Whistle-Blower Points to Target List in US Attack on Hotel
More than five years have passed since the invasion of Iraq, since President Bush stood under the “Mission Accomplished” banner on that aircraft carrier. While these fifth anniversaries got some notice, another did not: the shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad by a U.S. Army tank on April 8, 2003. The tank attack killed two unembedded journalists, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and José Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. Couso recorded his own death. He was filming from the balcony and caught on tape the distant tank as it rotated its turret and fired on the hotel. A Spanish court has charged three U.S. servicemen with murder, but the U.S. government refuses to hand over the accused soldiers. The story might have ended there, just another day of violence and death in Iraq, were it not for a young U.S. military intelligence veteran who has just decided to blow the whistle.
Adrienne Kinne is a former Army sergeant who worked in military intelligence for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004. Trained in Arabic, she worked in the Army translating intercepted communications. She told me in an interview this week that she saw a target list that included the Palestine Hotel. She knew that it housed journalists, since she had intercepted calls from the Palestine Hotel between journalists there and their families and friends back home (illegally and unconstitutionally, she thought).
Said Kinne: “[W]e were listening to journalists who were staying in the Palestine Hotel. And I remember that, specifically because during the buildup to ‘shock and awe’ … we were given a list of potential targets in Baghdad, and the Palestine Hotel was listed. [P]utting one and one together, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation? And unfortunately, my officer in charge … basically told me that it was not my job to analyze … someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.”
She said the officer in charge was Warrant Officer John Berry.
Kinne’s account directly contradicts the official line of the U.S. government. On May 2, 2003, Colin Powell, then secretary of state and a former general in the Army, visited Spain. He said of the Palestine Hotel: “We knew about the hotel. We knew that it was a hotel where journalists were located, and others, and it is for that reason it was not attacked during any phase of the aerial campaign.”
If Powell was telling the truth, then why was the hotel included on the list of targets that Kinne says she read in a secure e-mail? Or was he just parsing words by saying it wasn’t a target during the “aerial campaign”? Kinne also revealed that the military was spying on nongovernmental organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross, listening in on these groups — also illegal — and justifying the pretense on the grounds that they might by chance report on a cache of weapons of mass destruction, or their satellite phone might get stolen by terrorists. She also received and translated a fax from the Iraqi National Congress, the CIA-funded group of Iraqi exiles who were funneling false information about WMDs to the U.S. government in order to bolster the case for war. The intel was considered high-value and was sent directly to the White House.
Kinne has shown great courage and taken great risks to bring these revelations to light, to blow the whistle. She follows in the tradition of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Ellsberg has called on government workers to blow the whistle:
“It’s a great, great risk to have the amount of secrecy we do have right now that enabled the president to lie us into this war and is heading us toward a war that will be even more disastrous in Iran. And this is the time for unauthorized disclosures, which are the only kind that are going to tell us the truth about what’s happening, and they should be done, in my opinion, on a scale that will indeed risk or even ensure that the person doing it will be identified.”
The brother of José Couso, Javier, has tirelessly pursued justice for his brother, traveling globally to make the story known and pushing the case in the Spanish courts. Kinne’s revelations created a stir in Spain, where the jurisdiction of the case against the three U.S. Army members is being challenged. The video of Kinne’s disclosures was downloaded and quickly translated for presentation the next day to the court in Madrid.
The Bush White House, we now know, used retired generals with ties to the Pentagon and to military contractors to deceive the U.S. public. Unembedded journalists in Iraq were a thorn in the side of the Pentagon spin masters. Might that April 8 attack been a message to them? Thanks to former Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne, we may be closer to finding out.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. Her third book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” was published in April.
© 2008 Amy Goodman
Yes, who approved targeting the press? Was it the same people who sent that anthrax reminder to the networks?
Who approved this? Anyone who voted to give Bush the authorization to invade Iraq. We know that truth is the first casualty of war, and the press (be it a purveyor of truth in a time of war) must be the next target.
Ignorance of these realities of war is no excuse for decisions authorizing war.
And some, having learned nothing from this historic blunder, have voted to give Bush authorization to do the same with Iran.
You all seem to have missed the fact that the Spanish guv dismissed charges earlier this week against the US soldiers, basically ending the fight.
Will this story change that? Who knows.
Amy, Amy, Amy……..your articles are wonderful and full of correct information……..There are 128 reporters and photographers now known to have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan…..
The United States Media has not provided the truth about World Trade Center #7 and its demolition. The U.S Media has not explained the Propaganda Machine that was used to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Media has failed to display the horrors suffered from torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The U.S. Media did not cover the Iraq Vets describing the murders of unarmed civilians in Iraq. The U.S. Media just gave a pass on the proposed propaganda on the weapons that were not supplied by the Iranians……..
