Iraq Kidnap Reports May Be Exaggerated

NEAR MADAIN, Iraq - Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops had the town of Madain surrounded Sunday after reports of Sunni militant kidnappings of as many as 100 Shiites residents, but there were growing indications the incident had been grossly exaggerated, perhaps an outgrowth of a tribal dispute or political maneuvering.

The town of about 1,000 families, evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis, sits about 15 miles south of the capital in what the U.S. military has called the "Triangle of Death" because it has become a roiling stronghold of the militant insurgency.

An AP photographer and television cameraman who were in or near the town Sunday said large numbers of Iraqi forces had sealed it off, supported by U.S. forces who were keeping a low profile farther from the edge of Madain.

The cameraman said he toured the town Sunday morning. People were going about their business normally, shops were open and tea houses were full, he said. Residents contacted by telephone also said everything was normal in Madain.

And American military officials said they were unaware of any U.S. role in what had been described as a tense sectarian standoff in which the Sunni militants were threatening to kill their Shiite captives if all other Shiites did not leave the town.

Earlier in the day, National Security Minister Qassim Dawoud told Parliament that three battalions of Iraqi soldiers, police and U.S. forces were sent to the town. He said the Iraqi military was planning a large-scale assault on the region.

A Defense Ministry official, Haidar Khayon, said early Sunday that Iraqi forces raided the town and freed about 15 Shiite families and captured five hostage takers in a skirmish with light gunfire. He said there were no casualties.

Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged government officials to resolve the crisis peacefully, his office said.

By the end of the day, however, Iraqi officials had produced no hostages and Iraqi military officials who had given information about the troubles in Madain could not be reached for further details.

Also on Sunday, Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Sunni clerics, denied hostages had been taken in Madain. "This news is completely untrue," he told al-Jazeera television.

The country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, also denied there had been any hostage-taking in a statement Sunday on an Islamic Web site known for its militant content.

The group, headed by the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the incident was a fabrication by the "enemies of God" to justify a military attack on Madain aimed at Sunnis.

Sunnis make up about 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million population, but were dominant under Saddam Hussein. Since U.S.-led forces drove him from power two years ago, the disempowered Sunnis are believed to form the backbone of the ongoing insurgency, angered by their loss of influence to majority Shiites.

Whatever happened in Madain began Thursday when Shiite leaders claimed Sunni militants seriously damaged a town mosque in a bomb attack. The next day, the Shiites said, masked militants drove through town, capturing Shiites residents and threatened to kill them unless all Shiites left.

Shiite leaders and government officials had earlier estimated 35 to 100 people were taken hostage, but residents disputed the claim, with some saying they had seen no evidence any hostages were taken.

Security forces began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, Dawoud said.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, insurgents killed eight Iraqis in attacks across the country. The U.S. military said three American soldiers had been killed and seven wounded as insurgents fired mortar rounds late Saturday at a U.S. Marine base near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. Late Sunday, loud explosions were heard again from the direction of the base, but the military had no immediate information on what was happening.

The assault raised to 24 the number of people who died in Iraq Saturday, including an American civilian, an Iraqi and another foreigner who died in a car bombing in the capital.

The U.S. Embassy identified the American civilian victim as Marla Ruzicka, the 28-year-old founder of the Washington-based Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict. CIVIC began conducting a door-to-door survey trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in Iraq soon after the war ended.

Associated Press writers Jamie Tarabay, Qasim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Wasn't the orginal story an AP creation.

Below is a link to another fantasy from the mediots:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385739/posts

Writer Fabricated Boston Globe Story on Seal Hunt
Yahoo.com and Reuters ^ | Fri Apr 15, 2005 | Greg Frost

Posted on 04/17/2005 9:30:18 PM PDT by Grampa Dave

Writer Fabricated Boston Globe Story on Seal Hunt

Fri Apr 15, 6:54 PM ET

By Greg Frost

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media.

The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seal hunt off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, that had not taken place.

The Halifax, Nova Scotia-datelined article described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs "by the hundreds."

The problem, however, was that the hunt did not begin on Tuesday; it was delayed by bad weather and was scheduled to start on Friday, weather permitting, the Globe said in an editor's note.

Stewart could not immediately be reached for comment.

The newspaper, which first learned of the problem when the Canadian government called to complain, said in an editor's note it should not have published the story and should have insisted on attribution for details because the writer was not reporting from the scene.

"Details included the number of hunters, a description of the scene, and the approximate age of the cubs. The author's failure to accurately report the status of the hunt and her fabrication of details at the scene are clear violations of the Globe's journalistic standards," the paper said.

'NEVER ASSUME'

Globe Foreign Editor James Smith said that the newspaper knew Stewart was not at the seal hunt and was doing her reporting from Halifax.

"What she told us -- and we did check during the day -- was that she had confirmed with one of the fishermen in the story that it was going ahead," Smith said, adding that in retrospect the paper should have worked harder to clarify this.

"The point is, never assume," he told Reuters.

He added that Globe staffers have since reviewed two other stories Stewart wrote for the paper, but found no inaccuracies or other problems with them.

Canada is extremely sensitive about the hunt, during which hundreds of thousands of seals are beaten to death or shot for their pelts every year. U.S. activists, who says the seals are killed inhumanely, are urging consumers to shun Canadian seafood until the hunt is stopped.

Canadian Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said his officials had called the paper to point out the error.

"We've been trying to get the facts out about the seal harvest, the fact that the herd is very healthy ... that in 98 percent of cases it (the hunt) is done in a humane way," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Officials with the newspaper were not immediately available for further comment.

U.S. media organizations have been hit with a series of high-profile cases involving plagiarism or fabrication.

In 2003, The New York Times' top two editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, left the paper after it was disclosed that reporter Jayson Blair had fabricated and plagiarized material.

CBS News, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, the New Republic magazine and USA Today have also been caught up in celebrated flaps over inaccurate reporting.

Below is another example of how the mediots and stringers covering the war in Iraq create their own news and make it dangerous for our troops.

Thanks to 68skylark catching this and posting it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385712/posts

This Is Interesting (Instapundit - CBS Working with terrorists)
Instapundit | April 17, 2005 | Glen Reynolds

Posted on 04/17/2005 8:33:42 PM PDT by 68skylark

THIS IS INTERESTING, even if it's buried at the end of a story on something else:

The U.S. military reported Saturday that a CBS News stringer detained after a gunbattle between U.S. forces and insurgents this month "tested positive for explosive residue." "Multinational forces continue to investigate potential collaboration between the stringer and terrorists, and allegations the stringer had knowledge of future terrorist attacks," said Sgt. John Franzen of Task Force Freedom in Mosul.

It's going to be bad for journalism, if people get the idea that major-news correspondents may be terrorist moles.

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