US Admits Killing Reuters Cameraman
8-18-03


(AFP) -- The US military has acknowledged its troops in Iraq killed a
Reuters cameraman in Iraq, saying they thought his camera was a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Navy Captain Frank Thorp, a spokesman for the chairman of the joint
chiefs of staff, has given the explanation to Reuters in Washington.

Forty-three-year-old cameraman Mazen Dana was shot and killed on
Sunday while filming near a US-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Witnesses say he was shot by soldiers on an American tank.

Meanwhile, a former US diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war has
described US President George W. Bush as a "very weak" man led by the
hand into battle by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Brady Kiesling, who was political counsellor at the US embassy in
Athens at the time of his resignation in February, said in an open
letter published by Greek daily To Vima today that Rumsfeld exploited
the war to increase his own power.

Kiesling - whose warning that US aims in Iraq were "incompatible with
American values" struck a chord with the predominantly anti-war Greeks
- described Bush as "a politician who badly wants to appear strong but
in reality is very weak".

He said Rumsfeld led Bush by the hand into war, marginalised the
secret services who had doubts about the war, and emerged as the top
politician in Washington.

"Easy to convince, (Bush) blindly believed in Rumsfeld's assurances
that the occupation of Iraq would pay for itself," Kiesling said.

"The longer we remain in Iraq, the more the resistance to the American
presence is going to be a source of legitimacy for the extremists," he
said. He called for an expanded role for the United Nations and the
European Union in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Kiesling said he regretted that US intelligence services had not
spoken out about untruths concerning Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, which he added had humiliated the United States and
damaged its closest ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.