The U.S.Media could care less about its own brothers and sisters being targetted by the U.S. Military for assassination. Yes, it looks like accidents and “Colateral Damage” But, 128 is above and beyond normal and if there was a list of targets that included members of the press……….I would call that “Murder”.
Wouldn´t it be nice to learn the truth about the “Political Elite” and the games they have played with human lives and finally punish those men behind the attacks of 9/11 and the deaths of up to 1.2 million Iraqis and over 4,000 Americans.
What a sin. What a sin.
I believe that tank firing on the Palestine Hotel, called a “mistake” at the time, happened about the same time that the television station al-jazeera building in Baghdad, which had sent its coordinates to the Coalition military authorities so that it would know where NOT to bomb–and had its roof clearly marked– er, got bombed, and a reporter was killed.
The liars said that was a mistake too.
Earlier in Afghanistan the al-jazeera station was bombed. That was a mistake too. If you don’t believe me, just ask the Pentagon–they’ll tell you themselves it was a mistake.
During the Kosovo war, amid reports of US anger that the Chinese embassy was assisting Serbian intelligence, the US bombed the Chinese embassy. China was furious. The US said that was a mistake too and profusely apologized, high officials GUARANTEED to the angry Chinese (who for some reason didn’t believe them) that it was a mistake, said they got the wrong coordinates by mistake for another target in the next block. Turns out that of all the military targets for bombing in the Kosovo war, that was the ONE set of coordinates submitted by CIA (instead of NATO who did the rest). The bombers correctly delivered the bombs to the coordinates they had been given, which was the Chinese embassy (supposedly a clerical error on the part of CIA). That one, one out of one non-NATO target submitted from CIA, happened to be of the Chinese embassy–by mistake.
There was a Congressional investigation into that “mistake”. I remember well reading in the New York Times the Congressional Representative who chaired that investigation reporting their conclusion: “based on the information they had been given” they had found no evidence that it was other than an accident, and then he added his own words, “unless they [White House] didn’t tell us everything”.
He knew. They knew.
They were lying about all these mistakes.
They didn’t want independent journalists covering Iraq, and simply decided to kill some. Then lie, lie, lie about it.
Ironically, it appears that this f****** WO John Berry actually calls himself a reporter in his civilian life. Seems he works for the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, CA. See http://www.universityofmilitaryintelligence.us/mipb/article.asp?articleID=435&issueID=34
Can anyone confirm that this is the same guy?
Wasn’t there also a very large banner hanging from the building that said “International Journalists”?
Media that were not “in bed” with the US Military were obviously targets
The USA is a lawless global beast that must be stopped
According to the Nuremburg Tribunal, starting a war of aggression is the ultimate crime — it opens the Pandora’s Box of evils.
This war in Iraq, started by war-criminal Bush and his war-criminal Administration has started such a war. In its wake we’ve seen the US murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, imprison tens of thousands, torture God knows how many, make literally millions homeless, destroy the culture and society of one of the world’s most ancient societies, use weapons of mass destruction like cluster bombs, phosporus, and depleted uranium.
This evil war needs to end NOW and the criminals who started it brought to trial.
Mistakes - my ass!! What, with smarty-pants bombs and drones and all that, even civilian casualties are not mistakes. Civilians are TARGETED (!) all the time to instill fear and loathing. Wouldn’t it be obvious to the U.S. murderers that the Militias in Sadr City would decline warfare if they know that cilvilians will get the brunt of the battle. So why, of course, wouldn’t the U.S. intentionally target civilians to scare the living shit out everyone?!?!?!?
(And Amy, I have tried to figure how you manage to travel from city to city while preparing and recording your DemocracyNow reports. And, what all else you do in a day! Truly remarkable. Try and get some sleep, you certainly deserve it.)
Excellent, scroller– not a mistake in there.
If you have not seen the interview go to democracynow.org and put Adrienne Kinne in the search function. Adrienne Kinne is as brave and courageous as Daniel Ellsberg and just as important in the information she was able to verify.
common_cracker:
There is a John Berry with the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Contact info is:
Reach John F. Berry at 909-806-3058 or jberry@PE.com
This is an area full of suburban rednecks, white trash, and Latinos and blacks. If the RPE is typical of other mid-sized newspapers in the area, it is very “Conservative”.
Just one more thing that points to the current reality. But you need to look at the Big Picture, and tie these little pieces together, and not look at everything in isolation, then the puzzle becomes clear.
What will it take to wake up NEO?
“NEO-Wake up!
You’re dreaming.
America is being (has been) taken over by Fascist Globalists and is spreading Fascism globally”.
If enough NEO’s wake up, change might be possible.
