Laith Mushtaq, Al Jazeera Cameraman - Interviewed by Amy Goodman

AMY GOODMAN: Laith Mushtaq, you were the cameraman that Ahmed is describing, holding your camera. When did you get to Fallujah?

LAITH MUSHTAQ: We went to Fallujah, I think, it was the 3rd of April. We went to Fallujah, and we were able to enter Fallujah before it was completely besieged. After we entered the city and before the siege took place, our feeling has become more eminent of responsibility, because there was no press there in the city. First, my going to Fallujah was voluntarily on my part as a photographer, and we were asked who was willing to go to Fallujah, so I did that, because I'm keen to transfer and report and picture and photograph. And secondly, I was anxious to work with Mr. Ahmed Mansur, because he is a prominent journalist in the Arab world, and it was my first experience to work with him in Fallujah.

When we entered Fallujah and the siege started of Fallujah, we were doing some consultative meetings as a team, that we distribute the duties amongst ourselves, and how we will move and go around because we were in a very difficult situation. The area we were in was the closest to the U.S. forces, because we were besieged, and we were able to move only for one day during the daytime. And we left and photographed after the clashes, and we tried to take pictures of the aftermath rampage.

And the first shot I took with my camera and the first photo as, Ahmed remembers, it was for a human being fired or burned completely. He was a wounded person. His family were transferring him to a hospital, which was close to the U.S. forces position, and it had the Red Crescent symbol and the Red Cross, because they put him in a pickup, so they put him in the outside in the pickup, and that was under fire. And I saw this person, the wounded person is torched, fired, burned. Even smoke was coming out of him. I was unable to go and see that scenery.

I left him to go alone, and I stood far, and my sight was really bad and terrible because on that day, when we went to the hospital, there was a lot of children in the hospital that were wounded. Some children were brought, and their families were dead already. Their fathers and parents were not accompanying them. That day made a terrible shock to me and shocked me extremely. I covered many wars, but every time you cover a war and you see corpses and dead people and children, believe me, every children I looked at, I remember my younger daughter.

I'm sorry, but in the end, I am a human being, and I have children. Every time I look at a wounded girl or who lost her family or is killed, I always remember my own little daughter. And I remember that I have to be here to protect those children. I have to report this to the whole world, so that the killing of all these children will stop, and all these vulnerable and simple people. This feeling destroyed myself, destroyed me completely. And I was overwhelmed, and I tried to separate between my career and my humanity, but sometimes I could not do that.

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AMY GOODMAN: We return to our interview with Al Jazeera's Ahmed Mansur and his cameraman Laith Mushtaq that we conducted in Doha, Qatar earlier this month. The two reported from inside Fallujah during the first U.S. siege of the city in April 2004, one of the bloodiest assaults of the occupation, 30 U.S. Marines and some 600 Iraqis killed. This is their first time speaking out about their experience in Fallujah. The interview is translated by Al Jazeera's Ali Matar. Laith Mushtaq, the cameraman, continues to tell the story.

LAITH MUSHTAQ: This was the first day. I stayed until the end of the siege of Fallujah. I left on the 10th, and I came back on the 12th, and I stayed inside the city. The 9th, which Ahmed spoke about, was similar to the day of judgment in Fallujah. It was a very harsh day, very hard, because we were coming out from a terrible experience of the two days of the siege. The first day of the siege -- the first two days, rather, we were unable to go even to the bathroom, because in Fallujah, the city is West Iraq, the bathroom is usually outside the rooms, so whenever we opened the door to go to the bathroom, we see the laser pointed at us, the sniper guns, and there's only 50 meters between us and them. Even some tapes, I photographed them from a window, and they were moving around in the street.

When we went to the hospital and reached the hospital, you cannot even imagine what my feeling was. First of all, I'm a human being. Second, I see corpses of children. I feel a responsibility, that a photographer or as a team, the only one here working, we are the only one who will write the history of what happened, and that's a great burden, and I was really tired. Ahmed was tired. The whole team was tired, but at the same time, who will photograph these people? And it was really amazing. The pictures come one after another.

