Bias? What bias?

The Independent is known for its anti-Americanism. Home of the eponymous Fisk, many of the Independent’s articles are now protected from the attentions of American bloggers by a subscription firewall.

But not Andrew Buncombe’s article, which appears on-line today. It’s a fine example of the artful rewrite and anti-American bias at the Independent.

Buncombe is attacking the American Provisional Authority in Iraq:

America's desire to rebuild Iraq in its own image even extends to setting up a mobile phone network that only works for US phones. A Bahraini company that established a network accessible to those without American phones has been forced to scrap its plans after a week.

The Independent’s angle on the story is that Batelco, the company involved, is a regionally based operator, which has stepped into the breach to provide Iraqis with the essential services they need. And things were going well until the Americans moved in and crushed the initiative.

The writer is in no doubt about the motives behind the American move, nor does he seem to admire the methods used to enforce Batelco’s compliance.

mindful of its desire to set up a tender for the country's mobile network, the US authorities apparently started to put pressure on Batelco, threatening to confiscate its equipment. "They applied enough pressure for us to push the button," said Rashid al-Snan, the company's regional operations manager.

Buncombe ends the article saying, "The provisional authority declined to comment on the alleged threats to Batelco."

On the contrary, the American authority has had quite a lot to say about Batelco and network licensing, Duncombe just hasn't included the statements in his report.

The Batelco story was covered last Thursday in an article by AP business writer Brian Bergstein, which appeared in the Washington Post. The Guardian also ran Bergstein’s story the same day. The article in the Independent appears to be mostly a rewrite of the Associated Press reports but with some of the key facts taken out.

Key facts! What key facts?

You can find them in the original article in the Washington Post and in an update of the story by Adnan Malik in the Washington Post on Monday (emphasis added).

The company, known as Batelco, boldly spent $5 million in the past five weeks setting up its own wireless network in Baghdad without seeking permission of the U.S.-led occupation authority.

Batelco didn't seek permission from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq because it didn't appear such approval was necessary. "There have been enough signs for us to go ahead and do it," al-Snan said.

Al-Snan said Batelco received a letter from U.S. authorities two days after the service started, saying the company needed a license to operate in Iraq. Batelco responded with a request for a license, but was told to stop the service and that provisional authorities were still working out a licensing regime.

[Batelco’s] operations interfered with the signal of MCI, the U.S. company that provides mobile service to officials from the authority, the United Nations and some government departments.

Batelco[‘s] stakeholders include Bahrain's government with 36 percent and Britain's Cable & Wireless

It's clear that Batelco is not an innovative local company trying to provide essential services in Iraq, as the Independent would have us believe. It’s a Bahraini government backed venture, with support from a major British telecommunications company, trying to take advantage of the post-war situation in Iraq to steal a march on the competition.

The Washington Post has this quote from an American official:

“there is that mentality in the region that now is the time to get in and create facts on the ground, and hope that will strengthen their hand when licensing and other things are required."

As Salam Pax said on Tuesday of last week “The Battle for the Iraqi frequencies has started”.

In this context, it looks to me like the American authority acted firmly and responsibly to try and maintain a level playing field, and not because America wants "to rebuild Iraq in its own image" as Duncombe has it.

Of course, I couldn't have come to that judgement if I'd only read the article in the Independent because Duncombe omits many of the relevant facts. But then who can blame him? None of them fitted the story he wanted to write.

Thanks to Mahmood for the link to Salam's post.