Last year, while General Petreaus was briefing Congress on the impending success in the war in Iraq, the Washington Post ran a week-long series of articles on Improvised Explosive Devices. It was the WaPo’s way of distracting the readers from the newspaper’s inept reporting from Iraq. Judging by the idiot comments with which I’ve tortured myself, Washington Post’s plan has worked…for them.
This morning, the Washington Post, while ignoring the fact that Iraqis are under the impression that they can control their own security because of the recent successes there, focuses on the new IED;
U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year.
Bill Roggio calls it the “Flying IED;
The rocket casings shown in the images provided by Multinational Forces Iraq are the same type used in the Chinese-made Type 63 towed 107mm Multiple Launch Rocket. The Iranians manufacture this weapons system and the rockets, according to a former US military intelligence analyst familiar with Iranian munitions and weapons systems.
The type of improvised launch system and rocket is not new to warfare. The Irish Republican Army used a similar system to conduct a February 1991 attack on 10 Downing Street, the London office and home of the British prime minister.
Now, I’m not discounting the lethality of the weapons, since American soldiers have been killed they are certainly effective…but do they really deserve a front page story in the Washington Post? The Post counts 21 casualties from the weapons, three are Americans – who were the other 18? Well, apparently, they come from one explosion when a truck used as a launch vehicle exploded. From Roggio;
The explosions in the Sha’ab neighborhood in the Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, which killed 16 civilians and wounded 29 more, have been “misreported,” according to the US military. The explosions in the Mahdi Army stronghold were initially reported in the media as a car bomb attack that targeted a police commander. The attack was held up as the largest bombing in Baghdad since mid-March.
But the US military has refuted the reports, saying the explosions were caused by the premature detonation of a Special Groups improvised rocket launching system. The system, which has been described as a flying improvised explosive device, or airborne IED, had received little attention until yesterday’s explosions in Sha’ab.
Roggio says 16 were killed, but the Post recounts the same incident and says 18;
The explosions were caused when a rocket on the back of a small flatbed truck exploded, igniting the other four to five IRAMs on the truck, the U.S. military said. The attack killed 18 Iraqis, wounded 29 and damaged 15 buildings, the military said.
Why the differing numbers? Well, the Post counts the two militiamen who died in the explosion as casualties. From Roggio;
Two Mahdi Army Special Groups fighters were killed in the subsequent explosions, as well as 16 civilians.
A big deal? Probably not…unless you go and look at the comments and recognize that it’s just red meat for the peace-at-any-cost crowd. The Post has succeeded in convincing it’s readership that any good news is just propaganda, that connections to Iran are just Bush propaganda, that the war is not winnable. That, to me, is not the function of the press, it’s not why our founders gave them special protections in the Bill of Rights.
