Email: Saddam may have been captured [Has now been confirmed by DNA testing]

Unconfirmed source -

[AuH2ORepublican]

Congratulations to President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, all the men and women of our military, and Gigantor, who posted the story before anyone else.

Saddam captured just a couple of days after the Dow reaches 10,000? Tom Daschle must be saddened and deeply disappointed.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Pronunciation mostly of Australia, but then New Zealand is peoperly abbreviated NZ, so Australia being abbrviated OZ follows as well.

Kiddingly, that also implies Australia is "Old Zealand."

[Az Joe]

Thanks.

[itzmygun]

The first person I thought of was Mr. Edwards (Victor French) on Little House On the Prairie!

[condi2008]

Bump to read later. Congratulations to the 4th ID!

[Mo1]

.

[leadpenny]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A253-2003Dec14?language=printer

Captivating News
Caught on Video: How the Story Played Out
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 2003; Page C01

~~snip~~

Shots were also fired in the cable wars. CNN sent out an e-mail saying that Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre broke the story at 5:03 a.m., reporting that several individuals had been captured in Iraq and U.S. officials "believe that one of them is Saddam Hussein." The information first came from correspondent Alphonso Van Marsh, who was embedded with the unit involved in the capture. MSNBC and Fox followed over the next 25 minutes. The first print report came from Reuters at 4:58 a.m., quoting the Iranian News Agency.

At 11 p.m. EST Saturday, once the raid had begun, Van Marsh "was aware of a lot of excitement and commotion," said Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International. "He clearly knew something was going on," but military officials "weren't about to tell him anything."

Van Marsh, 32, an Atlanta-based producer sent to Tikrit just six weeks ago, alerted the network, and McIntyre confirmed the story after an hour of early morning phone calls. Van Marsh "is a very resourceful journalist who has just gotten the scoop of his life," Cramer said.

The White House was hoping the story would not leak earlier than it did to CNN, said communications director Dan Bartlett, because military officials needed more time to confirm that the captive was Hussein. The decision to release the video "was in large part made for military purposes," he said, to convince the Arab world in particular that this was Hussein, not to provide fodder for U.S. networks.

~~snip~~

Jim, FreeRepublic (Gigantor) clearly scooped electronic and print media outlets.

[leadpenny]

Except Reuters at 4:58.

[Jim Robinson]

Yup. Gigantor was certainly among the first to break the news. Great job!!

[Guillermo]

Was this the breaking thread?

[leadpenny]

As far as I can tell, it is.

Condi Rice said she called the Prez at 5am to tell him of the DNA match (it may have been something else, but she called him at 5). Gigantor started this thread one minute later. I saw the thread just before Jamie McIntyre of CNN gave his report. See 227 above.

FR Rules!

[Gigantor]

I believe I got the scoop.

[flutters]

Well done. Congrats!

[w1andsodidwe]

I'm stuck in Dallas with people that bed down at 8:30.

I was stuck in Vienna Austria with only CNN. Lovely to finally be able to read the initial freeper thread. I just knew we would be on this before the official news channels.

[dfwgator]

FR is always first. I remember even 20 minutes before the networks came on about the Columbia tragedy, Freepers were posting that something wasn't right. I wonder if newsrooms monitor FR to get the scoop on breaking news?