Post Latest Iraq War News Here - Part III

[MarkG]

IRNA: US Marines arrest reporter of Iranian satellite TV channel

http://www.irna.com/en/head/030414014002.ehe.shtml

[MarkG]

Iraq war a boon to China’s media firms

http://www.timesofoman.com/newsdetails.asp?newsid=29470

In March, income from commercials at CCTV, China’s largest nationally owned media group, increased by 100 million yuan ($12 million), a 30 per cent jump over the same period a year ago.

[MarkG]

Iraq Conflict Threatens Cable News Ads

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2517456

Cable networks declined to say exactly how much revenue is at risk, but CNN last year grossed more than $400 million in ads. Losing half of its revenue for a month in a strong scatter market could cost about $20 million, but the figure is likely to be somewhat lower because the network can charge more for ads with ratings booming

[gsmoove23]

British Get Tough in Basra

http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2585&version=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258

The British Press Association reported that the British troops and Iraqi police will patrol jointly at first, and then the Iraqis will patrol slightly ahead of the British units. Finally, the Iraqis will patrol alone, and the British will set up positions so they can react if needed.

This news may increase confidence, but Al Jazeera has already had confirmed reports that those Iraqis attempting to police have themselves been attacked, and in some instances have had to take shelter in British armoured personnel carriers. These attacks may continue if many of the police are associated with the Baath Party.

[SlowwHand]

U.S., Iraqis Begin Joint Baghdad Patrols
1 hour, 42 minutes ago

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With looting already easing in Baghdad on Monday, Iraqis and U.S. troops began jointly patrolling the streets to quell the lawlessness that has engulfed the capital since the collapse of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime, the American military said.
Iraqis started accompanying troops late Sunday or early Monday, said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a U.S. Central Command spokesman. In addition, Iraqis have also launched neighborhood watch programs and Iraqi civil leaders are emerging to maintain order, he said.


"We're beginning to see a downward trend in looting," he said.


On Monday morning, several hundred Iraqi police officers in plainclothes and uniform reported to the Iraqi police academy in response to a coalition call for Iraqis to take part in joint patrols to restore order. The officers registered upon entering the academy, as Marine sentries watched

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_baghdad_598

[gsmoove23]

Baghdad Residents Begin a Long Climb to an Ordered City
Mon Apr 14, 9:02 AM ET

By JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&ncid=68&e=1&u=/nyt/20030414/ts_nyt/baghdad_residents_begin_a_long_climb_to_an_ordered_city

But even as some Iraqis sought to heal the city's wounds, others, fired by anger and revenge, broke through to the little that was left of untouched government buildings after four days of continuous looting. Among other buildings afire or still smoldering in eastern Baghdad today were the city hall, the Agriculture Ministry and so thoroughly burned that heat still radiated 50 paces from its front doors the National Library. Not far from the National Museum of Iraq, which was looted on Thursday and Friday with the loss of almost all of its store of 170,000 artifacts, the library was considered another of the repositories of an Iraqi civilization dating back at least 7,000 years.

By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi newspapers tracing the country's turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule through to Mr. Hussein. Reading rooms and the stacks where the collections were stored were reduced to smoking vistas of blackened rubble.

Across the street, a lone American tank roared out of the monumental gates of the Defense Ministry, untouched by the looters presumably because they knew that the ministry, at least, would be under close guard by American troops.

Almost as much as the civilian casualties from American bombs and tanks, the destruction of the museum and the library has ignited passions against American troops, for their failure to intervene. How far these passions offset the widespread jubilation at the toppling of Mr. Hussein is impossible to tell, in part because of the differing views within the population. Along looters, many but not all of them from the impoverished underclass, and especially from the slums of Saddam City, the end of Mr. Hussein's government appears to have been greeted as an absolute good.

But a different view emerges among Baghdad's professionals. Many of them managed to elude the worst brutalities of Mr. Hussein, either because they were members of the Baath Party, or were Sunni Muslims, or because, as doctors, lawyers, engineers and university teachers, they made themselves useful to the government and offered few challenges to its survival. Among those people, the common view in recent days has been the one expressed by protesters who gathered in the heat outside the Palestine Hotel today, shouting abuse at the marines: that the cure has proven worse than the disease that having many of the city's principal institutions laid to waste by looters has been too high a price for freedom.

[Kyle]

Originally posted by MarkG
IRNA: US Marines arrest reporter of Iranian satellite TV channel
http://www.irna.com/en/head/030414014002.ehe.shtml

US Marines, believed to have been angered by the impartial
coverage of war scenes by some media, have targeted journalists in
several cases, killing 11 reporters so far.

