Air Attack In Iraq

MSNBC reported today (HT: WorldNetDaily) that US and coalition forces launched the biggest air attack since the start of the war in Iraq. While informative, MSNBC's coverage of the story is peppered with biased word choices. First the story, then the bias.

The U.S. military said the air- and ground-offensive dubbed Operation Swarmer was aimed at clearing “a suspected insurgent operating area” northeast of Samarra and was expected to continue over several days.

Iraq’s interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the attack had been necessary to prevent insurgents from forming a new stronghold such as they had established in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

“After Fallujah and some of the operations carried out successfully in the Euphrates and Syrian border many of the insurgents moved to areas nearer to Baghdad,” Zebari said on CNN. “They have to be pulled out by the roots.”

Waqas al-Juwanya, a spokesman for Iraq’s joint coordination center in nearby Dowr, said “unknown gunmen exist in this area, killing and kidnapping policemen, soldiers and civilians.”

What I take from Zebari's comments is that this operation wasn't just the US military deciding they wanted to go shoot some Iraqis (as the Left might interpret an escalation of the fighting), but it was something that Iraq's leadership saw as necessary to their country's continued stability. They had a need, and we (the coalition) responded.

Now for the bias (but I'll admit it could be my own anti-media-bias bias that I'm seeing). The first thing that struck me was that four times in the article, our initial war effort in Iraq is called an "invasion." Now, it's possible that's the proper military term for what happens at the beginning of a war, but the only references to the word "war" were as part of the word "warplane" and in one reference to a possible civil war in Iraq. If you went by this article alone, you wouldn't know we're fighting a war. You'd only know we invaded Iraq three years ago.

There was no immediate word on whether any fighter jets or other fixed-wing warplanes had dropped bombs or fired missiles as part of the assault. Also left unsaid was how many of the 1,500 total troops involved were Iraqis. (emphasis added)

This statement bothered me. It's as though reporter is implying that the military is holding back (read: "covering up") the number of Iraqi troops. They seem to be saying that the military doesn't want us to know, because it would either be too few ("See? Bush can't deliver on his promise to have lots of Iraqi troops up and running.") or too many ("See? The US military wants to hog all the glory for themselves.").

The assault came as Iraq’s new parliament was sworn in Thursday, with parties still deadlocked over the next government, vehicles banned from Baghdad’s streets to prevent car bombings and the country under the shadow of a feared civil war.

This is the most blatant of the biased statements. They chose the most pessimistic outlook on what's happening--or feared might happen--in Iraq and set that as the backdrop to Operation Swarmer. "Deadlock!" "Vehicles banned!!" "The country under the shadow of a feared civil war!!!"

Poppycock.

Here are some excerpts from Omar's post at Iraq The Model describing the swearing-in of parliament:

The new Iraqi parliament met for the first time a few hours ago marking the birth of the constitutional state in Iraq. An incomplete birth and a stumbling child but it is a step that hopefully will become a bridge over the current political and security mess.

Almost all the statements given by various prominent politicians to the press after the session ended were optimistic and they all spoke about consensus on forming a government of national unity yet some of them admitted that there's a serious trust issue between the major blocs.

[The presence of unqualified politicians is] in my personal opinion the people's mistake for they have elected those unqualified politicians and now the people must accept the fact that they will have to live with a government below their expectations for four years but I have hope that the people will learn from this experience and make better choices when the next time comes…that's if Iraq survives these four years and I believe it will.

Over and over, the mainstream media proves it can get some facts straight, but still get the story all wrong.