The report has been released and did someone screw the pooch bad. The person who classified the document redacted the portions that needed to be hidden but did not understand Adobe Acrobat to well. Apparently there is a way to get those black marks off the top of the text and extract what is under it, I didn’t know the technique either but I sure do know. What is quite troublesome is the fact that the classified version gives away our strategies in dealing with IED’s, among other things:
* An itemization of IEDs and VBIEDs deployment techniques which have been most effective,
* An analysis of the tactical strengths and weaknesses of specific checkpoints along “Route Irish”
* Combat readiness assesment of the units and soldiers involved
* A detailed description of how the checkpoint is laid out
* Exact grid locations of various assets
* Details of how checkpoint searches are set up and executed
* Details of how checkpoints are expected to deal with approaching vehicles, including threat assesment methods
* A statistical analysis of “normal” traffic approaching the checkpoint
* It names the soldiers involved and details the specific actions taken by those soldiers. It names the soldier who killed Calipari
What is also amazing is that there are some who don’t see a need for redacting classified reports. They don’t see the need for keeping our operational secrets…secret, from our enemies. This saves life’s, specifically our soldiers lives.
Patterico’s Pontifications is doing some excellent detective work on the LA Times. Apparently they are doing some redacting of their own by changing the wording or leaving things completely out of some Reuters reports:
Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.
This morning?s L.A. Times publishes an article about the March 4 shooting by U.S. soldiers of a car bearing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. The shooting killed Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, and created an international controversy, which strained U.S.-Italian relations.
An important contested issue in the controversy was the speed of the car as it approached a U.S. checkpoint. Sgrena has maintained that the car was traveling at a ?regular speed? ? no more than 25-30 mph. Americans have said that the car was traveling at least 50 mph.
The L.A. Times story today portrays that critical issue as a still-unresolved queston
…
The L.A. Times story is actually an edited version of a Reuters story that appeared on the news service yesterday afternoon. The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of the incident have conclusively determined that the car was speeding, just as the U.S. has always maintained. On page two of the story, the Reuters news service reported:
CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph per hour [sic] as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.
Thus, the Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint ? critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers? decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.
…
The L.A. Times slightly alters that first sentence to read as follows:
The United States and Italy disagreed Friday in the conclusions of a joint investigation into the slaying of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.
In this edited version of the sentence, Times editors moved the word ?Friday,? changed the word ?killing? to ?slaying,? and replaced the word ?in? with ?on,? making the sentence grammatically awkward.
Today he posted about some more shenanigans at the LA Times:
A Reuters story filed Saturday morning states on page two:
CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 miles per hour as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.
Today?s L.A. Times reprint of the article edits out that passage, which suggests that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding ? a critical issue in the controversy.
Anyone else feeling that sense of d?j? vu?
As I told you yesterday, the same exact passage was contained in a Friday Reuters dispatch, and was edited from the L.A. Times reprint of that article in yesterday?s paper.
Today?s edit proves that yesterday?s suppression of this information was no accident. It was part of an ongoing effort to hide this evidence from the paper?s readers. After all, The Times still has not told its readers about this evidence, even though CBS News aired it Thursday night, and it?s now Sunday morning.
Some people are questioning the satellite angle since the official report apparently doesn’t mention a satellite (I haven’t read the thing yet so I am going off of other readers). But the LA Times doesn’t even mention it at all, not even the military “alleging” that there is satellite evidence.
What pisses me off more tho is the changing of the word KILL to SLAY. The word kill can mean a couple different things. Could be a accident, could be deliberate.
“The man was killed in a auto accident today”
But slay means a deliberate act. You won’t see
“The man was slayed in a auto accident today”
Added with the omission of the satellite evidence by the paper and it looks like the LA Times is reporting their believe that Sgrena is telling the truth and our soldiers are not. So much for no bias huh?
Check out Michelle Malkin, Blackfive, Opinipundit, Joust The Facts, Rhymes With Right, Say Anything, & Captains Quarters for more.
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