VOA's Baghdad Bureau Still Closed After Six Months

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The Voice of America's bureau in Baghdad has been closed for the past six months, ever since the government-funded agency withdrew its only reporter in Iraq after she was fired upon in an ambush and her security guard was later killed. All Western news organizations have struggled with the dangerous conditions in Iraq, which have led to such high-profile incidents as the kidnapping of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll and the wounding of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. But for a federally funded information service to pull out of Baghdad for such a prolonged period raises questions about the Bush administration's insistence that conditions there are gradually improving.


VOA reporter Alisha Ryu said yesterday she told her bosses in December that "it would really be impossible for me to do any kind of work" in Iraq. "I couldn't live with the idea that someone else could have died who was working with me. . . . For all journalists, it's really become impossible to move around."

Asked why VOA has not sent another reporter to Iraq, Ryu said: "They didn't have any volunteers to replace me."
Larry Hart, communications coordinator for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees VOA, said the agency hopes to send another reporter to Baghdad soon but could not specify a time frame. He said Ryu was withdrawn "because of threats against her personal security."

The VOA, which broadcasts in 44 languages around the world, is designed to be journalistically independent but is required by its charter to "present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively." Hart said that about 50 Iraqi employees remain in Iraq for the U.S.-funded Radio Sawa and al-Hurra -- Arabic-language services carrying news, entertainment and pop music to the Middle East.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201386.html