Cablegate: Al-Baghdadiya Tv: Is the Former Iraqi Regime

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 004411

SIPDIS

E.0. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OPRC PREL KPAO EG IZ
SUBJECT: AL-BAGHDADIYA TV: IS THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME
BROADCASTING FROM CAIRO?

REF: FBIS REPORT GMP20050731542001 OF 31 JUL

LONDON FOR ARAB MEDIA UNIT

SENSITIVE

1. (U) This is a joint message with Embassy Amman and
Embassy Cairo.

2. (U) Summary. There are reports in Baghdad and Cairo
that members of Saddam's family, or at least unreformed
Saddam-era Ba'athists, may be using new satellite channel al-
Baghdadiya as a Trojan Horse to re-enter Iraqi politics.
The station's true backers and purpose still remain murky,
but it is relying substantially on expatriate talent groomed
under Saddam, who kept the media under the tight rein of his
family. While al-Baghdadiya's reporting on Iraq has been
factual -- and critical of Saddam -- the channel's
Ba'athist, anti-coalition themes bear close monitoring and
evaluation. End Summary.

3. (U) Beginning September 12, 2005, Iraqi newshounds had
a new option to track developments in their homeland, a
Sunni-flavored broadcast, beamed from Cairo via NileSat to
the Middle East and North Africa. Programming on the new
station - "Al-Baghdadiya" - is primarily entertainment
(mostly Egyptian), together with news reporting of Iraqi
politics and social issues. Al-Baghdadidya's field
correspondents (they have several across Iraq) come across
as professional and polished. The station's design graphics
and presentation are sophisticated, but not on a par with
other choices readily available to an Iraqi viewer: al-
Iraqiya, Ash-Sharqiya, or al-Hurra. The new station is well
below al-Jazeera's standard for both production values and
overall program variety.

4. (U) At its inauguration, Al-Baghdadiyah proclaimed that
it would be a transparent window on Iraq to promote
democracy: "the Iraqi citizen has the right to know all.
Let's take firm steps toward real democracy." Despite its
claim that "Al-Baghdadiya is yours, ask about it," there is
scant information available on the station's ownership.

Rumors of Links to Saddam's Family
-----------------------------------

5. (SBU) Embassy PA staffers confirm that Muhsin Al-Ali and
Faris Tuma al-Tamimi are the Al-Baghdadiya station managers
in Cairo and Baghdad, respectively. Al-Tamimi's office
recently advised Embassy Baghdad PA staffers that he would
meet with them upon his return from Cairo. Iraqi contacts
in both cities report that al-Ali and Al-Tamimi are wealthy
Iraqis who moved to Cairo years ago, with Al Tamimi now
commuting from there to Baghdad. Some contacts allege that
both have financial resources linked to their
(former/current?) ties to the former regime. Al-Ali,
reportedly, was the General Manager of Media and TV in the
Iraqi Ministry of Information and Culture under Saddam, and
Al-Tamimi is also reported to have had close ties to senior
Ba'athists.

6. (U) According to Embassy Cairo contacts, Arshad Tawfiq
is another al-Baghdadiya manager in Cairo, and Taleb Abdoon
is Cairo News Director. Before liberation, Abdoon was the
head of the Baghdad satellite channel; he left for Cairo as
the regime was crumbling. Tawfiq is a writer, a former
Ba'ath Party official, and was Iraq's ambassador to Spain.
Post-liberation, Tawfiq has called in pan-Arab media for
national reconciliation and for "former Ba'athists,
especially those who opposed former President Saddam
Hussein, to review the party's ideology and organization and
join the political process."

7. (SBU) Three fairly reliable contacts in Baghdad insist
that the new channel does get some funding from Ragad Saddam
Hussein (Saddam's daughter, who now lives in Amman) and from
Aoun Hussein (involved with Uday Saddam Hussein's cigarette
smuggling business during the embargo). Other contacts in
Egypt have said the station's real owner is Aoun Khashlouk
(who could also be Aoun Hussein), a wealthy entrepreneur in
Greece who reportedly exports cigarettes to the Middle East.
Iraqis in both Egypt and Iraq have confirmed to us that many
of al-Baghdadiya's announcers -- including Shamoon Mati and
Khadanfar Abd Al-Majeed --formerly worked at Al-Shabab
TV, owned by Uday.

