You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Iraq-Jordan
NY Times is claiming that there are very few dead bodies in Fallujah
2004-11-15
FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 14 - American forces overran the last center of rebel resistance in Falluja on Sunday after a weeklong invasion that smashed what they called the principal base for the Iraqi insurgency.

American commanders said 38 American servicemembers had been killed and 275 wounded in the Falluja assault, and the commanders estimated that 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents - about half the number thought to have been entrenched in Falluja - had been killed. But there was little evidence of dead insurgents in the streets and warrens where some of the most intense combat took place.

Now, who's saying that? The commanders or the writer? My bet is on the writer.

The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has remained an enduring mystery. Roaming American patrols found few on Sunday in their sweeps of the devastated landscape where the rebels chose to make their last stand, the southern Falluja neighborhood called Shuhada by the Iraqis and Queens by the American troops.
Posted by:Damn_Proud_American

#28  For the muja casualties, Islamic law requires they be buried ASAP, within 24 hours. So, no wonder there were no bodies laying around.

DUH!
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-11-15 10:52:08 AM  

#27  For the muja casualties, Islamic law requires they be buried ASAP, within 24 hours. So, no wonder there were no bodies laying around.

DUH!
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-11-15 10:52:08 AM  

#26  What's their point? Would the NYT like to see MORE dead bodies in Fallujah? are they THAT blood-thirsty?
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever)   2004-11-15 8:59:47 PM  

#25  Now that someones auctioned M Moore's relevance on E-bay, perhaps the same could be done for the NYT. I don't think it would be worth very much.
Posted by: A Jackson   2004-11-15 7:27:46 PM  

#24  heh
Posted by: Rawsnacks   2004-11-15 3:18:34 PM  

#23  Leaddog2,
I googled that Filkins got his BA in Florida and master's at Oxford, but found no reference he is a Muslim convert. Do you have a reference for that, or is that speculation?
Posted by: ed   2004-11-15 12:43:35 PM  

#22  with the firepower being laid down by the military, there's often not much of a body to be seen. TOWs, 25 mike mike, coax, and tank rounds basically shred or incinerate bodies.
Posted by: Jeff   2004-11-15 12:02:44 PM  

#21  Actually, Filkins is Muslim. Radical? Well, the Times hires nothing else. They ALL HATE America. It is time to exterminate it completely by taxing all advertisers 10 times the cost of any Times advertising.

That will obliterate the Times in 6 months.
Posted by: leaddog2   2004-11-15 10:54:00 AM  

#20  For the muja casualties, Islamic law requires they be buried ASAP, within 24 hours. So, no wonder there were no bodies laying around.

DUH!
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-11-15 10:52:08 AM  

#19  The military really had it pounded home in Vietnam that there is no way to get good PR from pictures of bodies, no matter whose. So they have become expert at making bodies disappear. S.O.P. now is probably something like: 1) if uniformed, note location, body bag and ship out to Quartermaster unit. 2) if non-uniformed, take DNA, remove personal effects, body bag and ship to Quartermaster disposal site (mass grave.)
Posted by: Anonymoose   2004-11-15 10:41:27 AM  

#18  get with "the times". The NYT is defunct. It matters less what they say than what The Globe or the Star say. They, like CBS, have proven to be a propaganda outlet. To fuss over whether or not they say one thing or another, is a silly waste of breath.
Posted by: 2b   2004-11-15 10:00:35 AM  

#17  I think LH has it. The combat area in Fallujah covers about 15 square miles. That equals 10,800 heavily built-up acres. With 1200 dead rats, that is just one carcass for every eight acres in an even distribution, even if none have been removed and they are all visible in the street. Of course, many have been removed, they are not all lying in the streets, and the distribution is not even. There must be large areas where no bodies at all are visible.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-11-15 9:52:27 AM  

#16  Very true Crazyfool. But as long as there are people who can see it happening,(the MSM contradicting themselves) like the ones that read this blog, the MSM will continue to delcine.
Posted by: plainslow   2004-11-15 9:49:38 AM  

#15  CyberSarge-
Make you wonder if the overriding reason for demanding a body count isn't so they can tear it apart later...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2004-11-15 9:36:23 AM  

#14  Actually Filkins filed some interesting stories from Fallujah, even if you had to filter out some spin - it was better than the NYT usually is, though not as good as John Burns.

On the other hand an embed ONLY sees one sector of the battlefield, and it may well be that in Filkins sector there werent that many bodies in the streets. Note he mentions this phenomenon ONLY for Shuhada, NOT all of Fallujah. Of course reports ive seen might explain that by most insurgents being killed inside buildings, rather than in the streets.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2004-11-15 9:35:13 AM  

#13  Plainslow, Sure they can! And probably will.

The ability to make two mutually exclusive statements at the same time is that the MSM excels at.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-11-15 9:16:22 AM  

#12  I am not sure why they need to see and count bodies? After the debacle of body counts in Vietnam...

Sarge, I think you answered yourself. This is worse than Quagmire, it's Pentagon Waste!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2004-11-15 8:08:18 AM  

#11  So at least they can't say we killed a bunch of civilians.
Posted by: plainslow   2004-11-15 7:37:16 AM  

#10  I am not sure why they need to see and count bodies? After the debacle of body counts in Vietnam the military has always erred on the side of caution. Just because the reporteres aren't taken on a personal tour of the mourge, doesn't mean that there aren't 1200 dead. P.S. FUCK THE TIMES!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge   2004-11-15 6:54:08 AM  

#9  BBC online is saying 1200 is claimed by the US.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2004-11-15 5:50:35 AM  

#8  The Times failed in its dump Bush editorialising rampage, so this time around its going to be 'all the news that's fit to invent', direct from the handbook of CBS & Chief Dan Rather-not-speak-truth.


New York Times Building a few years back :)

Posted by: Mark Espinola   2004-11-15 3:55:38 AM  

#7  If there are so few dead bodies, then why have we read elsewhere that the locals are complaining about the stench?
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-11-15 3:24:03 AM  

#6   that quisling nytimes writer dexter filkins wouldn't know a dead body from a deadline--the putz probably majored in islamic studies at al fookmeupmebum university in jedda
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI   2004-11-15 2:53:34 AM  

#5  There WAS a food shortage in Fallujah.
Posted by: Bryan   2004-11-15 1:59:14 AM  

#4  Are they complaining or what?
Posted by: True German Ally   2004-11-15 1:52:13 AM  

#3  Did the NYT have any imbedded reporters in the assault? Look at the gettyimages website and there are quite a few shot up chaps.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-11-15 1:47:30 AM  

#2  NY Times is claiming that there are very few dead bodies in Fallujah

They must not be counting the fragments.
Posted by: Zenster   2004-11-15 1:18:26 AM  

#1  Btw, I got this article from drudge and his link to it was as follows:

"As many as 1,600 insurgents in Fallujah were killed so rapidly that streets were littered with 'alarming' number of bodies... "

That seems to be the opposite of what the article states and now drudges link has been changed to point to drudgreport.com. It appears that the NY Time may have swapped out the article on him... or changed the text regarding bodies.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American   2004-11-15 12:59:41 AM  

00:00