Report: Tank Captain Unaware of Baghdad Media Hotel (Bwa-ha!)

Reuters ^ | April 21, 2003

[Timesink]

Report: Tank Captain Unaware of Baghdad Media Hotel

Mon Apr 21,10:28 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - The commander of a U.S. tank unit that hit a Baghdad hotel, killing two cameramen during the battle for the Iraqi capital, says he was unaware the building was packed with journalists, according to a French magazine.

Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for Spanish channel Tele 5, were killed when a tank shell hit the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel. Three other members of the Reuters team were wounded.

Capt. Philip Wolford, who led the Abrams tanks defending a bridge near the Palestine Hotel on April 8, was quoted as saying he authorized the attack after his men spotted what appeared to be someone using binoculars on the roof of the same building.

"We had been engaged in fighting for several hours," Wolford said in an interview with French weekly Nouvel Observateur.

"Firing was coming in the whole time, from that area as well as others. I returned fire. Without hesitation -- that's the rule," he said, according to a Reuters translation of his remarks, which were reported in French.

"I learned 20 minutes later that we had hit ... a hotel with journalists. I feel bad, my men feel bad."

Asked whether he knew the building was being used as a base for most of the foreign media in Baghdad, Wolford said: "No, I hadn't received any information of that kind.

"I can't imagine for an instant that any information sent by divisional headquarters would not have reached me."

A U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said on Monday the incident was under investigation but declined specific comment on the magazine report.

Criticized by international media groups for the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the Pentagon (news - web sites) initially said its troops were responding to sniper fire. Journalists at the scene said they had heard no fire coming from the hotel.

Wolford said his unit had been under fierce attack as it defended the Jumhuriya bridge and that it had been difficult to tell where incoming rockets or shells were being fired from.

The sighting of someone at the Palestine Hotel holding what appeared to be binoculars had suggested the fire was being directed from there.

"On the bank I counted 20 or 30 teams of four men equipped with RPGs. Some of them were trying to board boats to get under the bridge where our position was. It was the biggest resistance we met entering Baghdad. Four of my men were hurt."

[Timesink]

From the "No Big Loss" Department...

[sarasota]

"according to a French magazine" Enough said.

[Grampa Dave]

Typical Reuter BS wet dream masquerading as news. Just look at their great source:

PARIS (Reuters) - The commander of a U.S. tank unit that hit a Baghdad hotel, killing two cameramen during the battle for the Iraqi capital, says he was unaware the building was packed with journalists, according to a French magazine.

[MEG33]

I know our guys don't feel good about hitting non combatants. They were under attack and mistook curious reporters as spotters. It was prudent to fire on the hotel.I hate it for both sides. Christiane thinks our guys have journalists abodes taped to the inside of the tanks.

[txzman]

This goes against a long evaluation done in a BBC story by one of their own correspondents, who said the angle of the shot could not have come from the tanks in the street - the 15th floor was too high an elevation.

He also noted that a tank shell/explosion would've done much, much more damage than merely chiping off some of the facade around the windows.

His conclusion was that it was more likely an RPG round fired by the Iraqis.

[MEG33]

Now I remember that report..I stand by the opinion that if we did it,it was proper...if we didn't the agenda of the author is showing.Always blame the US.

[YOMO]

"I learned 20 minutes later that we had hit ... a hotel with journalists. I feel bad, my men feel bad."
############################################################

I hope Capt. Wolford doesn't feel too bad. I think the error was that the Journalist Schools should include teaching about the dangers of WAR in Journalism 101.
If you are in a WAR ZONE, and you are not in with the troops, you should EXPECT to get SHOT AT!
Don't these MORONS get to learn anything in school?

[xdemoncrap]

"I returned fire. Without hesitation--that's the rule"

End of story !!!

[irv]

Don't these MORONS get to learn anything in school?

They learn that the work they do makes them the most important people on Earth. It never occurred to them that the Pentagon would NOT make a special effort to protect them, even though they were too stupid to stay away from a war zone.

[cake_crumb]

I prefer to get the details from some source other than the French, who have an interest in making our military look like bloodthirsty rednecks.

[DonQ]

If he had known it was full of journalists, he might have levelled it.

[LaineyDee]

IMHO, the journalists should learn the do's and don't's of live warfare, before trotting headlong into the "SCOOP Zone". If you use binoculars on the TOP of a building while live fire is being exchanged in a hostile city.....chances are you are going to endanger yourself and those around you. This one goes in my "DUH" files.

[GB]

They certainly don't learn how to be journalists. I am one, started out as a copy boy and worked my way up to management, learning how to practice the trade (it is a trade, not a profession; it's the height of ego and pretentiousness to call it one) by actually doing it. The people who come out of J-school today are, in more than a few cases, prima donnas who haven't a clue about what goes on in the real world.

As I've said in other threads on this, anyone who chooses to go into the field as a war correspondent should inherently assume and accept the risk of being killed by either enemy or friendly fire. Anyone who is not prepared to assume and accept that risk should not be a war correspondent. Period.

There was some good journalism in this war, mostly from the embedded folks. There were also plenty of left-wing loonies with an agenda who were going to do their thing regardless. A lot of the clueless folks in the middle needed to sit and read the collected World War II dispatches of Ernie Pyle, a truly great journalist and a great American, before going over there to give them some idea of what it would be like in an honest-to-God war.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Mistook them as spotters?  My assumption all along was the cameramen were mistaken for snipers.

There isn't a lot of difference in the glint off the scope of a .306 and the glint off the lens of a camera at 800 yards.  Through in the fact that the journalists may have been wearing helmets and flak jackets.

Frankly, I have no sympathy for the journalists: if you're gonna gawk at a tank during battle, you better gawk from behind it.

 

[Psycho_Bunny]

lol...oops....kind of blew that fourth sentence there.

[river rat]

A camera man with a large camera on his shoulder --- filming the action --- could look a lot like a man with a rocket launcher on his shoulder, from 1000 meters away.

I would not want my gunner to wait for the incoming - to send some outgoing!

"Journalists" or "War Whores" that are freelancing or not embedded --- have a responsibility to conduct themselves so as not to ATTRACT FIRE..


Semper Fi

[battlegearboat]

The hotel was full of nothing but obit writers. The good captain, unintentionaly, just gave them something to write about.

[BagCamAddict]

He also noted that a tank shell/explosion would've done much, much more damage than merely chiping off some of the facade around the windows.

And I still don't understand how two people can die from concrete being chipped off the exterior of a building.

[GalaxieFiveHundred]

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

- General George S. Patton