I saw myself a lady -- I was sitting to smoke for a moment, and I saw an elderly lady coming with her children, going in a big truck to leave Fallujah or try to leave Fallujah. After a quarter of an hour, she came back as pieces, and even people, the -- when they opened the ambulance and I was photographing that, the minute the medics saw the body, they took us back stand from the gruesomeness of the scenery. One of them, I remember, was standing by. He said, in typical a Iraqi dialect, he said, "Be brave. Be honorable people. Imagine this is your mom. Will you leave her alone? Will you abandon her?" So people took her, and they tried to bury her.

The same day, I saw -- I'm sorry, after three days, it was the most difficult scene for me in my whole life. In Fallujah was the family of Hamiz. Hamiz is a person living in the neighborhood of al-Julan, which the U.S. forces tried to penetrate into it to go to the heart of the city. The family of Hamiz were gathered in the house of Hamiz, his sister and their family and their daughters. There was about four families in one place, children and ladies and women. Usually men leave to leave the -- some privacy for the children and the ladies. The planes bombed this house, as they did for the whole neighborhood, and they brought the corpses and bodies to the hospital. I went to the hospital. I could not see anything but like a sea of corpses of children and women, and mostly children, because peasants and farmers have usually a lot of children. So, these were scenes that are unbelievable, unimaginable.

I was taking photographs and forcing myself to photograph, while I was at the same time crying, because I used to move the camera from one picture of a child to the father Hamiz, who was still the only one left alone from that family. He was speaking with his children, and they had an infant, and the children was named Ahmed. He used to speak to him, so he used to use a nickname Hamudi as a nickname for Ahmed. So he used to talk to this child who was sleeping, and in his hand was a toy of a shape of a car. Half his head was gone. So he used to speak to him, "Come back, my beloved. Come to my lap. I am your father," and talking to the other daughter. I could not really find any one human being in one piece or intact. They were cut up. It's bombing of airplanes. You can imagine what could happen. It was a very saddening scene.

At the same time, I say it honestly and frankly, that people were there feeling a lot of responsibility. I did not see the civilians with this high spirit. There was no armed people or military, but the people were really strong. I think that we, the people of the city -- I am from Baghdad and from a known family. We used to imagine that we, the people of the urban cities, are more cultured, more educated, and we have prestigious personality. I saw some examples of Fallujah, of the people present at the time, that I’m just a small student, in patience, in dealing in a cooperative manner. A woman leaves the city of Fallujah to cook some food for the wounded.

The scene that’s really amazing was one man, an elderly, he was -- his back was leaning forward. His job was, because of the targeting of the ambulances from the U.S. forces, whenever an ambulance goes to move the wounded, there was firing on the ambulances. He used to leave at night, and he's 65 years old. He used to go to the bodies and try to move the bodies. He may even spend a whole night to pull one wounded person, and he will move this body to put it in the car and to come to the middle of the city, according to Islamic traditions, that he will be wrapped in clothing and be buried as a sign of respect.

And by the way, as my colleague Ahmed said, the stadium of soccer became a graveyard, but at the same time, in Hay Nazzal, the neighborhood of Nazzal, which is adjacent to the area, people also were buried in their own homes, in the gardens of their houses. A man would leave to take a sneak peek to see a safe place that he can go into, and the sniper shoots him, and he falls dead. Nobody was daring to leave outside, so they would pull them from their legs and dig in the ground and bury them. Therefore, after the battle, many of the people of Fallujah dug again in their own houses and took the bodies to the graveyard.

I saw a child. I even forgot to tell you this, Mr. Ahmed. I saw a woman in the Hai [inaudible], or the industrial neighborhood, under the control of the U.S. forces, had an infant. She's breast-feeding him. The baby died maybe because he's sick or other reason. They were forbidden from leaving and to go to the city. She is the wife of a guard who used to work in one of the plants in the neighborhood. I even saw leftovers of food of the U.S. forces, and I photographed that. After that, when I was able to reach the area, her son died, and they asked to go to the heart of the city to bury him in a graveyard. They said, "No. You cannot leave this place. There are battles taking place." So they buried their own infant daughter in the plant. And I saw the hole that this child was buried in.

