EMBEDMENT EXPERIMENT

To manage the news during the war in Iraq, the Pentagon tried out a novel system with a strange name. The “embedment” of news people seems to have worked reasonably well.

After the disastrous Vietnam War, many leading officers vowed that never again would they give reporters and photographers the run of the battlefield. Some even blamed the media’s graphic portrayal of wounded American servicemen, the Napalming of civilians and the torching of thatched peasant houses for turning the public against the war.

Then came a series of small conflicts in which news coverage was limited to small pools that saw little action. The restrictive policy left the public uninformed and concealed some military blunders such as the invasion of Grenada in 1983. Coverage of the first Persian Gulf War was again by pool, mainly at military headquarters, and provided scant news of Iraqi military and civilian casualties. The U.S. military liked being shielded from nosy reporters, but the public was ill served and news organizations rightly complained.

This time, the Pentagon decided to place 500 or more news correspondents with the U.S. forces, after brief training courses. Their close view of much of the action and high-tech communications provided an unprecedented flow of real-time snapshots of aspects of the three-week invasion, although hardly a comprehensible understanding of the entire conflict. Living with the troops, reporters and photographers tended to be sympathetic and understanding. One officer predicted accurately that the Stockholm syndrome would set in, a reference to close friendships that developed between hostages and their captors in a Swedish bank robbery.

The system led to some serious gaps in coverage, however. Few details were given about Iraqi military or civilian casualties. Reports of several incidents of “friendly fire” casualties seemed inadequate. Operations near the Syrian border, where no reporters were permitted, went almost completely uncovered. Grumbling by field officers about shortages of troops and supplies in the hasty advance to Baghdad were probably exaggerated. Headquarters officers rightly observed that forces and reporters in the field were getting only a narrow “soda-straw view” and didn’t see the big picture.

On balance, the embedment of news people should be considered a limited success, especially in a swift, tactically successful U.S. military campaign with few American casualties against an enemy that unexpectedly turned out to be weak and poorly led.