Media Research Centre
Sky TV's Chater informed FNC anchor Shepard Smith, as transcribed by MRC analyst Patrick Gregory: “It was always difficult talking to anybody who was not being controlled in the way that we were. We had minders literally listening in to us. There was always a tightrope you were walking. You had to have their cooperation in order to go out and see what we had to see. But at the same time they were controlling you very carefully, they were always monitoring what you were saying....
“There were people whipping up support for President Saddam Hussein in front of your cameras everywhere you went. But we had to abide by those rules, we had to walk that tightrope all the time. Because otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here now, celebrating the fact the Americans have arrived; the Iraqi authorities would have thrown me out long ago. A lot of my colleagues have suffered that fate. It’s been a dreadful time walking on broken glass for so long. But we’ve managed to come through with only a few cuts and bruises....
“We were always having to give the Iraqi government’s point of view, that if you go to one of the areas where there’d been a battle, they’d always point out one thing -- that there were civilian casualties.
I knew full well that we were only given access to some of these areas when they cleared away the evidence of the military targets that had been in that district in those areas. And there were many times I went down the road and I could see exactly what was happening; I wasn’t allowed to film it....”
