US says report of 20 beheaded bodies in Iraq false

[frogcycle]

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, June 30 (Reuters) - Media reports attributed to Iraqi police of 20 decapitated bodies found south of Baghdad this week were untrue and may have been planted by insurgents to provoke revenge attacks, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

"Coalition and Iraqi officials began investigating to determine if the reports were true. Ultimately it was concluded the reports were false," the military said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA029533.htm

---

Pretty much have to ignore all news, don't we?

[billyoc]

1. 'e's, 'e's restin'!

[johnnypneumatic]

2. they're not quite dead

they're gettin' better

[struggle4progress]

3. Riiight -- cuz don't nobody never find no headless bodies in Iraq

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 26 Sep 2006
... SUWAYRA - Police found the headless bodies of five people in Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/LZEG-6TZLMD?OpenDocument

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 2 Oct 2006
... SUWAYRA - Seven headless bodies were retrieved from the Tigris downstream from Baghdad at Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital, police said. All had their hands tied ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/HMYT-6U7RLA?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 11 Oct 2006
... BAGHDAD - The headless corpse of a Christian priest was found in the outskirts of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/HMYT-6UGPFL?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 6 Dec 2006
... MOSUL - Police found the headless body of an army officer on Monday in Mosul, police said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/VBOL-6W8GA2?OpenDocument

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 10 Dec 2006
... BAGHDAD - Three headless bodies were found in the Hurriya district of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SODA-6WD3LE?OpenDocument

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 7 Jan 2007
... * SUWAYRA - Police found four bodies, including one that had been decapitated, in Suwayra, about 45 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, an interior ministry source said ... RIYADH - Police found a headless body on Saturday in the town of Riyadh, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-6X99KZ?OpenDocument

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 26 Jan 2007
... HAWIJA - Police find the headless body of a man who was kidnapped on Thursday near Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/VBOL-6XTJ6W?OpenDocument

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq, 17 Feb 2007
... SUWAYRA - Police said they found the headless bodies of two men dressed in civilian clothes in the Tigris River near the town of Suwayra, just south of Baghdad ... http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/YAOI-6YK9DJ?OpenDocument

[frogcycle]

6. well of course there have been plenty of such

I'm just saying the much-touted recent report clearly was not checked out before reporting, and, by the way, I didn't notice anyone carrying the Reuters update

[struggle4progress]

7. Higher-level Iraqi officials and occupation forces have a history of downplaying the numbers

in the service of political objectives. There was a period when journalists and other investigators could collect some local totals, from health officials and various morgues, but the national government clamped down on information release, as indicated by these stories:

Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 9, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings. ~snip~

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802692_pf.html

Body Count in Baghdad Nearly Triples
Morgue's Revised Toll for August Undermines Claims by Leaders of Steep Drop in Violence

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 8, 2006; A12

BAGHDAD, Sept. 7 -- Baghdad's morgue almost tripled its count for violent deaths in Iraq's capital during August from 550 to 1,536, authorities said Thursday, appearing to erase most of what U.S. generals and Iraqi leaders had touted as evidence of progress in a major security operation to restore order in the capital.

Separately, the Health Ministry confirmed Thursday that it planned to construct two new branch morgues in Baghdad and add doctors and refrigerator units to raise capacity to as many as 250 corpses a day. ~snip~

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090700768_pf.html

U.N. Says Iraq Seals Data on the Civilian Toll

By WARREN HOGE
Published: October 21, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 20 — The United Nations office in Baghdad says that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has ordered the country’s medical authorities to stop providing the organization with monthly figures on the number of civilians killed and wounded in the conflict there, according to a confidential cable. ~snip~

Mr. Qazi, a former Pakistani diplomat, says that the order to let the prime minister’s office take over the release of the numbers came down a day after a United Nations report for July and August showed a serious upward spike in the number of dead and wounded. The leader of the Health Ministry in Iraq appealed to be allowed to continue supplying the figures to the United Nations but was turned down according to a subsequent letter from the prime minister’s office, Mr. Qazi’s cable said. ~snip~

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/world/middleeast/21statistics.html

Iraq: Release Data on Civilian Deaths
Government Downplays Human Cost of War

(New York, April 25, 2007) – The Iraqi government should return to past practice and immediately make public official figures on civilian casualties, Human Rights Watch said today.

In the past, the Iraqi government has released official data on civilian injuries and deaths – an important barometer of the war’s human cost. But in an apparent reversal of policy, the government has refused to provide the United Nations with current data, which the UN requested for its new human rights report, released on April 25, 2007. ~snip~

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/25/iraq15776.htm

Published on Thursday, April 26, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers
U.S. Officials Exclude Car Bombs in Touting Drop in Iraq Violence
by Nancy A. Youssef

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. ~snip~

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/26/764/

Here's a typical story on the 20 bodies, which fits the now-standard template of journalists collecting some information from local officials, followed by higher-level folk denying that there's any problem:

Sectarian Attacks Kill Dozens in Baghdad
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and STEPHEN FARRELL
Published: June 29, 2007

~snip~ The discovery of 20 headless bodies was made in the Om-Obaid village near the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, according to a police official in nearby Madaen. A half-dozen heads were also found near the still-clothed bodies, which appeared to be of men of varying ages, he said. An Interior Ministry official asserted later that it was doubtful that bodies had in fact been found. ~snip~

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2007/06/29/world/29iraq-600.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html?hp

It's not clear to me why you think "the report clearly was not checked out before reporting" or why anyone would believe glib assertion by the occupying forces that the stories were "planted by insurgents."

[frogcycle]

8. i'm saying you can't believe anything on the face of it

breathless claims from either side are as likely to be phony as real, and news agencies rush to market to grab ratings

For all I know there were 40 found.

[struggle4progress]

9. What are these "sides" you mention in asking us to be wary of "breathless claims from either side"?

And if the media needed bleeds for leads on Thursday, they didn't require headless bodies: Iraq's not short of blasts.

Finally, take another look at the NYT snippet I posted upthread or this AP piece: the initial coverage already indicated local and top officials were telling different stories, which of course is by now familiar -- and seems inconsistent with your complaint that coverage was somehow unbalanced.

Bomb Kills 22 at Baghdad Bus Station
Thursday June 28, 2007 6:46 PM
AP Photo BAG101, BAG104, BAG103
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - A car bomb killed 22 people Thursday in a bus station in western Baghdad, and police said 20 beheaded bodies had been discovered on the banks of the Tigris River southeast the capital. Government security officials raised doubts about the decapitation report. ~snip~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6743394,00.html

[rodeodance]

4. propagada is the main story.

[Vinca]

5. What's the big deal?

Paris Hilton was getting out of jail and nobody covered the story anyway.