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At Least Iraqi Officials Hail The U.S. Invasion Of Iraq
Or do they?
7 Responses to “At Least Iraqi Officials Hail The U.S. Invasion Of Iraq”
The Reuters headline and the first paragraph have Mahdi saying that the invasion of Iraq was an idiot decision, but the direct quote shows that he was referring to the occupation, not the invasion itself. And here, from a different source, there’s more context:
To misstate this as being about the invasion itself implies that Mahdi thinks they’d be better off if they’d been left under Saddam’s rule, but what he was actually saying wasn’t about the US invasion itself, rather about mistakes that were made in the aftermath.
[Sorry if this is a duplication, not sure if my previous post is being held up by moderation (do you get a message indicating that?) or if I neglected to hit the submit button.]
The Reuter’s headline and their first paragraph have distorted Mahdi’s comment to say that he characterized the US invasion as an idiot decision. He actually made that statement about the US occupation, not the invasion itself.
This story gives more context (he was listing all the mistakes that were made after the invasion by the US and Iraq.) Also important to note that he is saying that stabilizing Baghdad is critical and that more troops are needed.
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SCIRI is in a power play with Maliki for Shia control of ultimate control of Iraq. SCIRI’s leader is al-Hakim who visited with Bush. No Civil War and no Plan B (Maliki out/Hakim in), CS shirley you jest.
Rudi,
I was primarily making the point that Reuter’s twisted the quote to mean something other than what it really was, and I included the part about troop strength just as a matter of interest. Certainly his comments could be (or maybe even probably are) duplicitous, but I’d still prefer to read what he actually said, not the misquote by Reuters.
CS In all your years you should know not to trust a headline. Are we just skimming…..
I too would like to be able to expect accuracy from my news headlines. All it would take is a one word change.
Rudi,
It wasn’t just the Reuter’s headline, it was the lead paragraph. It would have been very easy to miss that the actual wording in the direct quote was different than the way they were paraphrasing it.