Q&A with Lieutenant Colonel Larry Cox
Embedding: A Military View
In Kuwait City on April 6, free lance correspondent John Laurence, a veteran of war coverage, interviewed Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Larry Cox, chief of the press desk, for CJR. Here are edited excerpts.
Did you work on creating the ground rules for the embedding process?
I had a fair amount of visibility on the evolution of these ground rules over time. My last job was public affairs operations officer on the staff of the chairman of the joint chiefs. That was prior to 9/11 and throughout the first year of the war in Afghanistan. Many of the things, including the embeds and the other aspects that we're seeing here today, evolved from lessons learned, revelations, experiences out of the Afghanistan period.
What were you hoping to accomplish from a military point of view?
We saw in Afghanistan that the Taliban and to some extent al Qaeda made aggressive use of propaganda to get as much momentum behind their efforts as they could, to leverage the fact that we had relatively minimal on-the-ground independent press coverage. In instances where there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage they had the ability to invent them, and no one would know the difference until after the press coverage resonated in the world community. Seeing the U.S. respond, in many instances from behind a podium in Washington or in some other location either in Afghanistan or central command, it became clear. We needed to have the maximum possible access of a free press operating on the battlefield, not controlled by U.S. or the coalition, but in position to do third-person objective reporting that we knew would reflect and illuminate lies and exaggerations. That was always known, but it became crystallized in the months after the start of the war in Afghanistan. The operation in Afghanistan stabilized after a period of time, so it was more appropriate that we apply those lessons to future conflicts rather than to what was left of that one — things like ground rules, making much greater use of embedded press, which we had used in Afghanistan to some limited degree. That understanding was brought into the process from the outset of planning for the war in Iraq. It became clear there were some limits in terms of numbers, just from a logistical standpoint, that a unit could absorb before embedded journalists were a hindrance. There is a limit. So we had to figure out where that line was and strive to go as far in that direction as we could. And that was the first object, to figure out capacity in the planned battle to absorb the press. We assumed the demand would be great; obviously the capacity would not be. We had to figure out where the line was in order to make that work.
There has been criticism in the press that some reporters at the front lines have been so swept up in the camaraderie that naturally exists in a military unit that they have become part of the team rather than neutral, objective, hard-headed journalists. Was that considered in the concept: by embedding a reporter with the unit he would bond with it, and that would have positive results for you?
I think intuitively we all knew that was likely. It happens for anybody who is reliant on a unit, whose safety and security depends on the unit. That is not the same as applying some type of value judgment about the press being there. We knew that some members of the press were going to experience that. That is an aspect of the situation that we felt was going to be important for the press to experience. The whole concept was not to put limits on the embed experiences, but simply to provide the opportunity, and let the embedded press experience whatever there is to experience. Torie Clarke, the Pentagon spokesperson, used the words: "Embedding the press would provide journalists the opportunity to see the good the bad and the ugly." That was the assumption from the very beginning, from the conceptual stages to the detailed planning. It became a principle value in Department of Defense's program. That could be considered either good or bad. Part of the journalistic endeavor is for the journalists to make that judgment themselves, and we expected they would, one way or another. Stepping back and looking at the overall picture, embedding — while probably the most aggressive thing the DOD has ever done with respect to the press coverage of military operations — is not the only element of press coverage of war, nor the only element that the DOD accommodates.
There are right now 600 to 700 embedded press that flow through this press center. There are 1500 to 1600 unilateral or independent press that have endeavored to cover the war from Doha, Qatar, and other places in the theater, all of whom have a once-removed, slightly broader picture of the war to look at. Those close and direct experiences of embedded journalists are balanced by the slightly higher level of perspective that the non-embedded journalists have. One of the beauties of being embedded is learning about the personality of the unit, about the color and the depth, the substance that you don't normally get if you're not associated with a unit in that way. That said, it is a type of coverage that's looking through a soda straw at a particular point in time on the battlefield. It would not have been sufficient if it had been the only opportunity for press coverage in this war. But it's not. It's one element. The others balance it and broaden it and lead to the overall goal for both the military and the journalists, which is to provide, an accurate picture of the war.
