firephoto
03-23-03, 11:47 PM
Interesting article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16801-2003Mar23.html
When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld settled into his seat yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation," the Pentagon had been denying media reports that at least 10 American soldiers were captured or missing in Iraq.
Suddenly, host Bob Schieffer played a videotape that had just been made available by the Arab satellite network al-Jazeera, showing a couple of stunned-looking Americans being forced to provide their names to an Iraqi interviewer. What did the secretary make of that?
It was a dramatic demonstration of how Pentagon officials found themselves outpaced by journalistic reports and images from the battlefield over the weekend. In several instances, the military has been unable to confirm bad-news bulletins from embedded U.S. correspondents that, hours later, turned out to be true. Since any casualty report must be verified up the chain of command, this time lag has kept defense officials off balance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16801-2003Mar23.html
When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld settled into his seat yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation," the Pentagon had been denying media reports that at least 10 American soldiers were captured or missing in Iraq.
Suddenly, host Bob Schieffer played a videotape that had just been made available by the Arab satellite network al-Jazeera, showing a couple of stunned-looking Americans being forced to provide their names to an Iraqi interviewer. What did the secretary make of that?
It was a dramatic demonstration of how Pentagon officials found themselves outpaced by journalistic reports and images from the battlefield over the weekend. In several instances, the military has been unable to confirm bad-news bulletins from embedded U.S. correspondents that, hours later, turned out to be true. Since any casualty report must be verified up the chain of command, this time lag has kept defense officials off balance.