WASHINGTON, 25 February 2003 — Arab News’ Washington correspondent Barbara Ferguson received news yesterday from the Pentagon that she is to report immediately for duty as a war correspondent with the US Marines operating in Kuwait.

Ferguson, who covered the 1991 Gulf War at the Pentagon, has been instructed to report to Kuwait City, Kuwait, by March 1 and before departing is required to purchase equipment that includes dog tags, Atropine (nerve gas antidote), combat boots (“mark left boot with blood type and social security number”), body armor (“mark with name and blood type”), plus all the usual camouflage equipment (“cammies”), personal gear and other essentials a soldier typically wears or backpacks into the battlefield (with the exception, of course, of a rifle: Journalists are non-combatants.)

She has also been instructed to bring a 90-day supply of personal items.

Ferguson is to report for duty at 8 a.m. on March 1 at the CPIC (Combined Press Information Center) in Kuwait City, where she will be in-processed and briefed on issues as essential as how to wear and quickly put on her NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) gas mask, and how to administer Pam Chloride medication to herself in the event of an “enemy” nerve gas attack. The following morning, at 7:30 a.m., Ferguson will assemble with her media colleagues to board buses bound for her assigned Marine Corps unit, which could be the infantry, aviation (helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft), artillery, or armor.

The US Department of Defense is choosing to cooperate with the news media as it prepares to follow through on its threats to militarily engage Iraq. The decision to “embed” journalists with the military units is a departure from the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, when the news media complained that it was aggressively excluded from the military adventure.

The tradition of embedding journalists in US military units dates to the American Civil War in the 1860s, and became fully institutionalized during World War II.

Some of the more famous war correspondents include Stephen Crane, author of the Civil War saga “Red Badge of Courage”; John Dos Passos; Ernest Hemingway; Ernie Pyle; and Michael Herr, author of the underground Vietnam classic “Dispatches”.