The Post and the Whole Picture in Iraq

Reporters generally want such assignments where the action is; some commanders don't want a reporter's presence at all or retaliate against coverage they don't like by refusing embeds. Lapan and Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, head of the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad, said embed assignments go begging. But reporters say they can't get the assignments they want. The commander of any unit has to agree to the reporter's presence.

Lapan said: "In my opinion, the biggest benefit to the embed program is the development of reporters who better understand military operations, who can provide full context to the events they witness, something that doesn't normally occur when reporters rely on stringers or alleged eyewitnesses." He thinks it is "shortsighted" for commanders to turn down reporter embeds.

Johnson said that the CPIC "tries to support what the commander wants, since they're fighting the war. We don't turn down embeds at all. When we get a request, it may be very specific or broader. We go to the unit involved. They manage their own embeds. We don't force them to take anyone; we're not going to force anyone to interact with media. We may offer advice and talk to them about their reasoning. In the end, we respect the wishes of the unit."

Reporters also complain that some commanders won't take reporters and try to manipulate coverage. Fainaru said he was refused embeds and that one commander put him under armed guard and had him removed from embedding because he didn't like a story Fainaru had written.

Joe Galloway, a legendary military correspondent who works in Knight Ridder's Washington bureau, said he was initially refused embeds as well. Galloway, co-author of a classic account of the Vietnam War, "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young," was offered embeds with logistics and support operations, when he wanted to be with combat troops. Galloway said that he told public affairs officers: "I've been covering the Marines for 41 years. I'll be happy to spend my whole time with the Army and I won't write the word 'Marine' in any story I do."

He ended up getting the embed assignments he wanted with the Marines and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "It was a horrendous situation, with the bad guys blowing up the police stations, beheading people and throwing their heads in the traffic circle. The Marines did a splendid job of restoring stability and security," he said of his experience in Tall Afar. Galloway said he felt much safer with the military than he did in Baghdad.

Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, now president of Klein Steel Service in Rochester, N.Y., was in Iraq until February 2005 and never turned down a reporter wanting to be embedded. He said that the stories those assignments generated were mostly "wonderful. You have to take a risk. We owe to the citizens of our country to tell them what is going on. You can't cover it from the Green Zone. I share everything with embeds. What we're after is balance. You have to open up; you're foolish not to. I never regretted taking them into my confidence."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has criticized press coverage; in a speech in December, he said: "We've arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press, and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact."

Citing polls by the Pew Research Center, Rumsfeld said the discontent was centered among what he described as the country's "elites." Asked about the likelihood of democracy taking hold in Iraq, he said, 63 percent of journalists polled and 71 percent of those in the foreign affairs establishment and in universities and think tanks predicted the effort would fail. By contrast, 64 percent of U.S. military personnel surveyed and 56 percent of the U.S. public were optimistic.

Hoffman's view: "Iraq is a country at war. We're stationed right in the middle of it. That's what we do, observe, describe, report. If we lived in a perfect world, we would see everything. You cover the war you got. The people who complain of the limitations ignore the reality of what courageous reporters do."

One critic of the coverage is John Dowd, a Washington lawyer: "I can't subscribe to your newspaper anymore because you have lost all sense of balance and perspective in your coverage of the war in Iraq and against the terrorists. It is clear to those of us who have our sons and daughters who are in harm's way that you support the terrorists and you are opposed to the efforts of our Marines, all who are sacrificing so that you are free to publish without interference."

Dowd's son Dan is a Marine captain, just back from his second tour as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. Dowd sees his son and other U.S. and Iraqi soldiers "as the most selfless people I've known in my life." I found his letter haunting; it pains me that he would think Post journalists support terrorists.