Posted on 11/05/2004 7:32:52 PM PST by angkor
NEW YORK The embeds are back. With a U.S. military assault on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah pending, there has been a surge in news organizations seeking embedded slots with the Marine unit there, Pentagon officials told E&P today.
All 70 embed slots with the First Marine Expeditionary Force were filled two days ago, according to Sgt. Eric Grill of the Press Information Center in Baghdad.
That same Marine unit had only 15 embeds just one month ago. "It's filled up," Grill told E&P Friday. "There are no more slots."
Embedded journalists in Iraq, which topped 800 at the height of the combat in 2003, have since dwindled to the double digits in the past year or so. But several newspapers said they had sought to return reporters and photographers to the Marine unit outside Fallujah as the likely assault looms.
"That is the only way to do it," said Phil Bennett, foreign editor of The Washington Post, which embedded reporter Jackie Spinner with the Marine unit a week ago. "We also have permission to embed a photographer as well, and we are trying to do that."
Bennett said Spinner had been assigned to Baghdad, but moved her location to prepare for the attack.
The Boston Globe also added an embed, placing reporter Anne Barnard, who had been Baghdad, with the Marines on Sunday. Her stories since have included a piece in Friday's paper about how medical forces are beefing up in preparation for the attack, expecting high U.S. casualties in what could be, she wrote, "the bloodiest day" in the entire war.
Roy Greene, a deputy foreign editor at the Globe, said Barnard had embed equipment with her that included a bullet-proof vest and helmet.
"It is dangerous because of mortar attacks and other things," he said. "But we thought we'd get a good opportunity for a real close-up view. If events warrant, we will consider adding more."
Meanwhile, Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder/Tribune, writing under the dateline "with U.S. Forces near Falluljah," also led his story with military hospitals' preparations. A senior surgeon said the number of dead and wounded will probably reach levels "not seen since Vietnam."
Lasseter reported that one hospital has added two operating rooms and doubled its supplies, preparing to treat 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not including the dead and those who can still walk. The article ended with comment from one soldier that the fight for Fallujah is "overdue."
The New York Times article today placed heavy emphasis on this eagerness of troops. Reporter Robert F. Worth described the urban-warfare drills and the scene at the military base, where 29-year-old Lance Cpl. Dimitri Gavriel reported Marines are "locked, cocked and ready to rock."
Newsday, in Long Island, N.Y., printed another hospital article by Matthew McAllester, a staff correspondent. "Thursday afternoon," he wrote, "while reporters were visiting the hospital, the medical staff received an all-too-familiar delivery: Two Marines and an American freelance photographer who had embedded with their unit had been injured, their light armored vehicle hit by a roadside bomb."
McAllester said the hospital had set up triage tents and brought in additional mortuary staff. "We've been living by the creed that if you build it they will come," said Capt. Eric Lovell, an emergency medicine specialist. According to McAllester, "Commanders here have told reporters they expect casualties if the battle begins."
A number of larger papers, including the Chicago Tribune and USA Today, ran Associated Press stories or compiled stories from other wire services. An article from "near Fallujah" by AP reporter Edward Harris reported that U.S. commanders, who expect a tough fight, are stressing that orders to attack must come from Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Harris also interviewed a number of the troops and noted that many of them "privately owned up to an amount of trepidation."
Harris ended with a comment on one reason for the soldiers' motivation, quoting 25-year-old Lance Cpl. Mike Detmer saying, "This is the most important thing of my generation and I'm part of it. I can already see the pages in the history books."
Real news? I hope not--I don't want tactical information going out live over CNN.
Sadly, given the reports that Fallujah is mostly empty now, thanks to evacuations--I don't think we're going to completely beat the terrorists here. They've left with the other crowds.
> Maybe we'll get some real news now ...
Even on Fox, only when they shut up, leave the mic open,
and let the camera roll. Anything else is almost always
ignorance, spin, or both.
The polical leaders of the insurgents have left the area and they have left the Kool-Aide drinkers behind to die. So OK, we get them. This is the Tet-Offensive for the Iraq war. That is why we are blocking the Syrian frontier.
I hope the "embeds" are embedded right at the front --- in between the Marines and the DEAD!
Why are they given any combat spots at all after the way they have failed to report the progress over there so miserably? All the media wants to see is blood and guts and dead babies, while they totally ignore the humanitarian in-roads our troops have accommplished! To Hell with the media! Let them EARN their right to be on the front lines I say!
And, we also get whatever they may have stashed there.
I wonder how many IED's lie in wait in Fallujah, and how we'll deal with them. I am worried, but confident.
Did Rather request a slot so he could go????
Except when the dead babies happen under the glare of the lights of a "medic," of course....
To be honest with you the best reporting came form the embeds. That is why the MSM attacked them so much. "They bonded with the military" was their cry. I'm glad to have them with us.
I heard on the media that some terrorist had left -- Some way to win a war -
And I wonder if the people from CNN will run into any of their buddies they filmed taking shots at our troops - but then again, they all hide their faces(at least when the camera is on)
A lot of soldiers from WWI and WWII must be turning over and over and over -
That is why you lead with heavy armor. And also once you clear an area of civilians, you just level it. This battle will not be a PC battle. Buildings are going to be coming down under a rain of heavy bombs and artillary.
Your right... but i just wish there were some way to keep that kind of trend going you know... on truth? It takes money to put those reporters over there, and it just burns me to know that all the arm-chair quarterbacks calling the shots over here don't do some true follow up when there is not any fighting going on.
In both directions, I hope. What a surprise to the sneakouts from Fallujah to find that they are are royally screwed on their way away from Fallujah.
Well, I mean we get it as in capture it. I imagine there will be some ugly things we find in underground rooms.
I hope that the Marines have looked closely at the lessons the Israelis learned so bitterly in Jenin. I can promise you the terrorists have.
Helen Thomas?
lolololololol
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