UK denies capturing Iraqi general

The Hindu ^ | Monday, March 31, 2003

[Int]

UK denies capturing Iraqi general

As Sayliya Camp (Qatar), March 31: British forces today denied that they had captured an Iraqi general in clashes with paramilitaries south of Iraq's second city Basra yesterday.

"He was misidentified as a general. He was just another officer," agencies quoted a British military spokesman as saying at war headquarters in Qatar while retracting a claim made yesterday about having captured a senior general.

Asked how the mistake was discovered, he reportedly said: "We just got feedback through the channel of command."

Yesterday, a British spokesman said that Royal Marine commandos had captured a general and five other Iraqis while fighting around Basra.

Qatar-based satellite television channel al-Jazeera later quoted Lieutenant-General Walid Hamid Tawfiq, an Iraqi field commander in the Basra region, as denying that a general had been captured and a colonel killed.

According to al-Jazeera, Tawfiq said four British soldiers were killed in the ongoing battles south of Basra.

British forces have surrounded Basra, Iraq's second city of 1.5 million people, but have not entered it, hoping it can be wrested from the control of President Saddam Hussein's government without the need to fight street by street.

[Int]

Sigh. Another war report bites the dust...

[spitz]

Looks like the anti-war Indian press are the only ones running this story, it’s been posted for 20+ hrs and the BBC and ABC are not even reporting this.

Either it’s a home spun story for the local market or the Indian reporters were the only ones at the briefing!

[Int]

I took a look around and the story was widely reported but seems to have been "smothered" in a remarkable manner in other media reports:

Reuters article by Samia Nakhoul: (in Wash. Post) U.S. Pounds Baghdad, Battles to the South. It's only mentioned in paragraph 36 - that's the last paragraph!

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald made up of mix of agency reports: Troops clash in suburbs in battle for Basra Check paragraphs 18 and 19 - out of a total of 19.

Gulf Daily News article: UK troops step up Basra battle. Paragraphs 10 & 11 of 12...

I'm guessing these media outlets are a little embarrassed about making a big deal out of the initial claim.

[spitz]

I’m still not convinced, the Washington Post is actually a Reuters piece, the Sydney Morning Herald credits agencies, the Hindu and Gulf Daily News don’t credit their own journalists or any agency. And who is the British military spokesman? These articles read like a mish-mash of information gleaned from the wires and assembled without checking the source.

I’ll wait to see some more concrete evidence then pass judgement. Doesn’t really matter if he’s a colonel, major or captain he will still have information that’s useful, just need to beat it out of him.

Who knows maybe we got ourselves a field-marshal!

[Int]

We've got a name at least:

"U.S. hammers away at Baghdad positions"
"...Initially, the British military reported that it also had captured an Iraqi general in Basra, but later Sunday British military spokesman Will MacKinlay told BBC television that the report was wrong, attributing the mistake to ``the fog of war." ..."

[Int]

I think this story [British backtrack over general] puts the issue to rest. (Although they say they have 5 "senior" guys)

[dark_lord]

One reason I suspect that we get these "We've captured an Iraqi general...oh, not really, sorry" reports is the following: if we do capture one and the embeds report it, the guy is going to tell the US or Brit troops that if Saddam knows he has surrendered his family is toast --- therefore the military releases a story that nope, sorry, just another "officer" and not a general at all.