San Francisco State University student James Lee learned of the escalating Shiite-on-Shiite violence in Basra while embedded with Marines in Afghanistan. As a photographer documenting the day-to-day happenings in the war-torn region, he decided the Iraqi city would be his next stop.

Officials from the military public affairs office in Fallujah granted Lee’s request to embed with a Military Transition Team — a core Marine group assisting Iraqi security forces in securing the region. Following a three-day journey from Fallujah via armored vehicle, he arrived in Basra on April 1.

But after just four hours in the city, Marine officers demanded that Lee leave the area.

“The only way a Western journalist can report on Basra is to be embedded, and by denying me my embed, they were denying my ability to report on the area,” said Lee, who maintains he was the only Western journalist among the 150-vehicle convoy that made the trip south. “Basically, by pulling me out [of Basra], you’re creating a media blackout.”

It remains unclear why Lee, whose full name is James Lee Jeffreys, was expelled from Basra, and the Department of Defense declined to provide [X]press with an explanation for his removal.

The Ventura County, Calif., native is a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq in 2001 to 2004 until he was injured by friendly fire. He has been a correspondent for [X]press since December 2007, earning credit through a directed study program with the journalism department in exchange for his reportage and photographs from around the world.

Approximately 48 hours before he touched base in Basra, media reports showed more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers in the area refusing to fight and surrendering their positions. This came as U.S. Commanding General David Petraeus was due to brief Congress on the coalition’s progress in Iraq.

Lee suspects these events may have led to his expulsion from Basra.

“I think the real driving factor here is that Petraeus was in Washington, and Basra was not going well,” he said. “He didn’t want to be sitting in front of Congress, and have an image that I took [of Basra] being presented by the press.”

Marines and Iraqis in Basra had told Lee they were not confident about the Iraqis’ ability to maintain control in the area without further U.S. assistance. They claimed the Mahdi army, a Shiite militia, had “more grenades and rockets than we do, and we don’t want to go fight in the city [of Basra],” he said.

“[The U.S. military] realized that there was going to be a loss at such a grand scale that they were not going to risk putting me there,” he said. “I’d proven at that point through all my embeds [that I would] accurately depict what’s going on.”

Lee said it’s unusual for the military to remove a fully authorized embedded journalist — unless there was some sort of violation of guidelines, which he denies.

Deborah Howell, ombudsman for the Washington Post, echoed Lee’s assertion that de-embedding usually occurs when agreed-upon conditions are violated. …