(Is the war over?(Newsmen were NOT killed by US shell) (Debka)

Debka ^ | April 8, 2003 | Debka

[FairOpinion]

The Iraqis gained some propaganda mileage Tuesday from the US tank shell that hit the media center at Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, killing two TV cameramen and injuring two more journalists.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources have discovered that the shell did not come from a US tank. The explosion that hurt the correspondents occurred on an upper floor and was rigged and planted by Iraqi military intelligence.

To avoid a row with the press corps covering the war and nip the incident in the bud, the US command assumed responsibility and apologized before it went any further. This is unlikely to work.

(Debka also has an interesting take on Saddam's whereabouts, which I personally do find believable too)

[FairOpinion]

Believe Debka or not, but I certainly wouldn't put it past the Iraqis to have done this.

And it's plausible that the US made the assessment that their denials wouldn't be believed, and decided that the best way to put it behind them was to admit it and move on, rather than engage in the "he did it, no he did it" game with the Iraqis. (Debka also has an interesting take on Saddam's whereabouts, which I personally do find believable too. Anyone interested can go to the link at read their Is the War of Words over? Day 20 of Iraq War – April 8, 2003 article)

[yonif]

BTTT

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

I doubt CENTCOM would have acknowledged that it was true if it weren't true.

[Dog Gone]

Please post Debka under Breaking Bullshit.

[Yo-Yo]

Why would the Pentagon and Centcom admit to something they didn't do? Wasn't there actual footage of the shooting as well? It could have been "generic" M1-shooting-building footage they were showing on MSNBC.

[FairOpinion]

That was shotting at the Public Affairs Ministry building (I could be wrong about the actual name, but I haven't seen or heard of any actual footage of shooting at the hotel, only at that inistry building. All channels got the same video from Abu Dabbi TV )

[oyez]

Expect the Iraqis to pull a lot of this. Yesterdays Saddam attack was another stunt.

[EternalVigilance]

Sheesh. Pigs can fly; I agree with Debka.

The part of the hotel hit was on the far side from where our tanks were located. Even the BBC guy that was there saw no way our tanks fired that shot. As some wag asked on an earlier thread, have we invented a boomeranging tank shell? ;-)

[FairOpinion]

I did put Debka in the title, so the skeptics can avoid it.

I don't care about Debka one way or another, someone told me about it some time ago, and I started to follow them and found that they do have interesting stuff, some accurate, some may not be, by the very nature of the intel type info, and they also have good analyses. I went there with an open mind and found them interesting.

I don't quite understand the level of animosity some people have towards Debka.

But to each his own.

[struwwelpeter]

Look out! Don't step in this cr**!

[FairOpinion]

"Yesterdays Saddam attack was another stunt."

----

I tend to agree, they wanted to get us to bomb residential neighborhoods.

[OldFriend]

From what I heard from those that were right there, they thought it was a bomb. Guess they were right.

[Dog Gone]

I have animosity toward any supposed news source that routinely prints wild speculation as fact, but never admits a mistake or retracts it.

I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't.

[oyez]

Maybe that's part of the nonmilitary suprise the Iraqis were talking about.

[reformedliberal]

FWIW, The Big Story on FNC had the main DEBKA reporter on this afternoon. I was working and only caught a bit of it, but for those who claim it is the work of a couple of teens in the rec room, the man was in his late 50's/early 60's and seemed quite intelligent, although not extremely talkative.
He was discussing Saddam's bunkers and the attempt to take out the leadership.

I think DEBKA has value if you acept it is raw intellingence and contains nuggets of fact interspersed with disinfo and fog of war.

[macamadamia]

I live by Debka. It sustains me. (Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to turn my shortwave radio back on, put on my gasmask, turn on the sun lamp, and dispense today's toenail clippings in jar TN453.)

[arasina]

One foreign reporter in the hotel supposedly saw a tank with its gun barrel pointed at the upper floors right before they were hit. I think the sniper shootings that are happening now are part of the "unconventional" warfare that Baghdad Bob mentioned. Hmmm...wonder if they got the idea from the Beltway Snipers?

[Robert A Cook PE]

I'm skeptical of this, because I saw live the shattered rocks, ricochets, and powder from the hits on the concrete of the machine gun shells -

NOT CANNON FIRE - The explosion did NOTHING to the camera nor the cameraman.

There was a large (black smoke) explosion before, but that explosion didn't do anything on the roof top. THEN the machine fire tracked up the building and caused the hits.

But the 2nd tank's GUN was NOT aimed at the camera/sniper. (Maybe the first tank? Didn't see that one clearly.)

Check the view from the other side of the river from the other camera.

[OldFriend]

Heard a reporter on FNC this afternoon saying that the first hotel where they were quartered had anti aircraft guns on the roof but in this hotel they were NOT permitted acess to the roof but the US should have had the common sense not to attack their hotel.

You can imagine the words I utterred at that selfish despicable comment.