Reporters Warned to Leave Baghdad

Defense Department officials are warning reporters to clear out of Baghdad, saying this war will be far more intense than the 1991 gulf war. "If your template is Desert Storm, you've got to imagine something much, much different," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon says it is warning journalists in the interest of their safety, but some critics see the heads-up as an attempt to control the news, with the goal of minimizing politically damaging images of suffering Iraqi civilians. "It's not a friendly warning," said John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War. "They don't want witnesses. The information-control game is all about keeping people back home uninformed so they don't question the policy. And the first thing to make you question a policy is casualties."