Thursday, December 01, 2005

Digging past the headlines

The headline (on the Yahoo homepage) I dug past was this :

US Bases Attacked in Iraq

And what I found was this :

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters that suicide bombings fell to 23 in November, which he attributed to successful U.S.-Iraqi military operations against insurgent strongholds in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital.

"His weapon of choice is suicide bombers," Lynch said of the insurgents. "In the month of November: only 23 suicide attacks; the lowest we've seen in the last seven months, the direct result of the effectiveness of our operations.


In full disclosure, the AP headline is "Bombings in Iraq Fall to Seven-Month Low", which makes the Yahoo headline even more out-of-place. What they found worthy of a front-page splash was really was nothing of the sort. But, don't say the media is biased!

Police Lt. Mohammed al-Obaidi said at least four mortar rounds fell near the U.S. base on the eastern edge of the city, but that there were no reports of casualties. U.S. officials disputed the report and said only one grenade was fired.