AP Footage Confiscated From Bloody Baghdad Bombing Scene

AP Via Editor & Publisher:

A daring ambush of bombs and gunfire left Poland's ambassador pinned down in a burning vehicle Wednesday before being pulled to safety and airlifted in a rescue mission by the embattled security firm Blackwater USA. At least three people were killed, including a Polish bodyguard.

American authorities confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told AP that Iraqi law make it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

Read the whole story: AP Via Editor & Publisher

Comments

[JonStewart]

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told AP that Iraqi law make it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

Are you kidding me??? Wow, this is going to make it very easy for us to do anything we want without any chance of people seeing what we're doing. I guess the hell with oversight and accountability...again...blah

[eliandbo]

Maybe, just maybe, the assholes that voted for Cheney and his speech-a-day pet monkey have learned their lesson,............just kidding, no chance.

[ajax2]

Iraq commander told to stand down until Blackwater arrived. That's why Polish ambassadors has already been rapped in gauze head to toe in the AP video.

[jrfunkenstein]

What a load of horseshit. Since when has there been any 'law' that forbids the screening of the aftermath of a bombing/shooting in Iraq?

We've been seeing the aftermath for nearly 5 years.

Wonder what the Hell that tape REALLY showed?

[eliandbo]

This law went into effect less than a month ago.
I believe it is an attempt to cover up the bombings, to make it look like the"SURGE" is working.
I also think our Cheny suggested it.

[eliandbo]

Kinda like our government does not want pictures of flag covered coffins.

[FatherWolf]

So that occupation forces are enforcing Iraqi law now?

Whatever happened to the Iraqi police?

[PepperzMom]

One has to wonder why the Iraqi government wouldn't want this stuff on the air. After all, it places more and more direct proof on the failure of the surge, and overall, the "freedom" fight for Iraqi citizens.

I say...bring more on...dead, dying, maimed...Iraqi, US, other world citizens, doesn't matter.

Then, all eyes will see the truth.

[StillAmused]

Can't have none of that there 'reality' stuff... gets in the way of all the pretty, shiny objects being dangled before the domestic dullards by the Administration From Hell.

[MikeDu]

"Iraqi law make it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks."

Yeh right. Like all of a sudden the U.S. accepts Iraqi law. Recently a was told about a huge "revenge" IED trap that had been foiled. The soldier said he didn't think he was 'allowed' to mention what exactly it was in revenge for. We can probably guess. We're hearing horrors out of Iraq daily but we're not being allowed to hear 1/10th of the horrors that could be reported. Something like 2 million soldiers have rotated through Iraq over the last 4 years. Imagine how deeply scarred many must be.

[imajoebob]

In an AP article purportedly about AP video being confiscated by US Military, it merits all of 2 lines?? Any reasonable person will infer one of two things: AP is so pro-Bush that it buries the story in details about the attack, or more likely, they've been threatened and cowed by the Bush administration and fear losing their accreditation to cover Iraq.

And they didn't mention that the US Military does not confiscate video of their attacks on insurgents...

[Burzootie]

Confiscating news footage is a classic prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment's protections of free speech and it makes no difference whether the American military was enforcing Iraqi law. That "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" has been interpreted to prohibit state actors from enforcing patently unconstitutional laws, or laws that would be unconstitutional if they involved state action (for example, courts cannot enforce racially restrictive covenants in private real estate deals, although the covenants themselves are not unconstitutional). In this case it is not only not the job of the American military to enforce Iraqi law, it is unconstitutional for them to do so; given the pattern of rampant disregard for constitutional liberties under the Bush Administration, however, it's not particularly shocking that the government is now engaged in censorship at the most basic level.

[whomung]

* No serious coverage from Burma
* Barely a mention of Darfur
* Can't show current reality in Iraq

It's almost like the NeoCon Fascists are trying to prevent the world from seeing the monumental failure of their Point of View

[bigdaddyvike]

hmm. Another step closer to the true fascist state we are to become. I'd like to know just how they swiped that footage. At the end of an AK-47? Nope. Most likely an M-16.... and will the photograper(s) spend 94 days in a green zone gulag enjoying a nice, cool drink of waterboarding?

[fact finder]

And that is not censoring. ?

[dadw5boys]

If it is Illeagal under Iraqi Law why didn't Iraqi Police take the film?

[eliandbo]

The American military took the AP tape under orders from the Bush administration.
It would show the true picture of whats going on over there.
Bush does not like the press or the truth.
He does not like to show all those flag covered coffins either.
Freedom of the press is the first thing to go under a fascist government.
Bush's grandfather supported Hitler, like they say about the acorn not falling far from the tree.

[Ping]

The convoy may have been attacked because the Iraqis thought Blackwater was the security. In that case the "mission" of Blackwater in Iraq is over. When they become the target of attacks, they are no longer useful to the US military.

Blackwater helicopters responded to the incident. Chances are that Blackwater was handling the security. The military and State Department are once again trying to hide the truth from the American public.

[kellygrrrl]

I agree!
I think that Blackwater is making Iraq MORE dangerous

[whomung]

But hey.... They made almost BILLION DOLLARS, so who cares?

* a top Army sergeant is paid $51,100 to $69,350 a year in salary, housing and other benefits,
* a Blackwater contractor receives six to nine times as much.
* The U.S. government pays Blackwater $1,222 per day for one Blackwater "Protective Security Specialist," which, the congressional report notes, "amounts to $445,891 per contractor" per year.

Good 'ole boys who like to kill furners (and Librals), finally making the bucks --move out of the double wide, and get a McMansion in the middle of BumFuck.... It's not "sports star" bucks, or even "rap star" money... but for these guys, it's serious bucks... a few years at $500K goes a long way in some parts of the country... They could retire and just get drunk, become a "swinger" and poach deer for a lifestyle....

* PLUS.... In the mean time they get to be mercenaries and let their personality disorders run wild... How cool is that?

The odd thing, is how much cheaper it would be if they used actual US Military personal...

In the end... IT was always about war profiteering.... Raping America for generations to come....

I have a friend who says "you can sheer a sheep once a year... for YEARS.... but you can only skin it once..."....

The NeoCons overplayed their hand.