CBS Workers Seized; Car Bombers Target U.S.-Backed Sunnis

[kpete]

CBS Workers Seized; Car Bombers Target U.S.-Backed Sunnis

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; Page A12

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 -- Two CBS News journalists have been kidnapped in the southern city of Basra and remain missing, Iraqi officials said Monday.

The journalists, a British citizen and an Iraqi, were taken from their hotel late Sunday night by about 20 armed men wearing the uniforms of Iraq's security services, according to Brig. Gen. Jalil Khahlaf, the provincial police chief. He said authorities did not know the condition of the journalists and had not been contacted by the kidnappers, whose identities were unknown.

"All efforts are underway to find them," CBS News said in a three-sentence statement. A network spokeswoman said she would not comment on the account given by Iraqi police and asked news outlets not to report the missing journalists' names or jobs.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021101322.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[wildbilln864]

1. kick. nt

[EFerrari]

2. The cynic in me wants to ask what US scandal they were working on.

:(

[TomInTib]

3. "Cynic"?

Try "Realist".

Twenty uniformed guys raiding a hotel to grab a couple of journalist is more than a kidnapping. That's a f***ing statement being laid down, hard.

[EFerrari]

4. There's at least one book on the US war against journalists

covering this war, isn't there, Tom?

There's nothing these bastards won't do.

[countryjake]

6. This newer report does not bode well...

that one of them is a British citizen...Lara Logan is the one who exposed the truth last summer about the scandalous treatment of special-needs Iraqi orphans and then her follow-up report about the one little boy who was in such horrific condition when he was found and his subsequent death. Then before Xmas she did another follow-up about two more of the boys dying. I've heard her interviewed on other news programs and she's said that she faced an impenetrable "wall" trying to get permission to break that news of her orphan story, from higher-ups in her news organization, and both the US and Iraqi governments. She was stymied at every turn. She's also reported that although promises were made in June that somebody would be held accountable for the treatment of those desperate children and arrests had been made, nothing further has come of it. She's the only news person that I've ever heard actually report that 4 million and possibly many more children have been left orphaned in Iraq.

I doubt that she and her camera crew are very popular in Baghdad these days. Or in Washington.

I feel for anyone who is at risk or kidnapped while doing honest reporting, but I really really hope like hell that this British citizen is not Lara Logan!

[EFerrari]

7. We're eventually going to find out that the US killed most of the journalists

that have been killed in this war.

And somehow, we're going to have to deal with that.

[Quantess]

5. I'm so sick of all this B.S.