Journalist group urges probe into journalists' deaths in Iraq

THE United States should hold comprehensive, impartial and public inquiries into the deaths of 16 journalists and three media support workers killed by US troops in Iraq, a media lobby group said on Monday. In a letter to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said thorough investigations into the deaths were needed to ensure lessons were integrated into future military and media training. The deaths of the journalists and media support workers in the war, which began in 2003, have been back in the spotlight after a video of a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was leaked to WikiLeaks, a group which says it promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption. The US military's Central Command has said it has no plans to reopen an investigation into that incident, which killed Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. Some international law and human rights experts who have watched the video say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally. 'We are particularly concerned that the troops in the helicopter mistook a camera for a weapon. This is not the first such claim by the US military,' Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon said in the letter.