AP: Assassination Poppycock

[sfc_darrel]

AP: Assassination Poppycock
The byline on this Associated Press piece seems genuine, and it seems pretty clear that this is an opinion piece by the AP's George Gedda. But boy is it ever wrongheaded:

In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a long-standing policy banning political assassination. It was the misfortune of Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, that the Bush administration has not bothered to enforce the prohibition. . . .

Officials said people inside the villa opened fire first--but left little doubt what the U.S. troops hoped to accomplish.

"We remain focused on finding, fixing, killing or capturing all members of the high-value target list," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, announcing the deaths of Odai and Qusai.

That "or capturing" in the Sanchez quote would seem pertinent, would it not? The coalition has now captured a majority of the Iraqi fugitives on the famous "deck of cards"; aside from Uday, Qusay and possibly "Chemical Ali," we can't think of any who've been killed. Besides, here's the AP's own account of the raid that killed Uday and Qusay:

It was 10 a.m. when the four Humvees pulled up outside the handsome villa on Shalalat Street and disgorged a party of U.S. soldiers. Over a bullhorn, they told the occupants to come out with their hands up.

What followed was a firefight from the ground and air that reduced the comfortable villa to a smoking hulk. And only then did the troops find out how high the stakes had been: Their targets, they discovered, were Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai, second in power only to their father.

The troops gave the house's occupants an opportunity to surrender and opened fire only in self-defense. They didn't even know exactly who was firing on them. The AP's own reporting thus makes clear that Gedda was wrong. This was a battle, not an assassination.

[Sgt_Tropo]

The AP has a long history of hiring and giving by-lines to a vast assortment of extreme left-wing editorialists posing as legimimate reporters. Their sole purpose in life is bad-mouth any and everything the US does, regardless of the circumstances or results. CNN finally got their act togehter and fired a TV reporter for his Suddam-supporting and left-wing extremist views. Too bad the AP still allows false "reporting" to go on. If the press wants to be regarded as the "last bastion of the truth", they need to earn it by getting rid of these people who pass off their editorial comments as fact and truth. Gedda has been with the AP for a long while and is one of the worst offenders of an impartial press as there is. About the only ones who give any credence to Gedda's articles are the anarchists and other radical individuals who wouldn't know the truth if it smacked them in the face.