Saddam Statue toppling- a takedown of the international press corps ?

The New Yorker's Peter Maas examines how the media conflated a staged statue toppling moment into a symbol of victory in Iraq. Did events at Firdos Square in 2003 and a photo op that echoed the iconic image of Iwo Jima marines mislead Americans into believing a "victory myth" in Iraq? What started as a notion from a Marine sergeant transmogrified into a media moment of outsized proportions, fed by television imagery. The statute was conveniently located opposite the Palestine Hotel where all the international press corps was camped out. After some Iraqi men began using a US marine's sledgehammer and a rope to try to bring the statue down, a live feed of the effort began airing live on every major network. "You've got all the press out there and everybody is liquored up on the moment. You have this Paris, 1944, feel. I remember thinking, The media is watching the Iraqis trying to topple this icon of Saddam Hussein. Let's give them a hand," Lieutenant Colonel Bryan McCoy told the New Yorker. The fourth estate comes up short on this one.

Murder of 2 Wire Reporters recounted

How the military targeted two Reuters reporters and killed them in Baghdad is outlined in a new book, according to today's Washington Post. The book presents

a graphic, second-by-second description of the U.S. military's 2007 killing of two Reuters journalists in Baghdad, an incident that the news organization says it cannot investigate fully because ...the Pentagon has withheld key records of the event.

Chilling stuff. The photo shows Reuters reporters following a strafing of them in Gaza by the Israeli Air Force three years ago. No deaths resulted, but there was little publicity over the outrage, which injured two journalists

Blackwater 'shoots NY Times Mascot Dog in Baghdad'

While elsewhere in Baghdad, snowflakes are falling and astonishing the locals, the reputation of US contractor security is more like a snowball in hell - fading fast.

According to Reuters, the U.S. embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards -- this time of the New York Times's dog, a hellhound named Hentish.

Staff at the newspaper's Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot Hentish dead last week before a visit by a U.S. diplomat to the Times compound. The K9 corps

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater's bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.

"The K-9 handler made several unsuccessful attempts to get the dog to retreat, including placing himself between the dogs. When those efforts failed, the K-9 handler unfortunately was forced to use a pistol to protect the company's K-9 and himself," she said in an e-mail to Reuters.

The U.S. embassy employs about 1,000 armed Blackwater staff to protect American diplomats in Baghdad.

The firm's role became a serious issue in Iraqi-U.S. relations when its guards opened fire on a Baghdad street in September, killing 17 people. Blackwater says its employees acted lawfully in that incident, which is under investigation.

State Department investigators have made two follow-up visits to the Times compound to investigate the shooting of Hentish, correspondent Alissa Rubin said.

"They were very solicitous and I thought took the incident very seriously," Rubin said. "It's not a dog that everyone's close to in the compound.

"But it's a dog that's been around a long time. It lived its whole life there."
And according to bloggers, it was inclined to sink its canines into the odd crotch...much like NY Times reporters that petted him.

(Reporting by Peter Graff; editing by Robert Woodward)