We are disappointed by the criticism that BBC News is trying to suppress information in our coverage of Iraq since - as our responses to Media Lens make clear - we are doing what we can to find independent verification of the claims reported by Media Lens. However, it would not be responsible journalism for the BBC to report such claims without having found hard evidence that they are correct.

The reason that we have not responded further to Media Lens is that, having given a great deal of time and consideration to the points raised, we can only repeat what has already been said. However, I hope that the extent and detail of the email exchange with Media Lens shows how seriously we take our obligations to be both impartial and accountable.

We are sending this reply to all who have written in response to Media Lens as I think it is the most efficient use of licence payers' money to try to address your concerns in this way.

Yours sincerely
Helen Boaden
Director, BBC News


Dear Helen,

Many thanks for your email. I should say that I am a strong supporter of the BBC. No democracy could possibly function without at least one not-for-profit broadcaster tasked with disseminating information purely to serve the public interest. If the corporation did not exist it would certainly have to be invented.

You say "I hope that the extent and detail of the email exchange with Media Lens shows how seriously we take our obligations to be both impartial and accountable." My original email made clear that I do not believe this was demonstrated by your correspondence with Medialens. You have sent me your standard reply to emails relating to the Medialens article. At least partly as a result of this I'm afraid that the concerns I've raised have not been addressed.

You say that it would not be responsible journalism to report the claims in question "without having found hard evidence that they are correct". Let me repeat what I said in my original email. Neither I nor Medialens assert that the allegations are beyond all doubt. We say that they are substantial, of the utmost seriousness, come from a wide variety of independent sources and therefore ought to be discussed. I do not say you should report that "the US Military has committed war crimes in Fallujah" but that "it is being alleged that the US Military has committed war crimes in Fallujah".

You say that "it would not be responsible journalism to report such claims". Other reputable news organisations do not take this view. In November last year, for example, Associated Press reported the experiences of its photographer, Bilal Hussein, a resident of Fallujah.

""I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come out and help them. There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days. US soldiers began to open fire on the houses...so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay". Hussein planned to escape across the Euphrates river. "I decided to swim...but I changed my mind after seeing US helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river". He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross."

Associated Press plainly did not feel prevented by standards of journalism from reporting this eyewitness account of escaping civilians being shot dead by US helicopters.

Last December, US journal The Nation carried an article by Miles Schuman on "reports that US armed forces killed scores of patients in an attack on a Falluja health center and have deprived civilians of medical care, food and water".

"Although the US military has dismissed accounts of the health center bombing as "unsubstantiated," in fact they are credible and come from multiple sources. Dr. Sami al-Jumaili described how US warplanes bombed the Central Health Centre in which he was working at 5:30 am on November 9. The clinic had been treating many of the city's sick and wounded after US forces took over the main hospital at the start of the invasion. According to Dr. al-Jumaili, US warplanes dropped three bombs on the clinic, where approximately sixty patients--many of whom had serious injuries from US aerial bombings and attacks--were being treated."

"Dr. al-Jumaili reports that thirty-five patients were killed in the airstrike, including two girls and three boys under the age of 10"

"Although the deaths of these individual health workers could not be independently confirmed, Dr. al-Jumaili's account is echoed by Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi reporter for Reuters and the BBC. Reached by phone in Falluja, Badrani estimated that forty patients and fifteen health workers had been killed in the bombing. Dr. Eiman al-Ani of Falluja General Hospital, who said he reached the site shortly after the attack, said that the entire health center had collapsed on the patients."

You say "we are doing what we can to find independent verification of the claims reported by Media Lens". But your own reporter, Fadhil Badrani, has provided information on possible war crimes to The Nation, which clearly did not see the publication of his reports as irresponsible journalism. The BBC published many of Fadhil Badrani's reports from Fallujah on its website, but without the crucial point that war crimes appear to have been committed. The Nation article continues,

"US and allied Iraqi military forces stormed the Falluja General Hospital, which is on the perimeter of the city, at the beginning of the assault, claiming it was under insurgent control and was a center of propaganda about civilian casualties during last April's attack on the city. The soldiers encountered no resistance. Dr. Rafe Chiad, the hospital's director, reached by phone, stated emphatically that it is a neutral institution, providing humanitarian aid. According to Dr. Chiad, the US military has prevented hospital physicians, including a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, internists and general practitioners, from entering Falluja. US authorities have denied all requests to send doctors, ambulances, medical equipment and supplies from the hospital into the city to tend to the wounded, he said. Now the city's only health facility is a small Iraqi military clinic, which is inaccessible to most of the city's remaining population because of its distance from many neighborhoods and the dangers posed by US snipers and crossfire.

Jim Welsh, health and human rights coordinator for Amnesty International in London, notes that under the Geneva Conventions, "medical personnel cannot be forced to refrain from providing healthcare which they believe is their ethical responsibility." The 173-bed Falluja General Hospital remains empty, according to Dr. Chiad.

These reports demand an immediate international response, an end to assaults on Falluja's civilian population and the free passage of medical aid, food and water. Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has vowed to investigate "violations of the rules of war designed to protect civilians and combatants" in Falluja and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The San Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers has petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States to investigate the deaths. The bombing of hospitalized patients, forced starvation and dehydration, denial of medicines and health services to the sick and wounded must be recognized for what they are: war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Please let me know what prevents BBC News from carrying reports such as these, and with the prominence they deserve. Please let me know what prevented the BBC from reporting last November that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had issued a statement to the press which read,

"The High Commissioner is deeply concerned about the situation of civilians caught up in the ongoing fighting in Falluja. There have been a number of reports during the current confrontation alleging violations of the rules of war designed to protect civilians and combatants. The High Commissioner is particularly worried over poor access by civilians still in the city to the delivery of humanitarian aid and about the lack of information regarding the number of civilians casualties.

The High Commissioner considers that all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law must be investigated and those responsible for breaches -- including deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use of human shields -- must be brought to justice, be they members of the Multinational Force or insurgents".

If the allegations are true then war crimes are being committed with decisive military and diplomatic support from the British government. We all share responsibility for what our government does. The only way we can exercise effective democratic control over our government is if we have all the relevant information at our disposal. The job of BBC News, as a publicly funded, public-interest broadcaster, is to ensure that we have that information in front of us.

May I finish by saying that as a supporter of the BBC I should like nothing more than for you to prove me wrong on every one of these points.

I look forward to hearing from you.