Gilligan casts doubt on source of hotel attack [Iraq Responsible For Hotel Kill Shot]

The BBC's defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan has cast doubt on whether the missile that killed two journalists in Baghdad today was fired by a US tank, speculating that Iraqi soldiers may have launched the lethal attack.

The US military has admitted one of its tanks fired on the Palestine Hotel, the centre for most of the foreign media in the Iraqi capital.

However, Gilligan said reports from central command in Qatar were starting to suggest US tank fire was not responsible for the deaths of Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman with the Spanish TV network Telecinco.

Three other Reuters journalists and an Abu Dhabi TV staff member were injured when an explosion hit their room on the 15th floor of the hotel.

"I may be right in saying we're hearing from central command that they're starting to retract their apology for this incident," Gilligan told Radio 5 Live's drivetime show.

He added that after examining the scene he concluded it was virtually impossible for the US tank to have fired on the 15th floor room.

"I have to say I rather doubt it and, having been underneath it and looking up now just before it got dark at the hole again in the side of the hotel, I still doubt it.

"For a start the damage to the hotel is superficial, it's only the masonry that's been torn off in a very small area, a tank shell would have done more damage I feel.

"Secondly the angle that the tank would have to have reached to hit that roof, it would more or less have had to have shot just round the corner and I don't think even the Americans have got those kinds of weapons."

Gilligan said although American tank fire hit other parts of the hotel, it was possible an Iraqi attack was responsible for the journalists' deaths.

"Now the Americans have admitted they fired at the hotel. There was damage to other parts of the hotel.

"This was the main one the 15th floor room, where the two people were killed and three injured, but there was also damage to rooms on the 14th and 17th floors.

"This might have been the responsibility of someone else, maybe some Saddam Fedayeen with a rocket-propelled grenade, who did not like the fact the Reuters guy was shooting footage from his balcony at the time of the attack.

"That is pure speculation. I just think there must still be some doubt over this area."

Earlier today the US army said it had fired at the hotel after coming under sniper attack.

It said the deaths were "unfortunate". General Buford Blount, the commander of the 3rd Infantry division, which is at the vanguard of the advance on Baghdad, said a tank was "receiving small arms fire and RPG fire from the hotel".

Later the US army said although journalists were on a "protected list" the military was "correct in returning fire" because of the real threat to their troops.

Is this the same guy that scolded the BBC for their *wrong* reporting on the war?

Not even close. From Duck Season(click for the rest of the article):

Cut to: Andrew Gilligan, the BBC's man in downtown Baghdad. "I'm in the center of Baghdad," said a very dubious Gilligan, "and I don't see anything… But then the Americans have a history of making these premature announcements." Gilligan was referring to a military communiqué from Qatar the day before saying the Americans had taken control of most of Baghdad’s airport. When that happened, Gilligan had told World Service listeners that he was there, at the airport - but the Americans weren't. Gilligan inferred that the Americans were lying. An hour or two later, a different BBC correspondent pointed out that Gilligan wasn't at the airport, actually. He was nearby - but apparently far enough away that the other correspondent felt it necessary to mention that he didn’t really know if Gilligan was around, but that no matter what Gilligan had seen or not seen, the airport was firmly and obviously in American hands.

It was important to the BBC that Gilligan not be wrong twice in two days. Whatever the truth was, the BBC, like Walter Duranty’s New York Times, must never say, "I was wrong." So, despite the fact that the appearance of American troops in Baghdad was surely one of the war's big moments, and one the BBC had obviously missed, American veracity became the story of the day. Gilligan, joined by his colleagues in Baghdad, Paul Wood and Rageh Omaar, kept insisting that not only had the Americans not gone to the "center" - which they reckoned to be where they were - they hadn't really been in the capital at all. Both Omaar and Wood told listeners that they had been on hour-long Iraqi Ministry of Information bus rides - "and," said Wood, "we were free to go anywhere" - yet they had seen nothing of an American presence in the city. From Qatar, a BBC correspondent helpfully explained that US briefings, such as that announcing the Baghdad incursion, were meaningless exercises, "more PR than anything else." Maybe, implied the World Service, the Americans had made it all up: all day long, Wood repeatedly reported that there was no evidence to support the American claim.

Oh, I knew that. I thought you meant something else. When the reporters were saying that no shots were fired from the hotel, I thought to myself, "How the hell can they know no shots were fired from the hotel?" That's a pretty big hotel. They wouldn't necessarily know if shots were being fired from the hotel.

But maybe, since their Iraqi minders have skedaddled, they might report the story differently.

My husband heard on NPR this morning about an Italian reporter at the hotel, who said his "minder" was a particularly harsh S.O.B., but that this morning his minder was apprehended trying to steal the car belonging to his Italian colleague. They stopped him, and apparently was begging to be let go, then he ran home and the last they saw him, he was trying to tear up his I.D. card. He knows his number is up.

So maybe these reporters will change their tune. Let's see if the journalist's objectivity overcomes the anti-American leftist's biased reporting.

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