"This is how they like it..."

Robert Fisk reports on the crisis of information in Baghdad:

"As in Afghanistan, so in Iraq. US air strikes are becoming 'uncoverable', as the growing insurgencies across the two countries make more and more highways too dangerous for foreign correspondents. Senior US journalists claim that Washington is happy with this situation; bombing wedding parties and claiming the victims were terrorists--as has happened three times in a year--doesn't make good headlines. Reporters can't be blamed for not travelling--but they ought to make it clear that a Baghdad dateline gives no authenticity to their work. Fallujah is only 25 miles from Baghdad but it might as well be 2,500 miles away. Reports of its suffering could be written in Hull for all the reliability they convey.

Here, then, is the central crisis of information in Iraq just now. With journalists confined to Baghdad--several have not left their hotels for more than two weeks--a bomb-free day in the capital becomes a bomb-free day in Iraq..."