http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...9/s1199684.htm
Rumsfeld claims media are receiving terror tip-offs
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says journalists have received tip-offs from terrorists of impending attacks in Iraq, singling out Al-Jazeera television as "Johnny-on-the-spot a little too often for my taste".
Rumsfeld gave no specifics or evidence to back up the accusation, which he made during a talk to troops at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the army's 101st Airborne Division.
His comments came just two days after a journalist, Mazen al-Tomaisi, who worked for Saudi television and the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya was killed when a US helicopter fired on a crowd that had gathered around a bomb-struck US armoured vehicle in Baghdad.
Referring to suicide attacks and roadside bombings, Mr Rumsfeld said "it is striking that from time to time at least there is a journalist, quote-unquote, standing around taking pictures of it."
"It isn't every time and it isn't most times," he said.
"But it is sometimes, sometimes I suspect it happens because it is serendipidity, they just happen to be there.
"But we know for a fact that other times the terrorists have told journalists and I use the word inadvisedly, quote-unquote journalists, they've told journalists where they are going to be and what they are going to do.
"And the journalists have been there. And over and over and over again we've see that Middle Eastern television station Al-Jazeera that seems to have a wonderful way of being Johnny-on-the-spot a little too often for my taste," he said.
The Iraqi government banned Al-Jazeera from operating in Iraq on August 5, charging that its coverage was inciting violence.
Earlier this month, the government extended the ban and sealed the Qatar-based television station's Baghdad office.
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