The firing on journalists doesn't make any sense. Maybe there were snipers at al-Jazeera, but what about that hotel? Everybody in the hotel denies hearing any sniper fire. Yet the tank commander fired. Did the tank commander see/hear sniper fire? How would he know?

I bet the tank commander was going on instruments fed by networked satellites. This is our new, high-tech Army, right?

So, subject for debate:

Could hackers crack into the network and feed false information purposefully to put the US into hot water?

If not, then what the heck was going on here?

What reporters are you talking about? Do you have an article to catch us up?

Here are a few links.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...=1521&ncid=1478

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...7-2003Apr8.html

The facts of being on the receiving end of sniper fire does not come through any of our satellite fed systems.
If the tank was fired on by an RPG, then there is no doubt as to where it came from, it leaves a trail. If it was a gunman with a rifle, the possibility is there that the soldier could not ascertain the exact location, but often the muzzle flash is obvious.
My gut feeling is that fedayeen sniper(s) were using the hotel in the same manner as they would a mosque, that is, to use a structure of cultural or religious significance, or using the reporters as unwitting human shields.
The tanker was threatened and took a shot. Of course none of us were there, so you never know what really happened.

Fog of War. If you are in a battlefield area (right now, I would consider all of Iraq as such), you ARE risking your life to be there reporting.

Who knows what the soldiers saw? I certainly don't believe they were targetting people who were only "shooting" cameras. It would go against everything that we have been trying to do.

It was an unfortunate accident.

As far as hackers, I would say that it is very remote. If anything is safe from hackers (and I am not sure that anything is, really) you would hope our military's network would be.

DEBKAFile reported that according to Israeli intelligence sources the explosion in the Palestine Hotel was an explosive charge placed by Iraqi agents, not an American tank shell at all, and that the US government lied in taking responsibility for it just to get the story over with.

I can't find that story on the DEBKA site now though. Might be there, I'm just not sure how to find yesterday's news on that site. Btw, for those not familiar with DEBKA, they often turn out to be accurate even when they're the only source for a story, but I can't consider them 100% reliable because A) they do go out on limbs, and B) they're almost openly connected with Israeli intelligence, which is obviously well-informed but also obviously with an axe to grind.

Anyway, whether that story is true or not, I agree with amlord. It's a combat zone, and if you're there and people start shooting, you hit the dirt, you don't wave your press badge like it was a personal force field.

The BBC is also saying it was probably an Iraqi bomb...

BBC says it was an Iraqi bomb

amlord,

Yep, that story makes a lot more sense.

It would be only fitting that as careful as we have been in this war, we would take initial blame for this incident.

When the Monday morning quarterbacking begins in earnest I wonder how many so-called experts, talking heads and pundits will admit to having been way off base about this whole affair.

My guess? None.

I read on March 12 BEFORE the war began warning non-embeds that they would be targeted. I can understand the military not trying to protect them but any targeting of journalists should be investigated and if true considered a war crime.



other sources that seem to back up her claims:


3/23/03:



And 3/26/03:


today:

AND...

More info on the Palestine Hotel incidents - this from letters to Jerry Pournelle:

I do believe you left out the fact that the reason they could be targeted was that there was no way to distinguish their signals from those of the enemy's.

The Pentagon was delivering warnings, making them as serious as possible, in hopes they wouldn't be ignored.

I didn't leave that out...it's possible the news reports did. But even so when the cars they drive have 'TV' plastered all over them, when the hotels they reside in are known to the military to be full of journalists, and they are still shot at and killed it doesn't seem so benign as a simple warning...it is more like a threat.

All I'm saying is there should be a thorough investigation. I don't think any of us would want our government targeting the press in any event. If an investigation proves these are all accidents we are all better off.

Having the letters 'TV' plastered on the car serves no purpose when what is being targeted is the source of a satelite communication. Nor does being in a hotel occupied by many journalists offer any protection from the crossfire between a sniper and a tank.

You may want to believe that journalists were targeted by our forces, but you certainly haven't offered any proof.

When the media knowingly places themselves in danger on a battlefield during time of war, and after being severely warned of the potential consequences, I think the assumption should be that those deaths were accidental unless proven otherwise. Not in the guilty til proven innocent way you presented the case.

Oh yes...it's a thrill a minute thinking that my government is a bunch of warring murdering thugs. I simply love the reputation it's giving ALL of us American's. I'm sure the world is in awe of our Rambo reputation...who wouldn't be proud?

