Mike Shiley is quick to point out that he's not a journalist or a reporter. But that didn't stop him from cadging a press pass from a local ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon and going into Iraq a few months after the invasion. Shiley bought a $500 dollar camcorder, cashed in his frequent flyer miles to get to Jordan and made a movie called "Inside Iraq, The Untold Stories".
Shiley's ethics are questionable in that he puts on a military uniform and fires weapons from atop an Abrams tank all while impersonating an ABC network journalist. That kind of behavior puts real reporters at risk by erasing the line between journalists and combatants in the eyes of the enemy.
"Inside Iraq" does deliver some interesting scenes and images I've not seen out of Iraq before including a stroll through an open air market selling pornographic magazines and videotapes that opened in that period of giddy glasnost around the time Saddam went to ground.
Ultimately, the film is more travelogue than documentary, but Shiley's remarkable chutzpah in charging into a war zone makes him a worthy guest of Flashpoint. The interview should be posted here by Monday.
