Who Needs Al Jazeera When You Have BBC
Bruce Kesler
Democracy Project
The crack reporters at BBC reveal “New ‘Iraq Massacre’ Tape Emerges.” This sensationalist headline is followed by a story based upon a tape from enemy forces, which the BBC “believed to be genuine,” and ignores the contrary evidence reported at the time, which the BBC fails to mention.
The lead three paragraphs:
<<< The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.
The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.
The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people. >>>
It’s not until the 14th paragraph that the BBC reveals:
<<< The pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to coalition forces. >>>
In between, the BBC’s crack forensic specialist, er, actually a reporter, says that:
<<< The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what our world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds. >>>
Far be it for me to read the newspapers, but this startling bit of sensationalist non-news from the BBC, which is clearly intended to pile on the allegations from Haditha (5th paragraph: “The new evidence comes in the wake of the alleged massacre in Haditha, where US marines are suspected of killing up to 24 Iraqi civilians in November 2005 and covering up the deaths.”) adds nothing to the reporting from last March, and garbles some facts.
Three Knight Ridder Iraqi local stringers reported this incident under the byline of Matthew Schofield, on March 19.
<<< Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid last Wednesday on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad. …
The case involves a U.S. raid conducted, according to the official U.S. account, in response to a tip that a member of al-Qaida in Iraq was at the house.
Neighbors, interviewed by a special correspondent for Knight Ridder, agreed that the al-Qaida member was at the house. They said he was visiting the home’s owner, a relative. The neighbors said the homeowner was a schoolteacher.
According to police, military and eyewitness accounts, U.S. forces approached the house at around 2:30 a.m. and a firefight ensued. By all accounts, in addition to exchanging gunfire with someone inside the house, U.S. troops were supported by helicopter gunships, which fired on the house.
But the accounts differ on what took place after the firefight.
According to the U.S. account, the house collapsed because of the heavy fire. When U.S. forces searched the rubble they found one man, the al-Qaida suspect, alive. He was arrested. They also found a dead man they believed to be connected to al-Qaida, two dead women and a dead child.
But the report filed by the Joint Coordination Center, which was based on a report by local police, said U.S. forces entered the house while it was still standing.
“The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men,” the report said. “Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.” …
A local police commander, Lt. Col. Farooq Hussain, interviewed by a Knight Ridder special correspondent in Ishaqi, said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit “revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed.” >>>
Schofield followed up three days later, March 22, “Iraqi report on U.S. raid in village contradicts police official's version” (Gee, ya mean many Iraqi police units may be infiltrated!):
<<< Iraqi police investigating the deaths of 11 people in the town of Ishaqi after a U.S. military raid last week reported that each of the bodies bore multiple wounds, according to a preliminary report reviewed by Knight Ridder News Service.
The report contradicted an Iraqi police commander’s contention Sunday that each of the dead had been shot once in the head.
It was not possible to say from the portion of the report Knight Ridder was allowed to see whether other pages backed Iraqi police suspicions that U.S. troops executed the 11 or bolstered the U.S. position that they died during a firefight as the Americans attempted to capture an al-Qaeda operative. …
One body had two gunshot wounds to the head. Five others showed signs of entrance and exit wounds to the head caused by “flying projectiles,” which the report noted could be “consistent with either bullets or shrapnel.” Four others showed signs of entrance and exit wounds to the chest or abdomen, also attributed to flying projectiles.
The 11th person had “crushing of the head and neck,” the cause of which was undetermined. >>>
In short, there is no evidence that an “Iraq Massacre” occurred, as the BBC headlines. There is no evidence that the other dead taken to an Iraqi morgue came from that house, or were not in another part not quickly searched after the incident. The "projectile" wounds are consistent with a firefight. The “crushing” wounds to one are consistent with a house falling on one’s head.
There may be more to report about this incident. But, the BBC’s agenda reporting isn’t it. Indeed, the story should be this BBC abuse of newsprint.
Such reporting, overreaching the facts or even contrary, has significant consequences.
Friday’s New York Times features, “Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.”
To bolster his standing among constituents, and excuse his inability to draw or to lure anti-government Sunnis in to his government, al-Maliki lashes out.
<<< "They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," he said. "This is completely unacceptable." Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.
The denunciation was an unusual declaration for a government that remains desperately dependent on American forces to keep some form of order in the country amid a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency in the west, widespread sectarian violence in Baghdad, and deadly feuding among Shiite militias that increasingly control the south.
It was also a sign of the growing pressure on Mr. Maliki, whose governing coalition includes Sunni Arabs who were enraged by news of the killings in Haditha, a city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province. At the same time, he is being pushed by the Americans to resolve the quarreling within his fragile coalition that has left him unable to fill cabinet posts for the Ministries of Defense and the Interior, the two top security jobs in the country. >>>
Senator John Warner, whose connections within the Pentagon are unsurpassed, is upset.
<<< Senator Warner, who has promised to hold hearings as soon as the military completes its investigation, said he had been urging Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to wrap up the inquiry as swiftly as possible.
"In the interim, frankly, the public opinion on this matter is being influenced by misinformation, leaks and undocumented and uncorroborated facts," he said. >>>
Irresponsible and sensationalist reporting may accomplish the mission of stirring those with irresolute or resolutely unrepentant personal agendas within Iraq, and persuading more Americans to toss them the towel.
Daniel Henninger ADDS this in Friday's Wall Street Journal, about the consequences of sensationalizing the overreactions, if they be, of so very few servicemen:
The missions in Iraq and Afghanistan grew from the moral
outrage of September 11. U.S. troops, the best this
country has yet produced, went overseas to defend us
against repeating that day. Now it isn't just that the war
on terror has proven hard; the men and women fighting for
us, the magnificent 99%, are being soiled in a repetitive,
public way that is unbearable. The greatest danger at this
moment is that the American public will decide it wants to
pull back because it has concluded that when the U.S. goes
in, it always gets hung out to dry. Two major military
reports will come out soon on the Haditha incident, and no
one will gainsay justice if that is required. But the
atmosphere around this event is going to get uncontrollably
manic, and that will feed the dark, inward-turning
sentiments already poisoning the country's mood over
issues like the immigration debate. Good for Democrats?
Don't count on it. After this, the public appetite for a
Democratic president's "humanitarian" military intervention
in a Darfur or East Timor will be close to zero. One
suspects that U.S. troops were party to some awful events
in the Pacific and European theaters of World War II, all
gone in the mists of history and the enemy's defeat. Not
now. Gen. Chiarelli's magnificent "99.9%" notwithstanding,
it's the phenomenon of the so-very-public 0.01%--at Abu
Ghraib, on an Afghan street, at Haditha--that is breaking
America's will this time. Mr.Daniel Henninger is deputy
editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
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