And another thing, when I left Fallujah, our office in Baghdad, our bureau in Baghdad, took an initiative to cover both sides, so the U.S. forces requested that a photographer and journalist go with the U.S. forces, with the besieging forces of Fallujah. I went for a rest for two days, so I went at night to that place. I was in the heart of the city, then with the U.S. forces outside the city, with the Marines besieging this place, so we went in a Chinook plane from the Green Zone, and we went to the camp, and the second day there was a press conference for the leader of that division besieging Fallujah. I think it's the First Division – First Infantry Division, and they had a press conference with some journalists from news agencies, Americans, Europeans and otherwise. So they were sitting, and he said literally, "We are making advances positively in the battlefield, and we accomplished victories to kill the terrorists and the fighters present in the city." And I had a journalist, so we asked him, "What about the civilians?" He said, "Oh, there isn't civilians. There's no civilians. The people whom you see their corpses on Al Jazeera TV and on the media, it is for fighters wearing civilian clothing."

I could not handle myself, and I said, "What about the child? Is he a fighter disguised in civilian clothes?" We asked him. So he really tried to assure us that there is no presence for the civilians. My lady, we did not take photographs. We could not report, except one just tiny piece. Even if I was an octopus taking photographs of what is happening around me, it was a terrible scene. I could not move between the neighborhoods anytime. We were unable to sleep. Believe me. The days that I spent over there, 40 days, and I had 55 hours of recording of what has taken place over there, so what has really gone out to the media is a very tiny portion of reality.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you get the video out while you were in Fallujah or when you left?

AHMED MANSUR: The photographs you took, Laith, did you take them after you left?

LAITH MUSHTAQ: No. We took those photographs inside Fallujah, and after the siege was over, we took our videotapes, and we went to our bureau.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to point out that after Donald Rumsfeld said that your reports were -- his words – "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable. It's disgraceful what that station is doing." It was the next day, again, my colleague Jeremy Scahill pointed this out in a piece he did, according to the Daily Mirror, that Bush told Blair of his plan, quoting a source telling the Mirror, "He made clear he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." That quote in the Daily Mirror as this memo, the Downing Street memo that we haven't seen. Ahmed Mansour, I think when people heard the report of this memo that is yet to be published, reportedly some have seen a synopsis of it, we did not have the context of this period when this was said in the midst of April 2004, in the midst of the siege of Fallujah. Your thoughts, Ahmed Mansur?

AHMED MANSUR: Of course, until now, Al Jazeera requested from the British government to unveil or to publish this document so that we get the bottom of the information. There are many reports that have been pointed to Al Jazeera. There's an anger from the U.S. administration toward Al Jazeera. I cannot really go into the credibility of this document, because the administration of Al Jazeera requested the British government to unveil or uncover this issue or disclose it.

What I can say is that we did our duty as journalists. If this battle took place on the land of the U.S. and I was the one covering it and American civilians were vulnerable to killing, I would not have done any little than what I have done at Fallujah. This is our duty towards humanity in general, as journalists, to report the truth from any place that we are in, regardless of this place and the people therein, except that they are civilians. Our role was to present the truth to what is happening to the civilians. We did that with documents and pictures, and no one could deny this, but the whole world reported and transferred this truth and these facts, and as Laith said and as I did, this is just a slight portion of reality.

I want to say, why did the Americans refuse the entering of any journalists or medias or TV stations to Fallujah in the second battle and they only limited to those who are embedded with them? Is it professionalism that the journalists wear U.S. clothing and they go with them in the planes and tanks to cover this and report this? The battles have to be reported from both sides. We were among the civilians, and we reported, and they had embedded journalists with those who launched this attack from the U.S. forces who occupied Iraq, and they reported what they wanted. We were trying to create an equilibrium or a balance, so that the truth is not lost.

