Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith, Alford, Kael, Anderson, Thorne, Leistner, Rita, Unembedded, Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2005
Unembedded, Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq is a beautiful picture book about the first couple years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It’s printed on a large format with pictures filling the pages so you can see every detail. It features everyday Iraqis rather than Coalition forces. Unfortunately the commentary has some major flaws.
In the Foreword Philip Jones Griffiths the president of Magnum Photos writes that the work of the four photojournalists was aimed at showing the truth of the Iraq War that the United States was trying to control. By making reporters embedd with American units during the invasion for example Washington was trying to control the messages and images the U.S. public got about the conflict. The journalists would form bonds with the troops they were with and would lose their objectivity. Then in the introduction Phillip Robertson a journalist in Baghdad said that a group of reporters crossed into Mahdi Army territory during the Battle for Najaf in 2004 where they were accepted by the fighters. One of the photographers then noted that he formed a connection with his Mahdi Army minder that was in charge of keeping an eye on him. Here we have journalists talking about it’s bad to get too close to the subject when it’s American troops and then others saying they did just that with Iraqis as if that wasn’t a contradiction. I am all for showing the Iraqi side of the Occupation because it got so little coverage in Western media. To talk about working with the U.S. military as bad but working with Iraqi armed factions as good just showed that the authors didn’t check their notes on what they were trying to say.
Thankfully there is only a little writing in Unembedded as most of the pages are taken up by a beautiful series of very graphic photographs. The pictures can be broken up into four broad themes. First there are those on the 2003 U.S. invasion. You have people killed by U.S. bombs and missiles and then the changes that came about with Iraqis peeing on statues of Saddam and going through mass graves of victims of the dictatorship. Second is the resistance to the Occupation. You have photos of people shot in April 2003 protesting against the U.S. and insurgents with their weapons. Third is a series of pictures taken in September 2004 after a U.S. helicopter attacked a crowd that gathered around a destroyed U.S. fighting vehicle. 22 people were killed and 48 wounded. You get images of Iraqis running and others covered in blood who were hit. Last are those taken of the Mahdi Army militia fighting the U.S. in 2004 and their followers. Some are intimate like people going to a wedding while others are of fighters preparing to attack the Americans. This is the highlight of the book and the reason to buy it. The photos are breathtaking and show a variety of topics. Again, the Iraqi side of the war was usually given through an American perspective. Here you just have photos of Iraqis with short captions showing a slice of what they went through right after the U.S. invasion.
Despite the shortcomings in what the authors said about the work of the photojournalists the pictures more than make up for it. Everything is in color and many take up the whole page so that you can see everything in great detail. It’s all about the Iraqis as well whose voices and experiences need to be heard.
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