Update on Exclusive Report: "Internet Rumors Fly ... Saddam Was Killed by American First Strike !"

NewsPundit.net ^ | 3/20/2003 | Douglas Oliver

[ex-Texan]

Update on our Exclusive Report: "Internet Rumors Fly ... Saddam Was Killed by American First Strike !"

NewsPundit.net "scooped the world" early this morning.

There is no doubt that we were the first news service in the world to break the report about Saddam being dead. We posted our exclusive report at 12:18 AM on our mirror site and on our home page. When I awoke this morning I discovered that the major networks were broadcasting essentially the same information that we had posted almost eight hours earlier. They also mentioned that rumors about Saddam's death were being transmitted on the Internet. Perhaps NewsPundit has some readers who are employed by the major televison networks.

The "Saddam" who appeared by the video taped broadcast did not look much like the real Saddam. There are photographs of the Iraqi leader available for people to compare and contrast at their leisure. Draw your own conclusions.

There were at least three international news reports making the similar pronouncements this morning. I quote briefly from all their reports below:

From the Washington Post we learned that the White House had reached "no immediate conclusions" about whether Saddam had been killed by our first strike:

* * * A senior Bush administration official today questioned the authenticity of a videotape showing Saddam Hussein speaking a few hours after the cruise missile strikes that opened the war in Iraq. "We reach no conclusions about who that was or when it was taped or anything like that," the administration official said. "It does not lend itself to immediate conclusions." * * *

The VOA News Service head line this morning was "White House Unclear About Authenticity of Saddam's Address." A brief excerpt from that report:

* * * The White House says it is drawing no conclusions about the authenticity of a television appearance by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein following the launch of the war. * * *

A senior Bush administration official said intelligence experts are investigating when the television appearance may have been taped or if it was really Saddam Hussein who delivered the remarks. The Iraqi leader is reported to have used doubles in the past. * * *

From the AP World Report this morning the headline was "Bush Assesses Initial Strikes on Iraq:"

* * * President Bush conferred with his national security adviser early Thursday on the initial strikes against Iraq, as officials tried to determine whether the attack aimed at killing Saddam Hussein had succeeded. * * *

`The president is not going to be a play-by-play commentator on it,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. ``The president has a long approach to this.'' * * *

It is apparent that the Ba-Ath Party would quickly lose control of Iraq if they admitted that Saddam Hussein had been killed by a U.S. first strike. There are mass desertions taking place already from the Iraqi army. Conservative estimates put the number of desertions at "20,000 or more." I believe that the "or more" number is already above 30,000. Our military progress should be applauded.

Iraq has been under the domination of one very evil man for a long time. His personal addiction to brutality, death, torture, and murder of entire families in well known. By all accounts both of his sons are addicted to rape and murder in addition to common, ordinary bloodshed and brutality.

The world will be a better place after Saddam and this Ba-Ath party are beaten militarily and stripped of their power. Iraq will most certainly be a better place for the Iraqis. I strongly support the American effort to disarm Iraq and bring an end to this evil regime. What follows is our original report made early this morning.

[Truth29]

Of course, feeding the rumor could be part of PSYOPS. There's no way to tell.

[js1138]

"There is no doubt that we were the first news service"

FR isn't a news service? How many FReepers consider this their first and primary source for news?

[xp38]

Saddam has entered that netherworld of "maybe dead" that Osama occupies.

[DryFly]

I haven't seen "Saddam's" speech in full. Does he reference the date or anything to suggest it was done after the decapitation strike?

[ThinkDifferent]

Very convincing logic and I fervently hope you're right. I wonder if this wasn't as unplanned as we were told. Taking out Saddam in a single surgical strike would certainly create "shock and awe"...

[bert]

It doesn't matter. It is becoming a[[atent that if enough people in Iraq begin to wonder, they will begin to act as if he is dead. The Troops will go AWOL and leaders won't care.

[P-Marlowe]

He's dead Jim.

[the_doc]

I saw a report last week that we had Iraqi and U.S. agents and even Special Forces troops already in Baghdad (again, as early as last week!) looking for the opportunity to take Saddam out as the VERY FIRST ACTION OF THE WAR.

[CCWoody]

I did see that report, or a similar one. What exactly do you think they meant when they said "special forces"?

[the_doc]

I don't know what they meant by "special forces," but it was a report coming from the Kurdish north, as I recall.

[the_doc]

I didn't see the entire address, but I saw TV reports that it seemed to be a videotape. There was a freeze-frame error which the network guys said did not appear to be a satellite transmission glitch.

[dixierose]

How many FReepers consider this their first and primary source for news?

I, for one, keep a browser on FR all day...hitting refresh as often as I can to get the newest stuff.

Now I just hope my boss doesn't find out :-)

[BamaFan]

You have given this a lot of thought, but I'll wager that you are completely wrong. I'd bet that: 1) SH is still alive and 2) the video of him is exactly what the Iraqi's say it is, him, taped after the strike.

[Cassanova Frankenstein]

If this true.....This is going to be rrreeeaaalllyyy bad news to all those leftist pukes who have an affection for murderous psychopathic dictators.

Sucks to be them.

[hunter112]

"He has joined the celestial choir"

Celestial choir? More likely baying with the hounds of hell!

[the_doc]

Maybe I'm wrong. But I wonder where Saddam's wounds were. They were not visible at all. He showed no signs of any problem. He even seemed to have good mobility moving around in the chair, with no incapacity or even wincing.

And if Travis McGee's theory is correct--i.e., his theory that Saddam was deeper in the bunker than the guys who got killed, then how did they get him out of the rubble so quickly and treat his wounds and do his make-up for the camera and do the videotape and then broadcast it?

Maybe there was an escape tunnel leading out elsewhere. (That's the only way he could have gotten out from under several tons of concrete and steel so quickly.) But rather than continuing to invoke such "maybes," it makes more sense to me to theorize that he is dead--which would automatically explain why he is incommunicado and would also explain the fact that the speech was completely generic ranting (taped in advance).

I prefer to believe that our missiles and bombs were correctly selected weapons for the job. (If they were, he's dead.)

We'll wait and see.

[Travis McGee]

You can bet that the entrances to his bunker complexes are well disguised, and that he never lingers there, where the bombs will fall. The living spaces of the bunkers will be well distant horizontally from the entrances, and in order not to be buried alive, there will be multiple exits.

[Osage Orange]

He's either really, really dead...or he's just dead and doesn't know it yet. Either way...he's dead. :)

FRegards,

[razorback-bert]

"Saddam Hussein Denies He's alive."