User:Crtew/Waleed Khaled

Waleed Khaled, sometimes transliterated as Waleed Khalid or Walid Khalid, (April 20, 1972 – August 28, 2005), an Iraqi journalist and sound technician for the Reuters Group news organization during the Iraq War, was killed by US soldiers in the Hay al-Adil district of West Baghdad. His death sparked a debate between Reuters and the US Department of Defense, which prompted it to conduct a full, independent inquiry.

Personal
Waleed Khaled was born in Baghdad, Iraq on April 20, 1972, and was the eldest son in a large family. Together with wife Randa Khaled had two children; daughter Heba and a son Khaled Waleed. He was killed before the birth of his son, who was named in his memory. Described as “jovial” and well-known throughout the community, around 200 relatives, friends and colleagues assembled in the west end of Baghdad for his funeral and burial on Sunday, August 29, 2005, they day after his death.

Career
Up until the end of Saddam Hussein's reign of power in 2003, Khaled had trained as a military engineer in the Iraqi Army, and obtained the rank of major. For extra income he also worked in the motor trade industry. When the Iraqi Army was disbanded in 2003, Khaled became a driver for Reutgers. He also began to work for Reutgers as a sound technician and a journalist, and continued on this career path for the 2 years until he was killed in 2005.

Death
On August 28, 2005, at around 11:20am local time (0720 GMT), Waleed Khaled drove to investigate a confrontation involving police officers and insurgents in western Baghdad near the Umm al-Qura Mosque. Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim of the Ghazaliyah police said the report was called in to the Reuters bureau by a police source, and Khaled was the first of two teams of journalists to reach the site.

He was driving an unmarked four-door sedan, described as a "white saloon car" while 24 year-old cameraman Haider Kadhem rode in the passenger seat. The car was not marked “press” due to worries that Iraqi insurgents were targeting reporters, Reuters spokesperson Schlesinger said. When Khaled began to approach the site, he saw US Troops on the scene begin to draw weapons and open fire in the direction of the vehicle. The soldiers went on firing as Khaled, to show he posed no threat, reversed the car. Witnesses and ballistic evidence indicated that some of the 18 bullets to hit the car had been fired after it came to a halt. Entry and exit wounds could be seen on the Khaled’s face, indicating shots from the victim's right. There were several bullet holes in the windshield, and at least four wounds in the chest. His U.S. military and Reuters press cards, clipped to his shirt, were caked in blood. In his press pass badge there were two bullet holes.

Kadhem suffered only minor injuries from flying metal and glass fragments, because Khaled instructed him to lower himself into the well of the car upon the firing of the initial shots, which likely saved the cameraman’s life. For 10 hours, U.S. officers said they could not trace Kadhem. Finally a spokesman from the US troops on site, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Whetstone, said he was being held at an unspecified location. His "superficial" wound had been treated "on location", he said. Kadhem was held for an additional three days before being released from US custody for questioning. He declined to specify any suspicions or accusations against the cameraman, who was based in the southern city of Samawa, Iraq, and had been in Baghdad only two days on a brief assignment. He was dispatched to the scene of the incident by senior Reuters staff.

Another statement released on behalf of the U.S. soldiers who fired shots at Khaled and Kadhem said that reasonably responded to what they thought was a threat, because they believed they were in imminent danger of a likely suicide bomb attack. The troops uphold that the logic behind their decision to fire upon the vehicle was that it was traveling at a fast speed, it was unmarked, and that a person or multiple people were hanging out of the car, with objects in their hands. The soldiers said they thought Kadhem's palm-held camera might have been a grenade launcher, but were not sure. Soldiers positioned more than 200 meters away thought they saw someone leaning out of the car with a rocket propelled grenade, according to the U.S. military. Without confirming what they thought they saw by using binoculars, the soldiers fired on the car, killing Khaled. The troops reported that they had to think and act quickly and decided to engage the vehicle. Kadhem insists he never put the camera out of the window but filmed through the car’s windshield. The US military confiscated his camera after the shooting. Footage shown to Reuters staff before the tape disappeared showed no frames shot from outside the car.

Two Iraqi colleagues who arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting were briefly detained and released: "They treated us like dogs. They made us ... including Kadhem who was wounded and asking for water, sit in the sun on the road," one said. Before he was taken away, the cameraman was able to tell colleagues what had occurred. When an American journalist working for Reuters, managed to get to the scene with a British security adviser, he found the Americans laughing and joking around Waleed's body. The security adviser said it was apparent to him that the American troops wanted to clear away any evidence before there could be an outside inquiry. He said what was most worrying was that the unit did not seem to care that they had shot dead an innocent civilian. Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy, who arrived at the scene about an hour after the shooting, said the soundman's body was still in the driver's seat, the face covered by a cloth. To the right of the scene, a U.S. soldier, apparently a sniper, was posted on the roof of a shopping center. A British security adviser working for Reuters said it seemed likely that high-velocity rounds had been fired at the car from roughly the direction of that building.

