PAUL McGEOUGH: There was a surprise visit at about 10:30 in the morning to the police centre. The PM is said to have talked to a large group of policemen, then to have toured the complex. They came to a courtyard where six, sorry seven prisoners were lined up against a wall. They were handcuffed, they were blindfolded, they were described to me as an Iraqi colloquialism for the fundamentalist foreign fighters who have come to Baghdad.Okay we have:They have that classic look that you see with many of the Osama bin Laden associates of the scraggly beard and the very short hair and they were a sort of ... took place in front of them as they were up against this wall was an exchange between the Interior Minister and Dr Allawi, the Interior Minister saying that he felt like killing them on the spot.
The Interior Minister lives to the north of Baghdad, and on June 19, four of his bodyguards were killed in an attack on his home. He expressed the wish that he would like to kill all these men on the spot. The PM is said to have responded that they deserved worse than death, that each was responsible for killing more than 50 Iraqis each, and at that point, he is said to have pulled a gun and proceeded to aim at and shoot all seven. Six of them died, the seventh, according to one witness, was wounded in the chest, according to the other witness, was wounded in the neck and presumed to be dead.
As explained by the witnesses, neither of them could put a precise date on the incident.
MAXINE McKEW: Your sources of course will be sought out by other news agencies after tonight. Will they stand up to scrutiny?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well I don't know whether others will find them or not. I won't be making them available to anyone. I've given undertakes that I would protect their identities absolutely and I have to stand by that.
1. A surprise visit where these prisoners were already blindfolded and lined up against the wall before the exchange between the PM and the IM even took place. [Doesn't pass the smell test...]
2. They are described as foreign insurgents who infiltrated a sovereign country to wage war against it's government and had killed Iraqi citizens. [Let's call them what they are: terrorists]
3. Neither witness could put an exact date on the execution. [How Clintonesque!]
4. He will not tell anyone who made the accusations. [Now...we all know how much credibility to give to "unamed sources"..
What say y'all? I actually found myself in agreement once with McGeough...
PAUL McGEOUGH: "You're right about the Baghdad rumour mill, it's ferocious."
Thanks for that. I do agree that it sounds like a pile of crapola.
APRIL 2003 : (ROBERT FISKE PROPAGANDIZES FOR HUSSEIN) "Anyone who doubts that the Iraqi Army is prepared to defend its capital should take the highway south of Baghdad. How, I kept asking myself, could the Americans batter their way through these defenses?" -- Robert Fisk. With Fisk that day was SMH columnist Paul McGeough, who later reported: “Robert gets a bit windy from time to time."