AF facilitates media trip to Iraq

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.af.mil/stories/story.asp?storyID=123005949

11/4/2003 - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM (AFPN) -- In an unprecedented move, the Air Force facilitated a trip into Iraq for Arab media representatives from Great Britain recently. Four Arab journalists were met in Kuwait by two Air Force public affairs escorts and flown by a C-130 Hercules to Basra and Baghdad, then back to Kuwait.

The journalists included Ja’afar al-Ahmer from the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al Hayat, and Yuri Hussein from the London bureau of the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram. Also included were Essam Abdullah, political editor for al-Majallah Magazine and Khalid Kishtainy, an Iraqi author and columnist for the Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Also on the trip were Ambassador Mark Hambley, director of the media outreach center for the U.S. Embassy in London; and William Morris, secretary general of The Next Century Foundation. The foundation is an organization established in Britain to promote peace and understanding between nations in the Middle East.

The trip was coordinated with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, the U.S. Air Force, British military forces and the U.S. Army. It offered an opportunity for the group to learn about progress in Iraq in both Basra and Baghdad, and allowed the reporters a chance to see firsthand the work being done by coalition forces in the country, officials said.
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Wow! Sounds like fair and balanced to me!

The "minders" never left Iraq. They just changed faces.