Sorry, I don't care what country you are...wrong is wrong and the responsible parties should be held accountable. If there was no crime an investigation would be a good way to clear our names in this matter. It's not getting alot of American press but it's a big deal to the rest of the world. It would be ignored and scoffed at if the American news tried to run a story on it anyway...it's more important for our journalists to be considered patriotic and supportive than credible or informative.

Ah, but she has. What about Kate Adie's testimony? You may not know Ms. Adie, but I do. She is one of the most respected journalists in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. Saying that she is as credible and as trusted in Great Britain as Walter Cronkite would be in the US is no understatement. Indeed, I would say that she is even more credible.

The fact that the International Federation of Journalists, the Association of Independant Video and Filmmakers, Reporters Without Borders, Al-Jazeera, and the Committee to Protect Journalists all seem to be coming to the same conclusion may not be proof, but it certainly indicates that there are many journalists on the ground in Iraq as we speak who are concerned that this might be the case.

You may wish to reject your own suggestion that this could simply be a matter of our military being unable to distinguish between signals - and I'm fairly certain that you'd reject the notion that our government or our military would use deadly force to achieve any of their ends, however trivial (and I suspect that independent journalists who are not under direct military supervision are considered far from trivial) - but you certainly haven't offered any evidence to contradict Ms. Adie's statements.

Sadly, we will never know the truth of this matter for sure. If, indeed, the US military is totally innocent of any error or wrong-doing, there will always be a few paranoid reporters who will question whatever evidence is presented (if it's even possible to prove a negative). If our technology is too primitive to distinguish between different types of satellite signals and such "targeting" is inadvertent or if, indeed, there was a deliberate policy of targeting journalists who were beyond military control, any evidence which would support this will be suppressed, destroyed, and/or denied - if it hasn't been already.

The risk vs. reward ratio is just too high to intentionally target journalists. What is there to gain from such actions?

Valid point. There is nothing to be gained. But when the war is going well and so many of the reasons for fighting it are showing themselves, those who are opposed to it begin grasping at straws. Like using Walter Cronkite as a barometer for unbiased reporting.

As if controlling the press is not one of the most important things to the war planners. They've pyched themselves out with their transparent psy ops thought-control and think they're so clever.

It's essential that this war is spun just right both for the American people and for the international opposition and especially for the Arab world. If you think they don't work 24/7 on controlling information you must be intentionally delusional.

That along with all of the 'friendly' deaths of non imbeds should be plenty to warrant an investigation just to allow peace of mind if nothing else . What on earth would be wrong with that? If there is nothing to worry about and it's just straw grasping why the big fuss over an investigation?

Do you think that the journalists, traveling WITH each platoon, reporting in real time, are being coerced?

Of course not. They are doing a great job and putting their lives in danger as well. But their stories are controlled by the Pentagon...for 'troop safety' of course. I have no problem with that and their stories give a great inside look that we've never seen in war before. It's a great idea but not if it's the only angle the world is allowed to see. It isn't the entire story and it also isn't impartial which is something that is needed if you want news and not just propaganda. There need to be stories about the hospitals and humanitarian situation which isn't going to get much time if the embeds are often too busy in combat situations to have time for much else...not that they are allowed their own vehicles or the ability to travel without permission or an escort

I think the government only wants embeds reporting so it gives them at least some control of timing and content of what is released. The embeds are likely to have a bond with the troops they are traveling with and will look at the situation with a much less critical eye...and again, that's ok as long as other press is still allowed to cover the war without being prevented by the US. There is no reason they should not be able to report on this war any differently than they do every other.

The press has been restricted in their reporting, I agree. Ask CNN. If they're not still being tortured that is. Or maybe others who have recently revealed that about 40% of their reports have been killed by their Iraqi 'minders'. Or maybe you could ask those that were with the journalists who died in the Palestine Hotel from an Iraqi attack. Or maybe you could try any one of the scores who were told to leave Iraq by.......the Iraqis.

The US has permitted, assisted actually, the reporting of this war from every conceivable angle. More than in the entire history of warfare. And the NY Times still can't get it quite right.

The entire dispute is that witnesses and video footage of the incident say there was no Iraqi attack. Even the stories from our forces give different stories. We all know how Iraqi officials treated reporters and if there are accusations there should be an investigation, trial, and punishment if they are found guilty. I hope they are caught and punished. At this point I hope the accusations against the US are investigated and proven to be unfounded. If they are true the guilty parties should be punished.

