🚀 go-pugleaf

Lovely... I'm sure the millions of Iraqis (25% my ass!) with satellite
dishes will promptly overthrow Saddam... stick to radio, which the people
can actually hear if they want to...

"Poseidon 55" <posseidon55@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:rXhj7.44919$zP.3234706@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
> From: ricardo a gonzalez <ricardoa@bellsouth.net>
> Subject: Liberty TV - Radio Free Europe (RFE),
> Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 9:43 AM
>
> -------
> Satellite to beam anti-Saddam TV to Iraq
>
> Brian Whitaker
> Wednesday August 29, 2001
> The Guardian
>
> The US-sponsored propaganda war against Saddam Hussein will move into
space
> in the next few days when the first satellite TV channel run by Iraqi
> opposition groups starts broadcasting.
>
> Liberty TV aims to provide people close to the Baghdad regime with a
mixture
> of uncensored news, chat, music and - eventually - video footage filmed
> secretly inside the country.
>
> The channel has been set up by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an
> umbrella group for opposition movements funded by the United States.
>
> "There will be a 20-minute news bulletin - not just news about Iraq but
> things that might be of interest to the Iraqi people, or that might be
> censored," said the INC's communications adviser, Zaab Sethna.
>
> "There will also be a daily interview and either a chat section or a
> phone-in - though obviously the callers will have to be from outside Iraq.
> We have plans to show music videos by Iraqi artists, too."
>
> Transmissions will initially consist of an hour-long programme, repeated
> several times each evening.
>
> With 30 staff in the US and up to a dozen at its London studio, the
station
> is expected to cost �700,000 a year to run. A similar amount has been
spent
> on start-up costs.
>
> For its broadcasts, Liberty TV has rented a transponder on the Telstar 12
> satellite, owned by Loral Skynet, an American communications company. This
> will cost a further �900,000 a year.
>
> Funds were provided by the US Congress and are administered by the state
> department.
>
> The more dangerous second stage of the project, Mr Sethna added, will
> involve filming secretly inside Iraq.
>
> "We're training people to use Sony digital cameras, transfer the footage
on
> to a laptop and then send it back by satellite phone," he said.
>
> He admitted that Iraqis would not want to be interviewed, for fear of
> reprisals by the regime. "The aim is to collect footage that we can use in
> our programmes. Food queues, military sites, areas of deprivation, mass
> graves - that sort of thing."
>
> Radio programmes attacking the Bagdad regime have been broadcast for
several
> years by Radio Free Europe, also funded by Washington.
>
> But Mr Sethna argues that television is likely to have more impact, even
if
> it reaches a smaller audience.
>
> "People who have dishes in the regime-controlled part of Iraq are
generally
> influential - often connected with the power structure, like an army
> officer's family or a government official or a merchant," he said. "These
> are the people we have to reach to make a change in Iraq."
>
> About a quarter of the population in Iraqi cities are thought to have
access
> to satellite television. In the Kurdish north, access is higher - about
> 60% - but much lower in the Shi'ite south, at around 20%.
>
> Paul Goble, communications director of Radio Free Europe (RFE), said: "I
> think TV probably is the way of the future, but there are some problems.
>
> "If the Iraqi government discovers large numbers of people using satellite
> dishes for things it doesn't like I would expect some effort to make
people
> hand in their dishes. You can't have an action without a reaction.
>
> "With radio you can listen privately in your bedroom, but if you have to
> have a satellite dish outside it becomes a whole lot easier to track it
> down."
>
> He said RFE monitors the response to its radio broadcasts partly through
> criticism from Iraqi officials - "which is one measure of success".
>
> Special report: Iraq
>
> Special report: George Bush's America
>
> MediaGuardian.co.uk
>
> Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
>
>
>
>
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