By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

If the U.S. attacks Iraq, TV viewers will have an unprecedented close-up view from the front lines.

Advances in digital electronics - and a dramatic reversal in Pentagon policy - will give reporters access to the war, unlike in Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf War 12 years ago, when the U.S. military banned journalists from traveling with troops.

"At the end of the last war, we heard that they (military leaders) were upset because the news blackout didn't serve their purposes," says Marcy McGinnis, CBS senior vice president for news coverage.

"The Pentagon thought they did a lot of good things (in Afghanistan), but nobody documented it. So their plan backfired on them," says McGinnis, who has been making arrangement with the Defense Department since September for her network's war correspondents.

Each of the major networks will have about 10 correspondents and technicians "imbedded," or traveling with the U.S. Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force.

They will be filing live stories with videophones, satellite phones, tiny digital cameras and suitcase-sized satellite dishes. Taped pieces will be edited on laptops. Most of this equipment didn't exist in 1991, the last time the United States invaded Iraq.

But reports can't be transmitted without approval of the military unit commander, she says. So how much we'll see, and how soon, will be beyond the networks' control.

"The good news is that we'll be in there shooting things. But we aren't sure if we'll be able to get them on the air in a timely manner," she says.

"It depends a large part on the commander of each unit, and the security risks involved. We're more than willing not to put the security of the unit at risk," McGinnis says.

Having camera crews shadow soldiers also may be a powerful public relations tool for the Pentagon, particularly if Saddam Hussein dresses his soldiers in U.S. uniforms and orders them to commit wartime atrocities blamed on Americans, says CNN anchor Bill Hemmer.

"The U.S. military strategists believe Saddam Hussein will torch the oil fields, blame the U.S., and give the tape to (Arabic satellite news channel) Al-Jazeera," says Hemmer, a 1983 Elder High School graduate and former Channel 9 anchor. "The United States wants verification so they can shoot down whatever is broadcast by Saddam Hussein."

Network correspondents have been trained by the Pentagon in how to deal with a hostile environment. All TV personnel have been issued NBC suits - protective gear for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

Stacy Case, who quit Channel 9 to become a CBS Newspath reporter in August, attended a Virginia training camp for war correspondents in January.

"I learned how to don a gas mask in nine seconds, how to decontaminate myself, how to talk my way out of a hostage situation and how to make it through a vehicle checkpoint alive," says Case, who was in New York covering the U.N. debate on Iraq last week. She has reported for CBS' 200 affiliates and The Early Show.

"As part of the training, I was taken hostage and hit in the head with a gun," she says. "I left with a lot of bumps and bruises. It was all very helpful, enlightening and very sobering."

Journalists deploy

Not only have thousands of troops been deployed in the Mideast, so have hundreds of journalists. ABC's Peter Jennings anchored World News Tonight from the region last week, and Robin Roberts arrived Wednesday in Kuwait to broadcast daily for Good Morning America.

Hemmer, CNN's morning news anchor in New York, says he'll head to Kuwait City when war appears imminent. He's been sent there twice - in January and February - when his bosses thought the United States was on the brink of war.

"Our build-up in Kuwait City rivals our deployment for a political convention," Hemmer says.

The Atlanta-based network, part of the AOL Time Warner media conglomerate, will have 80 to 100 staffers in Kuwait, plus an additional 150 reporters, producers and technicians in the region, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At lot is at stake for CNN, the former No. 1 cable news network that was passed in the ratings last year by the rival Fox News Channel. CNN executives see the pending Gulf War as a chance to reassert itself as the national - and international - news leader.

"The world remembers January 1991, when we all sat around in our living room and watched the war live on CNN," says Hemmer, referring to reports from Peter Arnett, John Holliman and Bernard Shaw from Baghdad's Al Rashid Hotel.

"We have an identity with this story, and we feel a huge responsibility to cover it the best we can," says Hemmer, who reported for CNN last year from Kandahar.

CNN reportedly has projected spending $30 million on war coverage. The network even has bought Humvees to transport equipment over Iraq's rugged terrain, Hemmer says. (A spokesman for rival Fox News declined to discuss its financial commitment to the war effort.)

24/7 coverage

If and when the United States begins bombing Iraq, all of the major broadcasters will switch to 24-hour news coverage. But for how long? Nobody knows.

"There will be wall-to-wall coverage on all the networks," says Jeff Zucker, NBC Entertainment president. "How long that lasts is more of a function of the events that unfold, and that's impossible to predict."

NBC and CBS have been preparing war plans for months. NBC has delayed returning Just Shoot Me, Hidden Hills and Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Watching Ellie until April, because of the anticipated programming interruption, Zucker says.

CBS executives have been talking to sister Viacom entities - UPN, TNN, Nickelodeon, TV Land - about taking the NCAA basketball tournament games starting Thursday if the United States invades Iraq.

The threat of war, however, has not deterred ABC, Fox and WB from scheduling premieres this month for Oliver Beene, Married by America, All American Girl, The Family, The Bachelor, Wanda at Large, On the Spot, Regular Joe and Black Sash.

One has to wonder if a casualty of war will be Are You Hot? Married by America, All American Girl and the current glut of contrived "reality programs," Fear Factor may seen nonsensical after we've been able to see, up close and personal, an unprecedented nearly instant look at the reality of war.

Of course, it depends on how much - and how soon - the Pentagon will let us see. Hemmer expects that we'll see a lot.

"Not allowing reporters in Afghanistan prohibited the U.S. military from touting its successes to the rest of the world," he says. "I think they learned a pretty hard lesson by locking us out of Afghanistan."

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com

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