At this time the channel was widely perceived as playing to popular pro-Baathist and anti-Coalition Arab sentiment, despite being represented at the Coalition's Central Headquarters and having an Al Jazeera correspondent embedded within coalition forces.[1][2] The then US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz publicly criticized Al Jazeera, Rumsfeld calling the channel's reporting "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable...",[18] while Wolfowitz claimed the station was "inciting violence" and "endangering the lives of American troops" in Iraq.[19]