The US has permitted a whole new vantage point for reporters in this war. But the whole enbed scenerio works to their advantage and was their own decision to implement. The war reporters did not request any change of policy...they only want to be treated with the consideration for their safety that the Geneva Convention allows them.

Some of us only want our government to stand by it's own principals and commitment to a free press for our own good as well as to help promote the same freedom to the Iraqi's we have pledged to give them. Just because we are in someone elses home doesn't mean we should forget who we are or what we are fighting to protect. If it's inconvenient that's too bad. War is hell. If it makes anyone indignant enough to start pointing fingers and saying the Iraqi's did it first that really isn't a good enough excuse.

Hmmn. i'm having difficulty determining what exactly this posting contributes to the debate. I couldn't possibly be just another gratuitous slur, could it?

I said "credible", btw, not "unbiased". You have real difficulty retaining the words that I type, don't you? I mean, this is - what? - the sixth or seventh time that you've had to resort to misquoting, spinning, and taking things out of context in an effort to make some sort of oblique attack? And that's just in relation to my postings. I'm not keeping track of the extent to which you attempt to abuse anyone else who deigns to disagree with you.

If you are suggesting that a Walter Cronkite or a Kate Adie would simply make up a story about independent journalists being "targeted down" and invent a Pentagon source for that story, then I would suggest that you were the one grasping at straws. Though the fact that you so frequently resort to deliberate misconstruction by way of "rebuttal" already suggests a certain level of desperation. Please do try to refrain from this in the future - it not only diminishes your own arguments, it rather lowers the tone of the entire board.

The fact that Ms. Adie's story would have supported your argument that "the reason they could be targeted was that there was no way to distinguish their signals from those of the enemy's" demonstrates the length to which you'll go in your efforts to discredit other participants here.

I'm not sure how replying to the specifics of a post violate the rules of conduct.

I consider the insinuation that we somehow targeted journalists for extinction, raised now that the military brilliance of this campaign is obvious, to be grasping at straws for those who opposed the action in the first place. Am I not entitled to opinion? Must I clear it with you before I express it here?

As for Mr. Cronkite, I take issue with your personal opinion that he is an icon of credibility in reporting. I believe his liberal bias affects his reporting, and always has. This bias negatively affects his credibility. I expressed that view in a gentlemany manner. Must I also clear that with you first?



I do my utmost to stick to issues and opinions here, leaving personalities out of it. May I suggest you do the same?

Drifting off subject here, but I think this might be a good start for another thread.

This action mentioned here is war. Anarchy now reigns. The danger is clear: Out of anarchy comes order, and this order could be enforced by somebody much worse than Saddam. Risky business, this action.

Military brilliance is one thing; nation-building is another. The difficult work in Iraq has yet to start.

But, that's enough of that. I'm in agreement that purposefully targeting journalists buys nothing, so it was either a SNAFU or somebody else did the attack. Or our military network was hacked. People have expressed doubt that this could ever happen.

But I know networks. None of them are absolutely secure unless kept in a physically guarded bunker and not linked anywhere else. Which, of course, becomes a locked-down LAN without much value to anyone.

I also know how non-tech managers think. Way too much faith in technology.

How many of our military leaders know the difference between a router and a hub?

Unless I'm missing something from the article:

Routers, hubs and networks had nothing to do with this situation, so the question is moot.
Troops received fire, ascertained the source of the fire (correctly or not) and took appropriate action.
It's real easy to sit back here so removed from the action and say 'how could they do that?, or 'what were they thinking?'.
We don't yet know that the tank crew knew this was the Palestine Hotel, what angle from the building were they at? What level of smoke or haze obscured any reference to what the building actually was, distinguishing it from the multitude of other buildings that they had received fire from?


An investigation should, and I believe will be made, but you don't nitpick legalities when the bullets are still flying.

It doesn't. I was reacting to the fact that, instead of "replying to the specifics", you tend to reply to your own negative spin of other peoples' postings. Your indignation is misplaced.


If you are suggesting that I made such an insinuation (and I don't recall anyone else making reference to Walter Cronkite here), I must point out that, true, one of several possibilities which I mentioned could be negatively paraphrased as such. But you conveniently ignored my "insinuation" that it's possible "the US military is totally innocent of any error or wrong-doing" just as you conveniently ignored my "insinuation" that those questioning evidence exonerating coalition forces would amount to "a few paranoid journalists"; you conveniently ignored my "insinuation" that this could "simply be a matter of our military being unable to distinguish between signals" just as you conveniently ignored my "insinuation" that "we will never know the truth of this matter for sure". I suppose this is what you mean by "replying to the specifics of a post".


