IRAQ - Jan. 9 - Threat To Overturn US Broadcasting Contract.

Communications Minister Haider Abadi threatens to overturn a contract awarded to a US manufacturer, The Harris Corp., to run a newspaper and a group of TV and radio stations used by Saddam's regime. Harris was selected in partnership with the Lebanese Broadcasting Co. and a Kuwaiti-Iraq group, Al-Fawares, to carry out the $100m, one-year contract. Abadi says he was not consulted about the contract and threatens to overturn it when the US-led CPA hands power to a sovereign Iraqi government by end-June. He adds: "We very much welcome the help of others to reshape our media, but to relinquish our responsibilities and to give control to foreign media is politically and socially wrong". He calls the contract "temporary". (If the handover goes to plan, Iraqi ministers will decide the fate of agreements and licences awarded by the CPA. The $100m contract was awarded by the Pentagon and funded from the $87.5 bn Congress appropriated for funding reconstruction and the US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the deal, Harris, which manufactures broadcasting transmitters, will rebuild the country's national broadcaster. The LBC and Al-Fawares will train 1,000 Iraqis to run 2 TV channels and 2 radio stations. Al-Fawares will also publish the state newspaper, Al Sabah. Microsoft, the computer giant, will aid the consortium). A vice-president at Al-Fawares, Danny Benjamin, later said as an Iraqi-American, he respected Abedi's comments, adding: "This is a very strategic job. It's not like rebuilding a road or a bridge". He promised to preserve Iraqi culture, and said he had not received any pressure from the Pentagon to censor or slant news coverage. (The media contract has been a source of controversy for the CPA. SAIC, a US defence contractor first recruited by the Pentagon, was widely criticised for poor quality and pro-American bias. Critics dubbed its TV operation "the Pentagon's Pravda" for its broadcasting of English-language press conferences with an Arabic voiceover. Several prospective bidders, including the BBC, withdrew from the tendering process amid concern that the contract would not guarantee the independence of the broadcaster from state interference. Without firm regulations, broadcasters said they feared they would be subject to political influence from both the Pentagon, which provided the funds, and an incoming Iraqi sovereign government expected to be anxious to assert its authority).