AMY GOODMAN: Laith Mushtaq, you also saw your friend shot off the roof? When was this?

LAITH MUSHTAQ: That happened in Karbala, the fifth month. After I left Fallujah by 15 days, there were still skirmishes between the Army of Mahdi in Karbala and the U.S. forces. There was negotiations but also skirmishes and attacks on a daily basis. The U.S. forces tried to advance toward the big mosque in the middle of Karbala, and the Army of Mahdi was trying to take refuge in that mosque, and they were surrounding it. The U.S. forces were advancing at night to annihilate completely the remnants of the Mahdi Army, and so the Mahdi forces used to come back during the daytime, and it was going back and forth. We were in a middle ground between the U.S. forces and the army of Mahdi, in a hotel, and I was with Abdel al-Dim, our journalist and reporter and with the engineers.

We were like a big team, and I had the assistant -- my assistant, who was a friend of mine named Rashid. We were every day, Amy, as a photographer in hot areas, hot spots. I used to go to the roof of the building every day at night to sit and try to listen, despite the darkness, to listen. Is there any voice or sound of advancement of some forces that maybe I can predict a battle so that I'm ready to take pictures? So I went to the roof, and there was a big explosion that happened near our hotel, and I heard artilleries or tanks moving toward the big mosque, so I went down to the room, and I informed the team that there is a battle coming up.

Everybody went up to the roof, and I was taking refuge by a small wall, and I was wearing shields, and I was taking photos, wearing my armor. I asked everybody to go down, because they may be targets, so everybody went down, but my assistant was standing behind me, maybe with half a meter only, and I was taking photographs. The area that I was picturing or photographing was very dark, so I tried to reduce the shutter of the speed of the camera, so to get a clear picture as much as possible, and I used to photograph, and at that time there was a bullet that just passed by near me, and even I photographed that shot.

So I used to talk to Rashid, telling him, "Rashid, I think they are firing against us." I did not know that Rashid had already fallen down. Rashid fell down, but I did not know that, and I kept taking photographs and pictures. After that, immediately, the wall in front of me, which I was taking protection with, it was fired upon extensively. That is, very highly intense, so I took refuge, and I laid down on the ground holding my camera and looking, and then I saw Rashid smoldered in blood, and there was extensive firing. I could not even shout and call the rest of the crew, our team, and for a moment, I felt I cannot do anything. I tried to advance, then I go back because of the firing. Red firing on the roof. And after that was lightened a little bit, I held his leg, and I shook it, and I said, "Rashid! Rashid!" And he did not answer me, so I went toward his face and saw three bullets in his head in those areas. He had five kids. The older is nine years old, the eldest.

After that, the rest of the crew came, and we could not take his body from the roof, because of the firing against us, until the next morning, so he stayed from 12:30 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., and we waited for daylight to come, and the U.S. forces maybe withdraw. We were afraid that they fire against us, because we had to stand up when we carry him. We stayed in the hotel, and the firing against the hotel was also continuous. The hotel was empty, so we divided ourselves. In each floor was one person. I was on the highest level, and underneath me one reporter and the one below that, the assistant, and there was a generator and electricity. We turned off the lights, and we were unable to move because the ladder connecting -- the ladder was made from glass, so anyone can see us from outside if they have special machines,

So I ask, I wonder why journalists are targeted? Why Mr. Ahmed Mansur is attacked for his reporting? Why such-and-such journalist is subject to arrest because of a specific reporting? My lady, Ahmed Mansur carries a pen and Laith Mushtaq carries a camera. We don't have guns – machine guns and artillery. When you see documentaries from the Second World War of besieging, Stalingrad, you come to the area, and the reporter, you said, "Oh, you used to be with Hitler or you were with the communists in Stalingrad?" The reporter is not part of this. He only reports what happens. Believe me, if we were there and we saw the U.S. forces planting roses in the streets, we will also report that. Believe me!