Ramadi attacks: media versions

News reports on events in Ramadi, Iraq on Thursday and Friday. I saw a television news story on the insurgents in Ramadi. There were only a dozen shown, and the reporter said little damage was done by them. Following are some media reports on the action, and on coalition actions the next day. I am trying to get a fix on how different sources treat the same story. In these few entries, there seems to be consensus, with the exception of the author of the blog, and the points I have bolded in a couple of the stories.


-Fox News

December 3, 2005
...
On Thursday, the U.S. military played down reports by residents and
police of armed insurgents walking the streets and of widespread
attacks against American and Iraqi targets in the city. The military
said only one rocket-propelled grenade was fired at an observation
post, causing no casualties. News agencies did run videotape allegedly
shot in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, that showed armed
insurgents distributing Al Qaeda leaflets and firing mortar rounds.
...

-AP/New York Times
December 2, 2005
...
As part of that campaign, the U.S. military on Friday launched a new
offensive --Operation Shank -- in Ramadi, capital of the
insurgent-ridden Anbar province. About 200 Iraqi army soldiers
and 300 U.S. Marines were taking part in the offensive, the
fifth in Ramadi since Nov. 16.




-Washington Post

December 2, 2005

BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 -- Armed fighters claiming allegiance to
Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi
provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating
Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines
in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and
other witnesses said.
...
The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands
of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest,
saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents
were manipulating the news media. "Today I witnessed inaccurate
reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as
sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack
journalism at its worse," Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the
2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

The following two entries, the first from a soldier formerly in service
in the area, now at home, seem to have had two different Reuters
sources:

-from the blog
of blackfive (military blog author formerly in Iraq, Afghanistan)
December 2, 2005

News reports around the world trumpeted that insurgents had
taken over the city of Ramadi and attacked many Iraqi and
US bases in the area, overrunning and taking control of the city.
Sadly, this is exactly the kind of info that
gets most of the folks covering this war salivating. They have
blinded themselves to any good happening and circle like
buzzards waiting for the carcass to finally drop...
...
"They've taken control of all the main streets and other sections
of Ramadi," a reporter for Reuters there said earlier. "I've seen
about 400 armed men controlling streets, some of which were
controlled by Americans before."


-from Reuters
December 2, 2005
U.S. and Iraqi troops launched an operation designed to disrupt
guerrilla activity in Ramadi on Friday ahead of Iraq's
December 15 elections, one day after insurgents staged a show of
force in the western city.
...
Insurgents launched a brief assault in Ramadi on Thursday firing
mortar rounds and rockets at a U.S. base and local government
buildings.

Leaflets were distributed saying that al Qaeda in Iraq, the group
led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was taking
control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar. But after a couple
of hours, most of the militants dispersed and the city appeared
to return to relative calm.


There also seems to be a discrepancy between a reported
death in Ramadi between the NYT and the coalition spokesman,
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

-from NYT

December 2, 2005
...
Other new deaths announced Friday included a soldier
serving alongside Marine units in Ramadi, 50 miles west of
Falluja, who was killed by rocket fire on Thursday


-CNN
December 2, 2005
...
Lynch, the coalition spokesman, strongly disputed reports of
widespread insurgent attacks in Ramadi on Thursday. He said
that one attack, involving a rocket-propelled grenade,
occurred Thursday and that it caused no damage or casualties.
...

Okay, so two newspapers, two news wire services, one blog and
two cable news oraganizations are less than exhaustive as a
survey. And Ramadi was one non-incident. It is notable in my
opinion that the preceding statement sums up the judgement of
all the sources I cited. An isolated and ineffectual staged
event. Except for the one soldier reported dead by the NYT.

The army spokesperson quoted maintained that nobody was
KIA in Ramadi on Thursday. Without a lot more digging, I will
not be able to resolve that discrepancy. It may be that there
was an isolated and unrelated incident in Ramadi that killed
the soldier. I don't know. I intend to do more of this sort of
picking through varying reports of events and conditions in
Iraq, for my own satisfaction.

Positions on the truth or bias
in media reports tend to be quite rigid, I have found. Most
internet "discussions" resemble opposing sides closing their
ears, opening their mouths and shouting each other down, or
trying to do so. There ought to be more focus on facts and
less on polemics. The issues are vast, the evidence tangled
and frequently contradictory, often leading to people simply
reinforcing the fixed opinions of their like-minded partisans.