...As we approach the likelihood of a new Gulf War, I have an idea and it occurs to me that the Digital Journalist may be the place for it. As we all know, the military pool system created then was meant to be, and was, a major impediment for photojournalists in their quest to communicate the realities of war (This fact does not diminish the great efforts, courage, and many important images created by many of my colleagues who participated in these pools.). Aside from that, while you would have a very difficult time finding an editor of an American publication today that wouldn't condemn this pool system and its restrictions during the Gulf War, most publications and television entities more or less bought the program before the war began (this reality has been far less discussed than the critiques of the pools themselves).
I refused to participate in the pool system. I was in the Gulf for many weeks as the build-up of troops took place, and then sat out the "air war", and flew from Paris to Riyadh as soon as the ground war began. I arrived at the "mile of death" the morning of the day the war stopped. It was very early in the morning and very few other journalists were present and the military had not yet to have the time to attempt to barricade access to this scene (they would try to do so a short time later that morning). When I arrived at the scene of this incredible carnage, strewn all over on this mile stretch were cars and trucks with wheels still turning, radios still playing, and there were bodies scattered everywhere. Many people have asked the question "how many people died" during the war with Iraq and the question has never been well answered. That first morning, before the military could cordon off the area and the road, and before most other witnesses arrived, I saw and photographed the 'graves detail' bury in large graves many, many bodies. By noon that first day, most of the bodies were already buried, and the the road block preventing other journalists from arriving at the scene was dropped.
I don't recall ever seeing television images of the human consequences of this scene, or for that matter many photographs published. A day later, I came across another scene on an obscure road further north and to the east where, in the middle of the desert, I found a convoy of lorries transporting Iraqi soldiers back to Baghdad, where clearly massive fire power had been dropped and everyone in sight had been carbonized. Most of the photographs I made of this scene have never been published anywhere and this has always troubled me.
As we approach the distinct possibility of another war, a thought comes to mind. The photographs that I made do not, in themselves, represent any personal political judgment or point of view with respect to the politics and the right or wrong of the first Gulf War. What they do represent is a part of a more accurate picture of what really does happen in war. I feel it is important and that citizens have the right to see these images. This is not to communicate my point of view, but so viewers as citizens can be offered a better opportunity to consider the whole picture and consequences of that war and any war. I feel that it is part of my role as a photojournalist to offer the viewer the opportunity to draw from as much information as possible, and develop his or her own judgment....
<http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_intro.html>
[You can access Peter Turnley's photographs of the Unseen Gulf War, with his accompanying text, at <http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt01.html>.] -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>