Are you achieving your goals for press coverage, given what you've seen on the air and in print?
What comes from the embedding process is the responsibility of the journalist. Obviously there are rules that are more stringent than those experienced by reporters in Vietnam, or even before that. The rules go to operational security, and to the protection of forces in battle. They address the differences between the modern battlefield and the battlefield in Vietnam , and more recent conflicts. Ground rules consistent with prior wars aren't feasible because all the variables change. We have real-time satellite reporting now. We didn't have that even ten years ago. We didn't have the level of competition that the information technology age has produced — the twenty-four hour news coverage, the proliferation of competition in print media and on the Internet. Those are realities we face, you face. Consequently, it would have been folly to dust off a set of ground rules that might have worked in World War II or the Korean War or Vietnam and said "OK, we'll just use these." We had to look at the essence of those rules, to provide access, not just to benefit the journalists, but more importantly to benefit the consumer of that journalism product, especially in the U.S. and to other audiences as well. To get to the intent of those ground rules in the context of the modern information era, adjustments were made.
Your goals, perhaps, were to counteract the propaganda ability of the other side, when there was a vacuum of information?
Some people, even within the DOD, might agree, but frankly I'm not one of them. A predictable and beneficial product of independent reporting is providing whatever information, good bad or ugly, about the war that might exist. It is a goal unto itself to provide that in a free society. When that level of access is granted, it illuminates the lies and propaganda employed by those who do not operate in a free society. The goal of countering propaganda was a byproduct of a larger goal that derives from the operation of a free press in a free society.
You've been able to observe the good, bad, and the ugly in the press as the press has been able to observe similar distinctions in military conduct. Some of the reporters have been expelled or discredited because of their behavior.
I think fewer than a half a dozen out of 600-700 have been expelled, so that portrays the press community well. Reporters face the fog of war. The mere fact that he or she may have said something over-the-line as far as the ground rules go probably was only part of the decision process when it came to determining whether or not to dis-embed. We also took into account a reflection of how intentional it was and how likely it was to happen again. There have been instances where journalists didn't realize it at the time but reported what they knew to be the truth, and felt it was within the boundaries, but it turned out not to have been.
However, instances where journalist were over-the-line and clearly knew they were over the line — when someone whom I won't name draws a map in the sand on-camera and shows his unit's position at that time, and where it was likely to be in the future — that wasn't a situation where "I didn't realize at the time what I was doing." Those instances have been very few, and we've been heartened by that because it shows that the program works. Journalists are professionals, and inclined to give due regard to their own safety and the safety of the unit they're with.
How forgiving are you? Can someone who has been disembedded and apologizes be allowed back into the theater?
To use the military jargon, that's above my pay grade. Frankly, DOD has an interest in having this program be perceived as credible, and it has been so perceived in a tremendous way. It has refuted a lot of the early cynicism. But at the seat of government, it's very important to all of us, that the credibility be maintained. We said we were going to provide access. So it is with hesitancy that we retract it. But sometimes the military gets boxed into a corner where we don't have any other option but to pull the reporter out, or else the credibility of the 600-odd embedded journalists to function according to the rules and protect relationships they've developed and to afford them the kind of coverage they want on behalf of the American people. So we have an obligation as much to the other journalists as we do to the military. If we came back after the war with every single journalist we started with, that would be a source of great satisfaction for the DOD.
Are there any defects in the system that should be corrected? Is the First Amendment freedom of the press issue being observed as fully as is feasible?
I've had plenty of journalists and bureau chiefs in this press center argue with me about the practicalities of their coverage — were there enough plugs in the room or in the mult box? Did we provide enough Internet taps for their computers? That sort of thing. I have yet in two months of almost continuous twenty-plus hours a day contact with the press come across one who has looked me in the face and said he felt we'd done something that violated the First Amendment with respect to the embed program. That said, there have been a lot of aggravated reporters who have not had the opportunity to flow freely across the border from Kuwait into Iraq. They have viewed us as standing in their way and have used that as an argument that we've abridged free press coverage and the principles associated with it. To tell you the truth I take that in stride.
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