Tutwiler's mission impossible

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The shameful pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners were the final straw for Margaret D. Tutwiler. Moved out of her post as ambassador to Morocco last December to become undersecretary of state for public affairs, Miss Tutwiler was instructed to spruce up the Bush administration's image in the Arab world in particular and the Muslim world in general.

It took her only four months to conclude this was mission impossible. She was the third "image" czarina to come a cropper in three years. Competing against the Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Dubai-based Al Arabiya and their coverage of the occupation of Iraq gave Miss Tutwiler about the same chance of success as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

The U.S.-funded Al Hurra channel ($60 million seed money plus $40 million added by Congress to reach 80 percent of Iraq's population with over-air transmitters) quickly lost its luster with the siege of Fallujah seen from inside the city on rival networks. The final straw for U.S. credibility were still pictures of the sadistic indignities inflicted by American military policemen on some of the 4,000 prisoners in Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison that previously contained Saddam Hussein's torture chambers.

Under an $82.3 million contract awarded to San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), the Iraqi Media Network, a second U.S. venture dubbed Al Iraqiya, took over the former regime's state-owned television network.

But even before Fallujah and the incriminating pictures, the network was struggling against Iran-sponsored networks that moved into Iraq as soon as the Saddam Hussein regime fell -- lock, stock and satellite networks.

For the past year, Al Jazeera -- later joined by Al Arabiya -- broadcast 24/7 in Arabic and blanketed the Arab world from Marrakech to Muscat. They have long supplanted CNN, FOX, CBNC and the venerable BBC (the Beeb) and offer unrelenting video of "collateral" damage in the form of dead women and children, or women and children alive but bleeding from wounds inflicted by U.S. bombs and bullets. Their people-in-the-street interviews recount hair-raising tales of American cruelty juxtaposed with U.S. soldiers breaking into homes and finding nothing except terrified women and children.

An American female soldier mugging for the camera as she pointed to the genitals of a hooded Iraqi in the buff established Al Jazeera's credentials in the Arab world as the voice of truth.

These Arabic channels have some 40 crews between them and staff every major city. From inside Fallujah, besieged by U.S. Marines, they broadcast live from bombed-out buildings, damaged mosques and an overcrowded hospital.

Al Jazeera receives videotapes from time to time from Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri, which they edit before airing. U.S. requests for the original, uncut, raw tapes go unanswered.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has appealed directly to the rulers of Qatar to curb the excesses of Al Jazeera, the network the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, launched with a $90 million subsidy. But the emir keeps repeating he believes in freedom of the press and Al Jazeera enjoys total freedom.