapes ministry bombing, but is fired the next morning.

3/31: Monday morning: Sudden, massive huge shift occurs in all programming, even C-SPAN. As of Friday, reporters were asking tough questions, while an increasing number of callers to C-SPAN and other “open” programs were expressing passionate and intelligently-presented arguments against the war. On Monday morning, at Brg. Gen. Brooks’ briefing, the questions now seem pre-prepared, as non-challenging as those posed to Bush reps on propaganda outlets like Meet the Press (Meet the Press and Face the Nation are routinely used by the Bush administration to categorically counter all criticism and disseminate the latest propaganda spiel). Turning on C-SPAN, the callers have completely changed from the past few weeks. Now we hear a predominance of aggressive hawks, with particular venom being spewed at dissenting media people, esp. Peter Arnett (he’s a commie, he’s a traitor, etc.). On the alleged “anti-war line,” we hear obvious plants calling in, like the “anti-war” guy who used his unchallenged three minutes to promote the war and suggested we hand out guns to all the Baghdad civilians, in fact, to accelerate the bloodbath.

In short, the attack on the last glimmers of independent media are being relentlessly “bombed.” I think the next stage of Plan B will, undoubtedly, be an aggressive assault on the Internet. Expect “emergency” legislation posing as “homeland security measures” that will make it possible to shut down selected news outlets. Or, expect a mysterious new “virus” that seems to be showing up in very selective patterns.

That failing…expect journalists to start showing up dead.