It's the Iranian news agency, so their bias is known, but is there any proof that 11 reporters have been killed due to the US?

[SlowwHand]

More to the point, if they did, why did they?



World - Reuters

Spain Expels Iraqi Envoys After Arms Cache Find
Mon Apr 14, 8:01 AM ET MADRID (Reuters) - Spain has ordered the expulsion of six Iraqi diplomats after Iraq (news - web sites)'s top envoy confessed there was a cache of weapons and ammunition at the embassy, diplomatic sources said on Monday.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said six diplomats and one other member of embassy staff had received their expulsion orders on Sunday and had 72 hours to leave the country. "Six diplomats have been declared persona non grata," the ministry spokesman said.





Latest news:
· Syria Denies Having Chemical Weapons, Saddam Link
Reuters - 7 minutes ago

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&e=29&u=/nm/20030414/wl_nm/iraq_spain_dc_1

[Adam Smith]

Smoking Gun?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/14/sprj.irq.labs/index.html

Monday, April 14, 2003 Posted: 5:40 PM EDT (2140 GMT)


KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. troops have found 11 mobile laboratories buried south of Baghdad that are capable of biological and chemical uses, a U.S. general said Monday.

There were no chemical or biological weapons with the containerized labs, which measure 20 feet square. But soldiers recovered "about 1,000 pounds" of documents from inside the labs, and the United States will examine those papers further, said Brig. Gen. Benjamin Freakley of the Army's 101st Airborne Division.

......

Troops found the mobile laboratories near a weapons plant outside Karbala, about 50 miles south of Baghdad. Though buried, they appeared to contain about $1 million worth of equipment and were "clearly marked so they could be found again," Freakley said.

......

In February, U.N. weapons inspectors "found nothing untoward" at an ammunition filling plant close to where the troops have found the mobile labs, a U.N. inspection team spokesman said Monday.

Inspectors visited the site -- referred to as the Karbala Ammunition Filling Plant -- on February 23.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

For those who didn't note it, CNN no longer has WAR IN IRAQ as its central theme...there isn't a even a banner.

[CrONoS]

Divided Iraqis to hold post-war talks
Representatives of exiled opposition groups are being flown to an airbase outside the southern city of Nasiriya to meet local tribal and religious leaders
...But a BBC correspondent in Kuwait, Malcolm Brabant, says there is concern that Iraqi relief at the fall of Saddam Hussein will turn into resentment over what many perceive as an American occupation....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2948351.stm

[CrONoS]

US SOLDIERS KILLED IN BLAST
Two American soliders were killed and two others wounded by a grenade blast on Monday, say US military chiefs

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1087484,00.html

[CrONoS]

Did Republican Guard Commander Cut Deal With US?
15.04.2003 [16:00]


The mystery of what happened to the Iraqi Republican Guard defending Baghdad appears to have been solved if a report in today's Le Monde is to be believed.
The French daily reports that Maher Sufyan, Commander of the Republican Guard reached an agreement with American forces in which he ordered his forces to surrender in exchange for his transfer via an American Apache helicopter to an undisclosed safe haven.
Quoting anonymous sources, Le Mondeâs correspondent in Baghdad said that Sufyan ordered all Republican Guard forces to lay down their arms and go home. Shortly thereafter an Apache helicopter escorted Sufyan from the Al Rashid camp, east of Baghdad, to an unknown location.
Maher Sufyan is not included on the infamous ãdeck of cardsä created by US defence officials to highlight the most wanted individuals from the Saddam Hussein government. Iraqâs popular Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed Al Sahaf, Naji Sabri, Iraqâs Foreign Minister and Medhat Oumid, the Minister of Health are also not included on the list.

http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=3065&lang=en

[Ming]

A simple reminder... This thread is for REAL NEWS ITEMS.

I'm seeing a lot more links that are basically opinions, or editorials... That's NOT the intent of this thread. I see no difference in posting your own opinions vs that of you finding some editorial that supports the same POV and you posting a link to it.

Yes... all news services are biased... and put their own slat on the stories... PLEASE USE YOUR OWN BEST JUDGEMENT and ONLY POST REAL news stories.

I've deleted some of the more blatant ones... but I have no intention of going back to every link.

But in the future, if I see this trend continued, I will restrict the person from posting in this thread in the future... and if they continue to post after being told not to... then they will get a real restriction from the forums.

[Ambro2000]

10 civilians dead and hundreds wounded in Mosul when US troops shoot with automatic weapons right in to a civilian crowd!

source: http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyhete...293247,00.html

yeah yeah...it may be perhaps not the most reliable source out there...

US troops also bann reporters to be at tthe crimesite to witness the blood bath...