BOB GARFIELD: Last week in Iraq, free press advocates were stunned when the government led by Iyad Allawi formed the Higher Media Commission. It didn't help that its newly-appointed chairman, Ibrahim Janabi, was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that under new "red line" media restrictions, his commission would clamp down on, among other things, unwarranted criticism of the prime minister. All this occurs as the truce with radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr seems to be breaking down, putting more pressure on the new government. Simon Haselock was the head of media development and regulation for the former Coalition Provisional Authority. He had been criticized, even on this program, for taking a heavy hand in creating the FCC-like Independent Media Commission to regulate the Iraqi media. Now he worries that all the checks and balances he put in place to ensure press freedom may evaporate inside the old Ministry of Information, where the Higher Media Commission will make its home. Meanwhile, he says, no one knows exactly how the new commission will work.

SIMON HASELOCK: First of all, I think we have to be clear that nobody really knows what this new commission is. I mean I've heard it called a number of things, from a commission to a council to a committee, and all three of those have very different connotations. What I do know is that the commission, the independent commission, is still in place, and the public broadcaster is also still in place, and they haven't challenged those institutions yet.

BOB GARFIELD: Tell me about the, the man who is running the Higher Media Commission, a guy named Ibrahim Janabi, who had some rather spectacular things to say recently in the Financial Times of London.

SIMON HASELOCK: He's, he's very close to the prime minister. I think he's a senior member of the political grouping which the prime minister comes from. I think his primary concern is security. I think he has a background in security from his past, and as you know that he was credited at least with saying things in the Financial Times which gave us cause for concern, but having said that, he did publicly retract and step back from many of those statements recently in a television interview on the, the local television station, and it was a fairly substantive piece of reassurance.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, in the current environment, the idea of an unrestrained and robust free press is certainly a double-edged sword. When you were in charge of media regulation at the CPA, the CPA shut down a newspaper operated by al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric who last week announced a new insurgency against the Coalition, and one of the Allawi government's first acts was to actually re-open that paper. What do you make of this situation?

SIMON HASELOCK: I think it's good that they were able to re-open that newspaper. I don't think it's a particularly widely-read newspaper. But there are tensions in this environment, and I think that people need to understand that. You cannot be absolutist on this issue, either in terms of restrictions or in terms of no restrictions. It's interesting that, you know, the sorts of regulations that the FCC use and have in America are perhaps more tight on taste and decency than they are on incitement. In Iraq, it may be that there needs to be greater restrictions on content which deal with things which may incite and provoke racial hatred, violence or civil disorder, because you know, in the end, these are things which could de-stabilize the whole society.

BOB GARFIELD: We've just spoken to Ahmed al-Rikaby about the successful launch of his Radio Dijla in Baghdad. It's worth noting, isn't it, that in the absence of media regulation, Radio Dijla has imposed its own sensible constraints on its broadcaster's speech, including no incitement to violence, no encouragement of ethnic hatred, no swear words, and so forth. Do you think that's evidence that an Iraqi media outlet can operate responsibly without any heavy hand of regulation?

SIMON HASELOCK: Well, of course it is, and I'm not suggesting there should be a heavy hand of regulation. But first of all I would disagree with you that it's developed in an unregulated atmosphere. I mean I was responsible for [LAUGHS], for issuing broadcast licenses under the CPA, and spoke to Ahmed Rikaby at great length about it. Those sorts of conditions which he signed in that license were very similar to the sorts of conditions one would, perhaps, see in the FCC or in the UK SUOFFCOM. So, in order to encourage people like Radio Dijla, there needs to be a regulatory framework, because regulatory frameworks are not just about proscription and restriction. They're about empowerment, and that's exactly what we did with Radio Dijla and Ahmed Rikaby, and as a consequence, he is, he is flourishing on the basis of a proper license being issued.

BOB GARFIELD: So we have a fledgling government and a fledgling media industry, and this new Higher Media Commission, which comes right out of the box making fairly Draconian suggestions about redlining content, and then backs off -- as you look at the situation as it's developed so far, what would be your prediction for where things will stand a month from now or a year from now?

SIMON HASELOCK: Well, that's a very difficult question, because this is a very, very [LAUGHS] dangerous place to predict things. I mean I'm reasonably hopeful that they will see that there is much more advantage for them to use the media in the way that our governments would try to do rather than to try and control the media in a direct and chilling way, similar or reminiscent of past regimes in the area.

BOB GARFIELD: Very well. Well, Simon, thank you so much.

SIMON HASELOCK: All right.

BOB GARFIELD: Simon Haselock, former head of media development and regulation for the CPA. He spoke to us by scratchy satellite phone from Baghdad. [MUSIC]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Up next, Chinese journalism takes two steps forward, one step back. Also, the passion of Washington's self-appointed media messiah.

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media, from NPR.