By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com staff writer
Thursday, June 2, 2005 8:38 AM

As Iraqi insurgents have mounted bloody suicide attacks on civilians in recent weeks, the Iraqi press has become preoccupied with the specter of "sectarian conflict" -- and the difference between U.S. and Iraqi news coverage has become clearer.

Iraqi news organizations show less interest than their Western counterparts in individual suicide bombings, U.S. casualties, and Bush administration policy. The U.S. military presence is often criticized in the Baghdad press, but polemics about Washington's war on terrorism do not seem central to Iraqi political discussion. (A State Department survey of global media reaction to allegations of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay found not a single commentary on the subject from Iraq.)

It is hardly surprising that foreign journalists in Iraq, many of whom are based in the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad and have a more difficult time operating safely in dangerous areas of the country, would see events differently than Iraqi journalists who were born, live and work there.

For them, the big story in Iraq the past week has been negotiations between the Shiite-dominated government and Sunni organizations to head off a religious war, according to the Iraqi Press Monitor, a British-based service that translates excerpts from Baghdad's leading papers every day.

A much-publicized dispute between the Badr organization, a leading Shiite militia, and the Association of Muslim Scholars, a leading Sunni group, has been resolved, according to Al Mutamar, a newspaper founded by one-time American ally Ahmed Chalabi. The same day a prominent Sunni leader told Baghdad, a daily newspaper published by the Iraqi National Accord, that the dispute had been exaggerated by the media and urged his co-religionists to "avoid sectarian conflict."

Another source for Iraqi news in English is the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, an office of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, whose translations are available for a fee from World News Connection.

The Shiite daily Al-Adala carried a page-one editorial last week praising the imams who in their Friday sermons "urge Iraqis to avoid sectarian strife," according to FBIS. The editorial called on Iraqis to adopt a "code of honor" and activate "national dialogue" in order to establish a "social contract."

"Their killers are neither Sunni nor Shia," said Al-Sabah, an independently owned daily.

"They hate Iraq and oppose its struggle for a free and fair life under the umbrella of a democratic, constitutional and stable state. Iraq consists of different spectrums: Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Christians and Muslims. We were shy to ask people whether they were Shia or Sunni, because we consider all Iraqis as being part of one nation regardless of their ethnic background. . . . This third party seems unwilling to have Iraq united and stable. They tried bombing, explosions, and assassinations and are now trying a sectarian war. They will be disappointed because Iraqis know that strength lies in unity."

Fear of sectarian differences is one reason why Iraq's relations with neighboring Iran receive close coverage.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari will visit the Islamic republic later this month, the Baghdad daily Addustour reported Tuesday. The announcement follows the Iranian foreign minister's visit to Iraq last month. The Iranian visitor, noted the Chinese news agency Xinhua, received something no U.S. official in Iraq has ever been granted: a personal meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

After the meeting, Sunni leaders accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs, according to columnist Mustafa Amara of Azzaman.

"We need action and not words from Iran," declared an Azzaman editorial. The paper said that Iran should pledge not to interfere in Iraqi affairs and forget its demands for reparations for the eight-year war that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein started in 1980. Indeed, one Iraqi lawyer, writing in the Arabic daily Al-Zaman says that Iran should compensate Iraq for the war.

The U.S. role in Iraq is rarely presented in positive terms in the Iraqi press.

Sa'd Sallal Lami, a doctor writing in Al-Sabah, recently called on all Iraqis to "support" the "good-willed powers" that are working to establish democracy and peace in Iraq, according to an FBI report.

But skepticism, if not hostility, is much more common. A columnist for the Al-Zaman daily strongly criticized "US forces for defiling the Al-Quds Mosque in Al-Ramadi and hundreds more throughout Iraq." According to the FBIS translation, the writer also criticized Iraqi officials "who justify the misconduct of US forces and allege that mosques are being used by insurgents."

The al-Furat newspaper carried an article criticizing President Bush for "dealing leniently" with the U.S. officials who are charged with "abusing detainees" in Iraq and other places.

And the recent spate of stories about the possible wounding of insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was a deliberate distraction, says Fatih Abdulsalam in Azzaman.

"For many Iraqis the name 'Saddam Hussein' has been replaced by 'Zarqawi'. The only difference is that while they could easily verify the footage, the speeches and sound bites of the former, many of them believe the latter is the product of the U.S. propaganda machine," Abdulsalam wrote.

"There is no doubt once the name Zarqawi disappears from the Iraqi scene, the forces that helped create it will waste no time in introducing another appellation and soon turn it into a new scourge," he said.

"Another Zarqawi will need to be made because neither the U.S. nor its allies in the government are ready to rectify their deadly errors," he concluded.

Some Iraqi commentators unfavorably compare Iraq today to the Saddam Hussein era.

"Many Iraqis say the distribution of food rations is not as efficient as it was under the former regime of Saddam Hussein," Azzaman reported recently.

"They say they are getting less food than before and the quality of food items has been deteriorating"

In a front-page editorial for Al-Furat, chief editor Shakir al-Juburi, said the country's southern provinces are suffering from negligence. "No great changes have taken place" since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, he wrote.

Iraqi children are the victims, said Azzaman columnist Jassem Murad

"Iraqi children bore the brunt of the brutal polices the former leader Saddam Hussein pursued in his three-decade rule. Today their sufferings have aggravated and [they] have become the main victims of the new era," Murad wrote.

There has been commendable journalism from Iraq by reporters of all nationalities done at great risk, but there's no disputing Iraq's ordeal looks different when seen through Iraqi eyes.