8. (SBU) Whatever the true ownership, the new channel is
clearly connected to the Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Furat, as
both frequently cross-reference and recommend one another.
Al-Furat is also believed to have links to former Iraqi
Ba'ath Party officials. Chief Editor Shakir al-Juburi was
Paris correspondent for the al-Zaman newspaper and for Free
Iraq Radio before 2003. Neither Baghdad nor FBIS as yet
know much about the identity of Al-Furat's owners -- beyond
masthead claims that it is published by "Al-Furat Company
for Advertising, Publishing, Distribution, and Printing."

Anti-Saddam, Anti-Coalition, Pro-Ba'ath Message?
--------------------------------------------- ---
9. (U) Al-Baghdadiya Director Tawfiq claimed at an
inaugural event in Cairo last month that "the channel is
financed purely by Iraqis," saying it "supports freedom" but
opposes "dictatorship and occupation." The day it first
aired, the station showed footage of wounded Iraqis in
hospitals, Saddam's statue toppling, and US soldiers, tanks,
and warplanes, noting: "We should stop the bloodshed. The
age of dictators is over; it's time to move beyond
occupation." The channel routinely refers to coalition
forces in Iraq as occupiers and to victims of the coalition
as "martyrs." Iraqi militants are generally referred to as
"armed men," not "terrorists" or insurgents. The channel
takes a hardline view of Israel, but does not devote much
airtime to Arab-Israeli issues. On October 12, it aired a
program called "Egyptian Spy: Agent 1001 Trains before His
Mission to Israel."

10. (SBU) Al-Baghdadiya's message parallels old Ba'athist
precepts, advocating Iraqi national unity and drawing
speakers from all sects, ethnic groups, and religions. It
is also largely secular. While airing Koran readings and
sermon excerpts, it does not broadcast entire sermons, as
some Iraqi channels do. Sermon excerpts -- both Sunni and
Shia -- highlight themes of national unity; many call on
Iraqis to unite against the occupation. The station gave
coverage to Iraqi Islamic Party speakers airing concerns in
the run-up to the constitutional referendum.

Neutral Coverage of Saddam Trial
--------------------------------

11. (U) Al-Baghdadiya ran less live footage of Saddam's
trial on October 19 than did other Iraqi stations, but
carried the trial as the lead item in newscasts: "Two years
after his arrest, Saddam Hussein and seven others ...
appeared before a special tribunal ... accused of crimes
against humanity for killing over 140 men from the city of
Al-Dujayl ... after a botched attempt to assassinate Saddam
Hussein." The station also aired varied reactions of Iraqi
viewers: "the trial should not be politicized;" "Saddam
should not be tried while Iraq is still occupied;" "Saddam
is still Iraq's President;" "the trial is the best thing
that happened since the Americans came;" and "the death
penalty is lenient compared to Saddam's tyranny."

Comment
-------

12. (SBU) Embassies contributing to this report will
continue to monitor al-Baghdadiya. It clearly has an anti-
coalition, anti-Israel bias, but does not cross the line to
incitement of violence. Its news coverage is mostly
factual. Its secular programming and themes of national
unity are wholly in keeping with Ba'athist norms, and there
is an apparent effort to distance the station from the
person of Saddam. If Tawfiq's comments are an accurate
guide, al-Baghdadiya is trying to revive old-school
Ba'athist ideology to rally Iraq's secular Sunni community,
while also tapping into strong anti-coalition sentiment
among the Sunni populace.

13. (SBU) Rumors of Ragad's backing for the station may be
just so much conspiracy theory from Baghdad's Shia/Kurd-
dominant salons; facts likely will only emerge with time.
It seems unlikely however, that she would defend her father
in a post-trial interview on al-Jazeera while giving money
to a station that labels him a dictator.

14. (SBU) It is also difficult to evaluate the objectives
of the many exiled Ba'athists who have been reported to be
linked to the new station, because their ideologies may be
as disparate as their geographic distribution, and because
Iraqis are so polarized on the issue of de-Ba'athification.
One liberal intellectual told us that all Ba'athists have
jettisoned Saddam publicly by now, and that al-Baghdadidya's
overall theme masks a pan-Arab agenda out of synch with a
"positive democratic future for Iraq." Shia and Kurdish
contacts, and a few other non-sectarian ones, say that they
largely ignore the channel or scorn it as "Ba'athist," while
Sunni opinion is extremely difficult to gauge. As with so
many things Iraqi: what you believe depends on who you are
and where you come from. Al-Baghdadiya is just the latest,
but perhaps most interesting, manifestation of Iraq's wide
open media scene.

Satterfield

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