Posted on 02/12/2005 9:29:16 AM PST by mediabruiser
before the battle of fallujah in novemebr last year, cnn placed on the web the following material. it contains many details of the upcoming operation. it would seem to me that cnn were endangering the lives of our soldiers by putting this on the internet three days before the assault began. so we could therefore accuse cnn of targetting our troops.
-----Original Message-----
From: Flower, Kevin [mailto:Kevin.Flower@turner.com]
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:51 PM
To: 'baghdad-uspool@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: [baghdad-uspool] Fallujah Offensive
This is from our correspondent Karl Penhaul....this has been pushed up to the executive pool level by my supervisors for further discussion...
Penhaul says we about to witness an intense military shelling and "feint" designed to confuse and draw out the insurgents. This will begin within hours. The actual physical Marine incursion on Falluja will begin nighttime locally Sunday, about noon our time Sunday. The Marine commander says this will be the most intense combat since Hue in Vietnam. Marines are willing to place pool crews at the very front... stress very front...of their operation, which expects to move forward 500 meters per day for four days. They want the international media to see how the insurgents are fighting, as an eyewitness buffer on the civilian casualties issues which will leap out. Karl says this will involve advances not along roads and alleys, but over roofs, thru walls, winding and darting. Marines describe Falluja as a city heavily booby-trapped, not just IEDs and fixed car bombs, but entire buildings wired to explode such as the Israelis recently encountered in territories. Karl says this isn't dodging bullets, or RPGS or even mortars... this is scale of risk media has not yet encountered. He sees ten plus crews "running around with no visible coordination"in combat rules and media rules which are about to place them at the very forefront, in an intense killing zone. Karl says the Marines say this isn't Fallujah April, it's not Samarra, not Najaf. This is about to be something of a scale not seen thus far in the conflict.
Do you have a link?
Interesting...you follow Karl Penhaul closely.
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/baghdad-uspool/
above is the yahoo discussion group that it appeared on in november, and from where i took a grab, but it has now been cleaned up. the message is genuine, and if confronted, cnn would not be able to deny it.
i was quite shocked when i saw the information on the group as anyone can view it, it is not a closed group.
From: Bruiser, Media [mailto:Free.Republic@bs.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 4:51 PM
To: 'baghdad-uspool@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: [baghdad-uspool] Mediabruiser
This is from our correspondent Mediabruiser....this has been pushed up to the executive pool level by my supervisors for further discussion...
Bruiser says we about to witness an intense nothing, as a non story is propogated around the Internet.
CNN did the classic dem thing - accuse your foe of doing something you know you're about to be caught doing...
i agree, it looks as though i just made it up to stir things more. what i can tell you is that i grabbed this from the discussion group that i linked to. and that kevin flower was the cnn bureau chief in baghdad last november. the discussion group was cleaned out the day before the assault when it was realised that vital information had been posted on the web. of course, by then, the insurgents in fallujah could have easily seen it by then. we do know that they are very adept at using the internet, and i am sure that they would have been following that discussion group to gather information. the media have great difficulties in keeping secrets, as we all know.
If the content of the posting is true then the journalists/corespondents were given ample warning of what to expect if they chose to volunteer for the front.
Posting in an online group is at best is not well thought out at worst treason. Really poor judgement.
The marine commander might be more careful who he talks to or he may have been spreading some mis-information using the media.
in fact a friend of mine was with the marines during the fallujah assault, he is a photographer. when i contacted him about the message on the net he said he would have it dealt with, and thanked me for letting him know.
i don't think cnn purposely placed information on the web to cause any damage to the marines, i think they were only guilty of ignorance in that the discussion group could be seen by anybody.
as to mis-information by the marines. as we saw, that is how the assault went on fallujah. starting at the times stated in the message, and the tactic of staying out of the streets and using the roofs and blowing holes in walls. so i would say that the marines weren't very happy with that information being out there. proven by the fact that karl penhaul was taken from his embed and sent back to baghdad.
do you remember any stories from fallujah with penhaul, or do you remember him doing lives from the baghdad bureau ?
Why is CNN posting their news to Yahoo discussion boards?
Do you have something against capitals, punctuation, and coherence?
CNN were posting to the US pool discussion board and sharing information with other pool members. As you are probably aware, all images taken in Fallujah by the American networks, CNN, Fox, also BBC, ITN, Skynews, and APTN were pooled. ie each network could run the images taken by another without any copyright problem, or even payment. It is a standard practice within television.
<"do you remember any stories from fallujah with penhaul, or do you remember him doing lives from the baghdad bureau ?">
No, but I was watching Fox News for that coverage and I don't remember who thay had on either!
<"i think they were only guilty of ignorance in that the discussion group could be seen by anybody. ">
I guess they need to increase the awareness level. Problem is that anyone with net access can post information on the net and with an organization as large as CNN reaching everyone and having them understand is probably a huge managerial problem.
So then every other pool memeber saw this also? What were you doing on this discussion board? Is it public? Are you saying the press used a public Yahoo dicussion board to spread information to other pool members?
Exactly. The press were foolish enough to use a public discussion board to pass information between each other.
Go to http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/baghdad-uspool/
Click on novembers messages. You will see that there had been 457 messages posted in november, but you will only see ones from 19 november and after.
I knew about the discussion board as I work in the media.
That is correct. One was killed in the Palestine hotel incident. The tank crew that fired were exonerated as they did not know that media was in the hotel, they were taking incoming, and thought that there was a spotter targeting them. They saw something near the top floor of the hotel, it looked like someone with an RPG, and someone with binoculars. The tank crew fired. And who would blame them, it is war.
Mazen Dana was killed in front of Abu Ghraib prison. Again the military mistook his camera for a shoulder launched missile.
It is behoven upon the journalist to make sure that he cannot be mistaken for a terrorist. It is not the militaries responsibilty to try to sort out who has the missile and who has the camera. The time taken to clarify can result in the deaths of our soldiers.
Do you know Sarah Everas or Hila Gavron?
No I do not know either of them. They were co-ordinators for the pool as far as I am aware. They were not even in Fallujah. Though the dish that is referred to was not in Fallujah either, that was actually in Camp Fallujah, which is the Marine base just outside of the town. The dish was run by APTN, and was there for the use of the pool for getting the pictures out.
Karl says worst thread since Hue in Vietnam
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