Iraq Media Developments

The man, described as a captured insurgent, is making a public confession on a TV program on Iraq's government-run al-Iraqiya television station called "Terror in the Hands of Justice." Twice daily, Iraqis watch fascinated as a procession of alleged Islamist guerrillas reveal the details of terrorist operations on what can be described as an Iraqi variation on "America's Most Wanted." One man said he had stalked 10 college girls who were translators for the U.S. Army, then rped them and killed all of them. Another described how he had beheaded several hostages after first practicing on animals.

The program has a double aim of showing Iraqis their tax dollars at work: in other words, Iraq's security services making headway in combating the mainly Sunni Muslim insurgency. The second aim is to undermine the mystique of a sinister force that had spread terror among ordinary Iraqis, and to embolden people to come forward with information.

In the early shows the prisoners were non-Iraqi mujaheddin from other Arab countries who claimed to have crossed into Iraq from Syria to fight in the insurgency. But more recently "Terror in the Hands of Justice" has focussed on Iraqis, showing mostly petty criminals who claimed to have been lured into the insurgency with promises of payment for taking part in kidnappings and guerrilla operations.

A report in Thursday's Financial Times said the television program has discredited the mujaheddin and their professions of religious fervor by showing captured insurgents who said they were homosexuals -- still not a socially acceptable group in much of the Middle East. As a result, the word mujahid "once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has become street slang for homosexuals," the paper reported. Some of the captured guerrillas confessed to holding gay orgies. Recently, Abu Tabarek, a preacher, confessed that insurgents had held morally deviant parties in his mosques.

Few Iraqis seem to doubt the program's authenticity. Iraqis have actually recognized individual prisoners as their attackers, or even as former friends and acquaintances. Western reporters who have watched the filming of segments of the show noted that several of the prisoners were badly bruised, and some observers have suggested that members of the tough "Wolf Brigade," the newly formed Iraqi anti-terrorist unit, were not too gentle in their interrogation and may have encouraged the insurgents to color their stories.

The practice of parading prisoners to make public confessions that may have been extracted with the use of force is way out of line with international standards of justice. The fact that televised confessions are familiar to Iraqis from the Saddam Hussein regime makes some Iraqis uneasy, but also -- ironically -- makes the shows more plausible.

It is also compulsive viewing. Simon Haselock, a British media expert who is helping the Iraqis set up broadcasting systems, told the BBC, "We have to understand where they're coming from." It was important, he said, "to draw the right balance between the independent, professional public approach that we would be familiar with, and the understandable urge by people here to see retribution for things that have been done to them."

One indication of the program's effectiveness is the anger of many Sunnis at the way "Terror in the Hands of Justice" holds up the insurgency to public ridicule. Even Sunnis who are not necessarily supporters of armed opposition to the United States and the fledgling Iraqi government object to the insurgents being portrayed as bloodthirsty, corrupt, venal, morally deviant, and religiously hypocritical. Some senior Sunni politicians are pressing the government to take the show off the air, claiming that it is divisive. Reports say the producers are sympathetic, but put forward two arguments for keeping it on. Firstly, it has made Iraqis less fearful of retaliation if they come forward with information about insurgent suspects. Secondly, it has something television executives dream of: it's a hit.