It is not merely my personal opinion. In 1972, a nationwide poll asked voters for their level of trust in that year's candidates for major public office. Walter Cronkite was included as a sort of barometer. In the survey, Cronkite topped the poll - none of the politicians, including Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey even came close. Since then, Cronkite has been widely known as "the most trusted man in America". While he was the CBS anchor for their Evening News, it had the biggest audience share of any news program in television history. When he criticized our action in Vietnam (off the record), President Johnson, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Throughout his career, Cronkite was a champion of objectivity in news coverage and lobbied for making clear distinctions between news and commentary. You may take all the issue you like with Cronkite's reputation, but it should be made clear that yours is the opinion of an extreme minority.

I should also point out that there is a big difference between a perceived bias and actual credibility. Presuming that you know what credibility means, you are saying, in short, that Walter Cronkite and, by extension, Kate Adie are liars; that they would fabricate news items; that they would willfully pass on false information. Do you have any foundation for this accusation? I suppose I should have compared Ms. Adie to Rush Limbaugh or Doug McIntyre or Ann Coulter. I'll try to bear your prejudices in mind the next time I make an analogy.


I do not comment.


No need. I do stick to issues and opinions here - unless I'm confronted with a personal attack or, say, a participant consistently quoting me out of context, twisting my statements, putting words in my mouth, and casting their misconstructions in the worst possible light in what I can only view as an attempt at defamation. Against such an aggressive smear campaign, I will respond.

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I'm not so sure about that "buys nothing". None of our military leaders or field commanders seem to be all that fond of reporters being on the sidelines of military engagements. And certainly all of our Commander-in-Chief like to control the news coverage of their military endeavors as much as possible. During the Gulf War, the amount of selective editing of "news" footage was astronomical - and highly sanitized. I doubt very much that any of the major players in the Iraqi campaign were welcoming the coverage of independent journalists who were not "embedded". As Iraq is probably far from the last country we'll be invading before the next election, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it hadn't occurred to someone to throw a bit of a scare into a few such renegade reporters. Whether there was a concerted effort to "target journalists for extinction" as P51 would have it, is somewhat more dubious...


I suspect that, these days, quite a few may. Anyway, it looks as though, in the Palestine Hotel incident, anyway, that satellite technology was not involved. (cf. DTOM's first posting to this thread - and the one quoted below.)

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As you are probably the most authoritative participant here regarding our military procedures and combat, I'm thinking that this is the most likely scenario in relation to the Palestine Hotel. In any event, I didn't get the impression that satellite links were involved in that particular incident. As for the several other reported incidents, I've not seen enough evidence to form an opinion one way or the other.


While there may be an investigation, it has been my experience that such investigations are seldom conclusive or entirely convincing - at least to the more skeptical among us. Do you, as a relative insider, feel that the public is - or should be - privy to the details of such investigations, especially if conducted by military authorities, in order to draw their own conclusions? I realize that there are sometimes issues of national security involved, but if there's a possibility that certain findings may reflect badly on some aspects military conduct, is a potential lack of confidence in the decisions of certain members of the armed forces enough to compromise "security"?

Ahhh, Mr. Wertz, it ain't all about you.

It was Danya I was talking about since it was her position that we were targeting journalists. My only reference to you, or at least my only intended reference, was Mr. Cronkite.

Sorry if anyone misunderstood, I'll do better next time.

Wertz,

I suggest if you have a problem with someone's posts, you report it, rather than publicly and lengthily (is that a word?) take offense. The moderators will straighten is out if they feel things are too off-topic or personal.

He questioned the truth of your statements. That's a fair position in a debate. You came back with some 30 year old polls , . So you two are even.

EDIT:
AM:


Who could possibly be worse than Saddam? If you say GWB, I am gonna smack ya

I don't have any names on the tip of my tongue, but it is possible that there's someone in Iraq worse than Saddam. Once we asked "who could be worse than the Viet Cong" invading Cambodia, and ended up facilitating the Khmer Rouge. Who could be worse than Sukarno? Suharto. Who could be worse than Allende? Pinochet. Sharif? Musharraf. Najibullah? Omar. Africa's midsection should provide a dozen more examples. As horrible as Saddam Hussein is or was, there were and are even worse people out there. He might even have created them through his own brutality, just as he himself was a creation of others' brutality. Evil grows, often as a reaction to other evil. As horrible or distant as the prospect of a dictator worse than Saddam might seem, as we watch carefully orchestrated and selected coverage in Iraq today, we must remain cognizant of the possibility and work to ensure that we do not facilitate an even worse horror than that we have just worked so hard to end.