U.S. armored vehicles blocked off the scene. After a brief inspection of the car, soldiers said there were no suspicious items found, and the vehicle and body were released to Khaled's family. They allowed Reuters staff and the Khaled family to tow the car and carry away his body for burial. Colleagues and relatives were handed a military body bag to remove the corpse. When a few of Khaled's relatives approached his body at the scene, with permission, to see his condition, a U.S. soldier commented to them: "Don't bother. It's not worth it."

Context
Iraqis complain frequently about U.S. troops firing at civilians near checkpoints and other locations, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he had raised the issue with American authorities. However, often killings of civilians by U.S. forces go unreported and uninvestigated. American commanders say their troops are trained to be vigilant against suicide bombers and to avoid firing on civilians. U.S. officials blame the problem on a rise in suicide car bombings that have killed dozens of American troops in recent months.

Schlesinger, spokesman for Reuters said, “our main concern is that the training given to the US military does not appear to identify that the car coming towards you with Iraqis in it could be filled with journalists. That’s a big concern because Reuters everywhere in the world employs local journalists as full staffers. The most important thing is an immediate, impartial public investigation which makes very clear why they were fired upon and for the military to draw the necessary lessons. Schlesinger's letter said: "It appears as though the U.S. forces in Iraq either completely misunderstand the role of professional journalists or do not know how to deal with journalists in a conflict zone, or both." Iraq has proven to be a particularly hazardous posting for journalists. More media workers were killed there in the first two-and-a-half years of the Iraq War (leading up to the date of Khaled’s death) than during the two-decades-long Vietnam War. And 15 have died at the hands of American forces. American firepower has been the second-leading cause of the fatalities (after death at the hands of the insurgents). The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists lists 13 journalists and two media assistants killed by U.S. forces. The fighting in Iraq has witnessed a heavy dependency on assistants, especially Iraqis and other Arab nationals, who often are on the firing line when it is considered too dangerous for Western correspondents to venture out.

As risks for Western correspondents intensified, many media outlets turned to Iraqis and other Arab journalists who knew the territory, spoke the language and could melt into a crowd in dangerous places like Basra and Fallujah. But for them, there is another set of obstacles. According to CPJ reports, the locals are vulnerable to being detained, sometimes for weeks or months at a time without charges, by U.S. guards at checkpoints or while on the scene of a breaking story. If they arrive at a suicide bombing or attack against coalition forces too quickly, they are likely to be suspected of knowing about the episode ahead of time, being part of the insurgency or passing intelligence to the enemy. In May 2005, CPJ called on the U.S. military to explain the detentions, noting that there had been no substantiation of claims that Iraqi journalists collaborate with insurgents. The casualty list also shows that many have been killed in their hometowns by locals who took issue with their reporting or sought to punish them for cooperating with foreigners.

Impact
Khaled’s military instincts, career experience as an authority figure in other fields during his lifetime, and his charismatic personality made him a natural leader for field crews working in increasingly dangerous conditions in his homeland of Iraq during an era when factional conflict was pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Waleed Khaled was the fourth Reuters journalist to die in Iraq, likely killed by American soldiers. Reuters raised its protest to a new level, commissioning an independent investigation which contradicted the report from the US military, (that defended the actions of the troops involved) concluding that the soldiers breached their rules of engagement and acted unlawfully. Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.

Reactions
On August 31, 2005, just three days after Khaled’s death, Kōichirō Matsuura, The Director-General of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, spoke out against the incident, announcing that he “deplored the killing of Reuters sound engineer Waleed Khaled … and the injuries inflicted on his colleague Haider Kadhem.” The Director-General added, "despite the tense security situation in Iraq, it is paramount that all those willing to help establish democracy in Iraq be mindful of the right of the media to exercise their profession freely. I trust that the ongoing U.S. investigation will explain the circumstances of events fully and pave the way for improvements in the future. This is essential as the ability of the press to report freely on the situation in Iraq plays a key role in the future success of the democratic reconstruction of the country."

The National Press Photographers Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Reuters Group and other media and press freedom organizations united their efforts in the attempt to have the United States military explain immediately and fully provide details surrounding the shooting attack on Reuters journalists Waleed Khaled and Haider Kadhem.

The International Federation of Journalists took notice that Khaled’s killing brought the death toll of journalists and media staff killed by US troops since the beginning of the Iraq War to 18, and voiced concern and a call for action in 2003. General Secretary Aidan White of the IFJ wrote to the United Nations, demanding an independent inquiry into the events leading to the death of Khaled and those in Iraq before him, after the US released it’s report calling Khaled’s shooting “justified.” White said in his letter that the number of “unexplained killings by US military personnel is unacceptable … media organizations and journalists’ families face a wall of silence and an unfeeling bureaucracy that refuses to give clear and credible answers.”

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