The secret government marches on...

[Kevin S. Van Horn]

James A. Donald wrote:

>Read fisk's account: http://tinyurl.com/995f
>
>>Disagreeing with a reporter's political views does not mean 
>>that all their claims of fact are wrong and maliciously so.
>>    
>>
>
>Compare Fisk's account, with more mainstream accounts of the 
>same events: http://tinyurl.com/9966
>

You didn't read the "mainstream" account, nor Fisk's account, carefully 
enough.  Fisk's account was posted at 8:00 a.m. (Iraqi time) on April 4, 
corresponding to midnight, April 4 in the Eastern time zone, where your 
"mainstream" U.S. news account (southern Florida Sun Sentinel) of the 
same day was published. Fisk's account was clearly written many hours 
earlier than the Sun Sentinel report, which states,

"During the day, the ministry [of information] organized a trip to the 
airport for reporters in the capital, and they filmed the empty runways 
and terminals. Yet within hours, artillery and rocket fire erupted in 
the region and military officials said an assault on Saddam 
International Airport had begun."

The "empty runways and terminals" is consistent with Fisk's report, 
which appears to have been filed before the actual capture of the 
airport took place.

Fisks's report says,

"Only three hours earlier, the BBC had reported claims that forward 
units of an American mechanised infantry division were less than 16km 
west of Baghdad -- and that some US troops had taken up positions on the 
very edge of the international airport.

"But I was 27km west of the city."

That is to say, the mechanized infantry division was 11km to the east of 
the airport at the time of the BBC report, but that report had been 
written so as to give the impression that US troops were already 
attacking the airport.  Even if we discount Fisk's report and only rely 
on the Sun-Sentinel report, we have to conclude that "some US troops" 
must have, in reality, been only a very small number of hidden scouts -- 
not an assault force.

In other words, just as with Umm Qasr, the initial "mainstream" media 
(BBC) reports gave the impression that the coalition's attack had 
progressed farther than it actually had. (Umm Qasr was reported under 
control of coalition forces many days before this was fully achieved.)