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GOES TO WAR |
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 STAN ISAACS |
FROM INSIDE IRAQ  |
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News service balances
reports from war rooms
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
With the war now in high gear, journalistic organizations
are scrambling to be firstest with the mostest with reports from
the intense fighting at the front and the intense briefings from
Washington war rooms. By a rare stroke of luck I have gained
a connection with a little-known but highly reliable news service
known by the letters ITI-which stands for Inside the Inside.
ITI has keen journalists who have penetrated some of the highest
reaches of the Iraqi government. They have access to some of
the Iraqi briefings which often address the same developments
talked about by President Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer
when he enlightens the media.
The latest from ITI:
A spokesman for the Iraqui
government said it was unclear whether it was President George
W. Bush himself or a double for the president when he announced
on March 17 that the United States would start a military action
within 48 hours. Some Iraqui pundits expostulated that Bush was
rushed out of Washington immediately after the 9-11 attack on
the World Trade Center, so it might have been considered prudent
to give him a head start out of the country before this war.
It was noted in several Iraqui newspapers that President Bush never uses the word, “war” in his briefings. A linguist at Baghdad U. said it may be because the reverse of “war” is “raw.”
When several American and
British servicemen were killed in a crash of a helicopter in
Kuwait during the early fighting, ITI was the first to report
that an Iraqui source said it was shot down by Iraqui aircraft
batteries. He called it an initial triumph for the campaign Iraq
calls “Fight Yankee Infidels.”
ITI, ever aware of the need to present both sides of a story,
pursued the matter further and reported the version from the
American media feeders who said that the helicopters had crashed
because of mechanical failure.
An ITI correspondent, Keen Analyst noted that both President
Bush and Saddam Hussein have invoked the almighty most frequently
in interviews or when addressing the public. Mr Analyst, the
analyst, a keen man with numbers, reported that in the fortnight
of speeches by both men, including an interview by Hussein with
Dan Rather on CBS, Hussein led Bush in references to the almighty
by 37 to 35. Hussein’s almighty, of course, is Allah, while
Bush serves God.
Sly Slick, ITI’s reporter at the Pentagon went beyond the report that high government officials were livid about Turkey’s refusal to allow American planes to fly over Turkey. He had his pencil ready and took down the aside by the American official that “Turkey is just what its name implies; it is a Turkey.” The high official later denied having made the comment but ITI stands by its reporter.
When Ari Fleischer said that the $30 million that would have gone to Turkey if it had allowed the flyover was “no longer on the table,” ITI learned that Bulgaria, Estonia and Eritrea were quick to offer their airspace for $30 million. El Salvador’s offer is not being given any serious consideration for sure because it is further away from Iraq than the United States. They are among the countries receiving a bounty from the United States so ITI, ever in the interest of fairness, is calling the countries lined up with the United States both “The Coalition of the Willing” and “The Coalition of the Billing.”
A spat that broke out at a briefing went unreported in the American
media. When a reporter used the term “weapons of mass destruction”
in relation to the Americans’ overwhelming arsenal, he was
reprimanded by the Allied spokesperson. She said, “We speak
only of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. We
have cruise missiles and tomahawks.”
In a somewhat similar high-level matter of semantics about the
all-out attack on Baghdad the second night of the year, an American
spokesman said it was inaccurate to describe it as a blitzkreig.
As any idiot knows, blitzkrieg is a German word.
An aspect of the war often overlooked by most networks other than ITI is that in many ways this is a battle of the Republican Guards: Hussein’s Republican Guards vs. the U.S. Republican Guard, i.e. the Bush administration.
The information minister
for Iraq’s “Kill Yankee Infidels” campaign told
ITI that there were conversations at the highest level which
he could not reveal about the possibilities of disaffected American
generals agreeing to end the war. This was hotly denied by the
Allies.
Though ITI reporters prefer not to engage in pack journalism,
one of its star correspondents, Ahmed Goldstein, was in the field
with the New York Times and corroborated the Times report that
“Iraquis celebrated the arrival of the American troops in
Safwan by tearing down huge photos of Saddam Hussein.” The
report went on to say that “many others in the starving
town just patted their stomachs and raised their hands begging
for food while some chanted, ‘Ameriki, Ameriki.’ “
I have been told ITI reporters will continue to pursue their craft ever mindful of the dictum that “The first casualty of war is the truth.”
©2003 by Stan Isaacs.
The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration
is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd.
E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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