As Info Minister Denies US Troops Near Baghdad, Airport is Seized

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

ABC News has embedded reporter Bob Schmidt traveling with the 3rd Infantry Division. He announced that the US has seized Saddam International Airport. He filed his report FROM THE TARMAC of the airport.

"And even as U.S. forces were positioned around Baghdad, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al Sahaf dismissed reports of coalition troops closing in on the capital as “silly.”

“They are nowhere near Baghdad,” al Sahaf told a news conference in the capital today. “Their allegations are a cover-up for their failure.”

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_main030403.html

The only image that comes to mind is Nero fiddling while Rome burned. But then again, I’m quite sure that there are literally millions in the Arab streets who will still believe the Iraqi Information Minister.

2

maybe they want to believe him, maybe they are wishing that US soldiers were not in Iraq at all.Maybe the arabs wanted their govts to stand up against the great Satan i.e US and not provide camps and ports to stage attack aginst the innocent people of Iraq.

maybe.....

3

Well, propaganda efforts from both combatants aside, I don't think seizing the airport was ever considered a major obstacle. Once the marine's are able to build sandcastles at their leisure at the gates of Baghdad we'll have a story.

4

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Judge^MentuLL: *
Well, propaganda efforts from both combatants aside, I don't think seizing the airport was ever considered a major obstacle. Once the marine's are able to build sandcastles at their leisure at the gates of Baghdad we'll have a story.
[/QUOTE]

Judge: The word is "denial" not propaganda. Last I heard, Saddam International Airport was "near" Baghdad. How long do you think the Arab masses and the Iraqi people can be controlled through lies. The reporter was on the airport runway for goodness sake. If the information ministry calls these stories false and silly, how could any thinking person give any credence whatsoever to anything that has come out of or comes out of the Information Ministry?

5

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Judge^MentuLL: *
Well, propaganda efforts from both combatants aside, I don't think seizing the airport was ever considered a major obstacle. Once the marine's are able to build sandcastles at their leisure at the gates of Baghdad we'll have a story.
[/QUOTE]

That is the same strategy that says, abh maar ke dikha. when it happens, say it again, abh maar ke dikha mainu tujhe daikh loonga.

Amazing that people who believe American forces are 100 miles away from Baghdad tonight accuse others of being brainwashed by FOX/CNN.

6

[quote]
how could any thinking person give any credence whatsoever to anything that has come out of or comes out of the Information Ministry?
[/quote]

myvoice,

you're a thinking person right.. (i'm going out on a limb here) .. you still trust what comes out the Pentagon and it's inbedded reporters?/

Why don't you reject any news from them subsequent to the 'capture of Basra'??

7

My reading of the situation was this: The defence of Iraq would centre round the streets of Baghdad. Not the airport. Not even Um Qasr or Basra which has still not fallen. Not to mention Najaf, Al Nasariyah or Karbalah.

Bahgdad airport really doesn't even come into the equation.

8

Unless duty free cigarettes are part of the new battle plan.

9

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by PakistaniAbroad: *
myvoice,

you're a thinking person right.. (i'm going out on a limb here) .. you still trust what comes out the Pentagon and it's inbedded reporters?/

Why don't you reject any news from them subsequent to the 'capture of Basra'??
[/QUOTE]

Probably because of my professional training and professional experience, I don't blanketly "trust" any single source for anything. I take bits and scraps of information and try to figure out where they belong in the bigger mosaic. Once I am satisfied that I have enough bits and scraps of information, I form my opinions. My opinions sometimes change and sometimes get reinforced as I accumulate more and more bits and scraps of information and figure out where to put them in the mosaic.

All you need to do is watch a single press conference or briefing and then watch two or three different newscasts "report" on that press conference or briefing to realize that reporters don't report facts. A lot of times, they can't even quote what someone says accurately preferring instead to report what they (the reporters) think the person meant. That said, all sources of information are not viewed as equally credible by me. Based upon experience in listening to how certain reporters report the news of events that I have personally watched, I form conclusions as to who is more credible than whom. And when reports are bolstered by visual images that I can trust, I give those things more credence.

I don't know ABC News reporter Bob Schmidt. Nor have I actually stood on the tarmac of the Baghdad Airport. And while it is true that ABC News could have staged his most recent report on a Hollywood backlot, my experience and the opinions I have formed about ABC News tells me that this is very unlikely. Similarly, I don't believe FoxNews and CNN both staged images of imbedded journalists wooshing through the Iraqi desert from Hollywood backlots.

Now I have heard the Iraqi Information Ministry say no American troops were in Iraq while I watched the wooshing tanks and say that no American troops are near Baghdad while listening to ABC reporters give reports supposedly from the airport tarmac.

