4 US Troops Killed in Push against Iraqi Rebels
By Kirk Semple
The New York Times
Thursday 01 December 2005
Baghdad - The American military said today that four American troops died, including two marines who were killed in combat operations in the rebellious province of Anbar, where military commanders have pressed a series of intensive sweeps to disrupt insurgent networks in advance of national elections on Dec. 15.
The two marines, both with Regimental Combat Team 8, Second Marine Division, were killed Wednesday by small-arms fire in separate incidents in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, the American military said.
An Army soldier died from a gunshot wound on Wednesday north of Baghdad, the military said, offering no further details and not specifying whether the wound was the result of a hostile attack, friendly fire or a suicide attempt. Also on Wednesday, a Marine assigned to the Second Marine Aircraft Wing of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force died in a non-combat vehicle accident near al Taqaddum, the military announced.
Today, about 2,000 American troops and 500 Iraqi Army soldiers continued their push to root out rebels in the rural region east of Hit, 100 miles west of Baghdad, officials said. American commanders say that area is a manufacturing center for car bombs and the kind of homemade explosives that have bedeviled troops and caused thousands of casualties since the invasion. The operation started on Wednesday.
Beginning last spring, American and Iraqi commanders in Anbar have conducted numerous large-scale assaults on towns along the Euphrates River in an effort to destroy the insurgency's system of smuggling routes, supply lines and safe houses for fighters, both foreign and Iraqi.
Today, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman in Baghdad, credited the sweeps with sharply cutting the number of insurgent attacks around the country, including suicide bombings and incidents involving homemade bombs.
There were 50 suicide bombings in Iraq in October and 19 in November, he said. Over the same period, the number of concealed bombs that either exploded or were discovered and cleared fell to 1,329 from 1,869, he said.
The drop in the number of attacks is "a direct result of the effectiveness of our operations against the Zarqawi network," General Lynch said at a news conference here, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant whom American commanders have declared their No. 1 enemy here.
But rebels also launched some of their deadliest suicide attacks of the year in November, including a suicide car bomb that exploded outside the main hospital in the town of Mahmudiya, killing at least 30, and suicide bomb attacks on two Shiite mosques in the Kurdish town of Khanaqin, which together killed at least 70.
Several months ago, American officials pointed to another drop in suicide attacks - to 40 in August from 70 in May - to indicate the success of their western strategy. But just as soon, the number of suicide bombings began to climb - to 46 in September and 50 in October.
Similarly, while the number of incidents involving hidden bombs has dropped in the past two months, there has been an overall increase since June, when 1,170 were found.
In Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, between 20 to 30 insurgents who had gathered in a marketplace in the north part of the city this morning fired mortar rounds at the provincial government building then melted away, according to Ahmed Faisal, a traffic police officer in Ramadi, who said he had seen the attackers. At the time of the incident, tribal sheiks were scheduled to gather for a meeting at the building. There were no reported casualties.
Police Lt. Mohammed al-Obaidi told The Associated Press that at least four mortar rounds fell near the American base on the eastern edge of the city, causing no casualties.
But American government officials and an official from Iraq's Interior Ministry emphatically denied that there had been a coordinated guerrilla attack and said there had only been one rocket propelled grenade fired at a joint American-Iraqi observation post today. "There were no signs of any significant insurgent activity anywhere in the city," an American military press release said. "That is all. No other attacks."
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A host of recent developments have made it clear that the Bush White House is doing battle against the journalistic standards and practices that underpin of our democracy. With its unprecedented campaign to undermine and stifle independent journalism, Bush & Co. have demonstrated brazen contempt for the Constitution and considerable fear of an informed public.
Free Press has launched a campaign to chronicle and combat Bush’s war on the press. Today, we published a new report showing the scope and intensity of the administration’s assault on press freedoms. The growing list of attacks on the press is truly astonishing:
Infiltrating Public Broadcasting
White House loyalists inside the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have launched a crusade to remake PBS, NPR and other public media into official mouthpieces. Kenneth Tomlinson’s tenure at the CPB was characterized by targeting journalists like Bill Moyers who dared to air dissenting voices or prepare investigative reports on the administration.
Tomlinson's goal was clearly to fire a shot across the bow of all public stations so managers would shy away from the sort of investigative journalism that might expose Bush administration malfeasance. Tomlinson resigned in disgrace but left behind a cast of cronies to carry out his partisan crusade. And we still don’t know the extent to which Karl Rove and others at the White House orchestrated his efforts.
Manufacturing Fake News
Under Bush administration directives, at least 20 federal agencies have produced and distributed scores of "video news releases" out of a $254 million slush fund set up to manufacture taxpayer-funded propaganda. These bogus and deceptive stories have been broadcast on TV stations nationwide without any acknowledgment that they were prepared by the government rather than local journalists.
The segments — which trumpeted administration “successes,†promoted its controversial line on issues like overhauling Medicare, and featured Americans "thanking" Bush — have been repeatedly labeled "covert propaganda" by investigators at the Government Accountability Office.
Bribing Journalists
The administration has paid pundits to sing its praises. Earlier this year, TV commentator Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 in taxpayer money to laud Bush’s education policies. Three other journalists have since been discovered on the government dole; and Williams admits that he has "no doubt" that other paid Bush shills are still on the loose.
The administration has even exported these tactics. According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. military is now secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops.
Lying about the Iraq War
The White House saw the battle for domestic popular opinion as one of the main fronts in the war in Iraq. With the help of a compliant media, truth became the first casualty in their campaign to whip up support. But rather than admit to their lies and misinformation, the administration continues to attack those reporting the truth.
As Frank Rich recently wrote in the New York Times, the administration’s "web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House."
Eliminating Dissent in the Mainstream Media
Bush has all but avoided traditional press conferences, closing down a prime venue for holding the executive accountable. On those rare occasions when he deigned to meet reporters, presidential aides turned the press conferences into parodies by seating a friendly right-wing “journalist,†former male escort Jeff Gannon, amid the reporters and then steering questions to him when tough issues arose.
They have effectively silenced serious questioners, like veteran journalist Helen Thomas, by refusing to have the president or his aides call on reporters who challenge them. And they have established a hierarchy for journalists seeking interviews with administration officials, which favors networks that give the White House favorable coverage.
Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
The administration has scrapped enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act and has made it harder for reporters to do their jobs by refusing to cooperate with even the most basic requests for comment and data from government agencies. This is part of a broader clampdown on access to information that has made it virtually impossible for journalists to cover vast areas of government activity.
Consolidating Media Control
The administration continues to make common cause with the most powerful broadcast corporations in an effort to rewrite ownership laws in a manner that favors monopoly control of information. The Federal Communications Commission will announce plans to rewrite the ownership rules soon – it could happen as early as February – with aims of unleashing a new wave of media consolidation. The administration’s desired rules changes would strike a mortal blow to local reporting and further squeeze journalists.
In a famous 1945 opinion, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said that "the First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society." In other words, a free press is the sine qua non of the entire American Constitution and republican experiment.
We started Free Press because our democracy demands a diverse and independent media. The Bush administration’s attack on the foundations of self-government requires a response of similar caliber. I hope you’ll join me in the year ahead as Free Press works to hold the administration accountable for all its attacks on journalism and see that such abuses will not be repeated in the future.
Please take a moment to visit our online campaign to defend democracy from the White House assault on the media.
Onward,
Robert W. McChesney
President
Free Press
www.freepress.net
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