Granted, I am not over there this time, nor at the scene of this event, but since the tank crew received direct fire and returned the same type of observed, direct fire, I would doubt that even radio transmissions from another source were involved. Troops in that situation are trained to an almost reflexive mode to return fire if fired upon, unless the rules of engagement direct otherwise, such as in a peace keeping operation.


We'll, I'm not sure. The military can be extremely secretive about internal investigations, duh. I don't think anything coming out of an investigation of this event would be damaging to national security, so I guess I don't see the harm. One thing is for certain, if that tank crew did fire a main gun round (120mm) against a sniper(s), that could be a violation of the Laws of Land Warfare. An obvious overkill in some situations.

Getting this thread kind of back on course here......

There seems to be quite a few differing opinions on what happened at the Palestine Hotel among the journalists who were there. One BBC reporter thought that based on the damage, it wasn't a tank round fired at all, rather it was something more along the lines of an RPG. Some reporters thought they heard shots, others didn't. We've heard the phrase "fog of war" and I think this incident is that in action. Even trained journalists, people who are paid to observe and report things aren't consistant on what really happened.

The point to this is I think we should keep in mind how confusing things can be in the "fog of war" and how mistakes can happen. There have no doubt been some and innocent people have died, but by and large, our troops have done pretty well minimizing that I think.

I'll take your word for it. Though you must admit that this sort of thing does muddy the waters somewhat:
Maybe you just need a new phrase for "grasping at straws". Might I suggest, in this instance, "being seriously concerned about the lives of journalists in the field"?

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Quite right. But I didn't want a potential misreading of my posts to stand. And, you must admit, the bulk of my lengthliness (if that's a word) was devoted to making my own position clear and defending the credibility of journalists such as Cronkite and Adie against unfounded claims. I might also suggest that you make the same suggestion to some other posters here - but I rather suspect you won't...

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dontread: Thanks - that all sounds perfectly logical. I suspect that if there has been malfeasance, it was probably of the overkill (and/or "trigger-happy") variety - possibly compounded by this "fog" to which several people have referred. Has anyone heard anything further on these other reported incidents??

Embedding journalists in the field IS a great concept, and an indication of the forthcoming approach of the military. They don’t HAVE to allow embedded reporters. It doesn’t work to their ‘advantage’ to have them there if the military is targeting journalists to slaughter, does it? That completely fails the reasonability test

At present, it is impossible to determine the nature of a satellite signal. Perhaps in the future we will employ soldiers with finely honed psychic abilities, and that will be the solution to the problem. Even better, we might successfully learn the secrets of the Jedi mind trick, and defeat our enemies without a blow.

We spend a bajillion zillion dollars on defense, and that money (trust me) isn’t going towards salaries. It is very cheap to destroy indiscriminately. We are paying for the technology to hit targets with as much precision as possible, in order to preserve life.

To answer your initial question, AM, I don’t know about tank systems, or much about army weaponry. I DO know that there are numerous GPS guided missiles in the airforce, which is why we targeted the GPS (Russian made) jammers immediately. A GPS jammer would cause a missile to completely miss its target, and possibly hit a very populated civilian area. I don't think anyone could DIRECTLY sabotage a satellite, unless they went up into space.

I believe the intimation was that it was independent journalists who were not embedded who were potentially being "targeted down" - which passes a rather dark, cynical (what some would doubtless call realistic) reasonability test.

Then I'm curious what happened? Why wasn't the building leveled, if lots of non-embeds were in a building together, and the army had their target? They could just as easily claim 'butterfingers' and 'fog of war' and get rid of those pesky journalists in one swoop. I suppose they don't have the firepower.

AM I forgot to mention the satellite data link. Mrpigpen said that it is used primarily for forces to know each other's location. He thinks that if it were compromised, there might be a fratricide or two, but they would quickly figure out that something is wrong and turn it off. We've been without it up until very recently, so the army probably won't be completely paralyzed without it. I'm sure they're aware of that kind of contingency.
Actually, you'd be surprised how smart a lot these leaders are. Look at Powell (regardless of how you feel about his politics or job in office) I don't think he'd have trouble spelling potato, know what I mean?