I'll go out on a limb too and credit you with being a thinking person. If you are worthy of that credit, you'll now understand why I do not discount all reports from imbedded journalists and the Pentagon.

10

Iraq has warned it will take unconventional action against US troops

Squid attacks?

IRAQ’S CHILLING WARNING

Iraq has warned it will take unconventional action against US troops at Baghdad International Airport tonight.

Saddam Hussein’s information minister said: “Tonight we will carry out something that is non-conventional against them, not military. It will be a great example to them.”

It was not clear what Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf meant by “non-conventional”.

Asked if Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction, he said: “No, not at all. But we will conduct kind of martyrdom operations.”

US-led forces have been on alert for possible Iraqi use of biological or chemical weapons, which Baghdad denies it possesses.

Iraq’s main spokesman warned that US forces are isolated at Baghdad International Airport.

“Unless they surrender quickly, I don’t think there’s any chance that they will survive,” he said.

“We consider it an isolated island. They are completely surrounded.”

The US military meanwhile, said it now controls at least 70% of Baghdad’s international airport and are flushing out remaining pockets of resistance.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1086327,00.html

11

No offence to HRH Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, but he probably just meant, that remaining Iraqi Rep Guards will fart en masse towards Americans.. Unconventional, my foot! Mr al-Sahaf probably still believes that Americans are struggling to get thru the Iraq-Kuwait border. He should atleast open the windows and peek-out. Oh! but he is probably in a bunker. Sorry, no windows!

12

what now?? is he gonna serve the marines shawarmas mixed with Jamal Gota??

13

Hundreds of bodies discovered near Basra

Bring in more body bags MADE IN IRAQ

Conflicting reports on situation at Saddam airport; Hundreds of bodies discovered near Basra
05-04-2003, 12:16

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=246253&lang=e&dir=news

A suicide bomber has attacked U.S. army soldiers at Baghdad international airport, a U.S. Marine gunnery sergeant told Reuters on Saturday.

Fot its part, the Iraqi military said “hundreds” of U.S. troops were killed at Baghdad international airport on Saturday in a battle which Iraq said it had won.

“The enemy was forced to retreat suffering hundreds of casualties and Saddam International Airport has been changed to a graveyard for the invaders,” the Iraqi military said in a statement.

Earlier, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said Iraq had recaptured the airport from the U.S. invaders, who seized it on Friday morning. At Central Command headquarters in Qatar, senior U.S. spokesman Captain Frank Thorp told CNN that Iraq’s claim to have retaken the airport was “quite frankly groundless”.

“We still do have troops on the ground at the airport. There’s sporadic fighting,” Thorp added.

Meanwhile, hundreds of human remains were discovered Saturday by British soldiers in a makeshift morgue in southern Iraq, Sky News television reported. The remains, including bundles of bone in strips of military uniform, were found in an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of Al Zubayr, some 20 kms southwest of Basra.

Sky News, in a live report from west of Basra, carried video images of the morgue, showing a line of cardboard boxes with what appeared to be white shrouds in each of them. A British soldier was also seen flipping through what appeared to be a handwritten list of the dead. (Albawaba.com)

14

The Iraqi military is saying hundreds of U.S. troops were killed at Baghdad international airport. Just because "Arabic news" is reprinting it does not make it true.

15

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Majestic: *

No this is different!

Arabic news are saying that more then 100 US soldiers died in Saddams Airport
[/QUOTE]
Can you read? Where is Basra?

16

Apparently, there were four or five detroyed M 1 Abram tanks shown on Iraqi satellite television, which took direct hits during the incursion into Baghdad. We are not hearing about any American losses. Also, one of the US official was quoted as saying" We have retaken the airport", which means that at least the US forces were flushed out once from the airport; also no word on the US casualties IF they had to retreat from the airport. So, the battle is going on and the situation won't be clear for another few days. But the Iraqis are fighting apparent from the destroyed American armor, I guess you have to see it to believe it.

17

I wonder if the US landing a C130 transport plane at Baghdad International Airport will convince the naysayers that US troops are, indeed, in control of the airport.

18

myvoice,

No one denies the US forces would eventually capture the airport... but the very fact that we still have fighting going on for the same shows it was only 'secured'.. never 'safe'.

19

Re: As Info Minister Denies US Troops Near Baghdad, Airport is Seized

Yep.. that says it all…

It is the american media, the most trusted media across the world…:hehe:

20

Re: Re: As Info Minister Denies US Troops Near Baghdad, Airport is Seized

Proves that american media was right becuase airport is under their control.