Wretchard compares the way in which the military and the media approach the analysis of incoming information.
Although the news media functions as the civilian intelligence system, collecting raw data, processing it and distributing it to the public,� for historical reasons it lacks many of the features which professional intelligence systems have evolved over the years: namely a system of grading information byreliability and existence of analytic cell whose function is to follow the
developments and update the results.
Updating would seem to be a logical progression of breaking news, but most of the time, it simply isn’t. The story is allowed to die before all the facts are in. For example – where are the updates on the assassination of the president of Chechnya? This was no minor news story, and it’s less than two weeks old. Have there been arrests? Has there been a stable transition of power?
If the newspapers had an institutionalized tracking cell to evaluate initial reports they would would spotted the tell-tales and asked the reporter to go forward for a better look.
Why was a wedding party in full swing at 02:45 am in the middle of the desert? A glance at the map would show the area in which the wedding took place was 250 kilometers from� “Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi,” and who “put the death toll at 45.”� A long way to go for medical treatment or burial when Qusabayah is 50 kilometers away. Under normal circumstances, there are two wounded for every dead. By the normal ratios there should have been at least 90 injured. There was a videotape “showing a truck containing bodies of people who were allegedly killed in the incident. Most of the bodies were wrapped in blankets and other cloths, but the footage showed at least eight uncovered, bloody bodies, several of them children. One of the children was headless.” A video of the dead, but where were the wounded?
More importantly, why aren’t we getting this sort of analysis from our major media organizations? Is this not the journalistic equivalent of operating on a patient in the absence of a medical diagnosis?
Update: May 22CNN reports evidence of a way station for foreign fighters. Fancy that.
Kimmitt said troops did not find anything — such as a wedding tent, gifts, musical instruments, decorations or leftover food — that would indicate a wedding had been held.
Most of the men there were of military age, and there were no elders present to indicate a family event, he said.
What was found, he said, indicated the building was used as a way station for foreign fighters crossing into Iraq from Syria to battle the coalition.
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At Saturday’s briefing for reporters in Baghdad, Kimmitt showed photos of what he said were binoculars designed for adjusting artillery fire, battery packs suitable for makeshift bombs, several terrorist training manuals, medical gear, fake ID cards and ID card-making machines, passports and telephone numbers to other countries, including Afghanistan and Sudan.
None of the men killed in the raid carried ID cards or wallets, he said.