Typical behavior by fascists that do not like the reporting from journalists they do not control. That this leaked while Dubya, Cheney, & Co. are still in office marks them as incompetent fascists.
It was very obvious to us and it should have been to the casual observer, that the hotel bombing target was not an accident. They were trying to send a message to reporters and jounalists. We often wondered if the Chinese Embassy bombing was also an accident because as we now know the Chinese arms supply industry is teaching us americans a lesson in free market economics. Selling small arms to willing buyers is good for the bottom line. So when is the US going to declare the Chinese gov’t. a terrorist organization? It won’t because the the Chinese gov’t as it has already done will come back and say, “here is the greatest abuser of human rights, war monger, imperialist, enabler of terrorism, calling us a terrorist organization”? “The Chinese Gov’t likes “free market democracy” thank you to the west for teaching us the value of this concept”.
SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
Do the Journalists think they are exempt from The Violence?
Nobody is safe with The Chimp in office.
They target civilians and rescue workers.
That is their M.O.
No One is safe.
Habeas Corpus is Dead.
The Magna Carta revoked.
Citizens in the 13 Colonies had more rights than
Americans today under
King George II
The Corpirate Misleader!
Dead Eye Dick wants to
Stick it to you before they
Pull the plug!
Coup 911
You lefties have to be truly, truly stupid to think that those tank guys delibretly shot these journalists.
Its called war, idiots.
The Geneva Convention specifically forbids targeting non-combatants. Even war has some rules….though our fearless leaders feel no call to follow them. Once they started the ball rolling with one Capitol Crime….why would they hold back. This administration took an oath to uphold our Constitution…and has been breaking that oath from the start.
We have mountains of evidence but no DA. Is there anyone in the world who will enforce the law?
And there you have it: Jewbacca, a Bush-worshipping neo-con, shows just how blinded and fervently-nationalistic the Right is. Despite the fact that an actual person in the military on the inside - who actually blew the whistle on the lies, who actually saw the hotel on a military target list, who actually KNOWS that the US purposefully fired on the hotel - despite the video footage that most of us have seen showing the tank turning it’s turret and firing at the hotel on purpose - this idiot on the Right REFUSES to believe that his beloved US President might possibly do ANYTHING as evil as fire on innocent journalists on purpose.
The Right is the complete opposite of true Patriots. True patriots know that in a democracy, we must constantly be vigilant of our government, and hold it to account. But to traitors like Jewbacca (nice racist name, btw), “the US never does anything wrong! We are the good guys! I refuse to believe anything that shows anything negative about the US! Even if I see the evidence with my own 2 eyes!!! We are blessed by God!!”
And there you have it: the difference between blind nationalism, and true patriotism. Jewbacca, please consider moving to China. You can be a fervent supporter of the government there, and you will never hear about anything negative against the government, true or not, because the government doesn’t allow the truth to get out. You will be in an authoritarian paradise - right at home!
I believe that before Bush leaves office, He will blanket pardon any and all for what they did, did not, or should have done. Except the “little” people, what they did they “surly” did on their own, not under orders. Somebody has to pay the piper, just not him or his friends (meaning the dems too).
To the poster above who thinks deliberate targeting of journalists by US planners is implausible. I can hardly believe that comment is serious, but if it is:
a) it is undisputed (since the US said so) that the US intentionally targeted and destroyed one Iraqi TV station (link below) as well as, separately and earlier, a Serbian TV station (during the Kosovo war). In those two cases, the US claimed those TV news stations were legitimate military targets.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/03/26/iraq5435.htm
b) A report from UK in 2005 told of a memo on a meeting between Bush and Blair in which Bush wanted to bomb the al-jazeera headquarters in Qatar (an ally of the US with which the US was not at war), and Blair sort of talked him out of it saying it wouldn’t look good. Bush didn’t like what al-jazeera was reporting in the Middle East, therefore it was quite logical to his brain to simply bomb its headquarters in Qatar.(Incidentally I am unaware of any denial from either US or UK that the memo is genuine.)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1122-05.htm
—-start excerpt from the UK “Daily Mirror”—-
PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a “Top Secret” No 10 memo reveals.
But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.
A source said: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.” Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.
The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.
A source said last night: “The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.
“He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.
“There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”
A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been “humorous, not serious”.
But another source declared: “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men.”
–end of excerpt—
Hey jewbacca,
when you sign your name to a letter you should put your signature on the next line. So, above, when you signed your letter with your name “idiots” (it’s kind of fun that you gave yourself a plural name, as if you are more than just a single idiot), you should have signed it like this (also, “its” is the possessive form, “it’s” means “it is”–so many lessons for you):
“it’s called war.
Idiots”
Demon, the US president didn’t give those guys the order to fire, their tank commander did.
So, you either believe he delibretly targeted those reporters, or you should save your points against the iraq war for a thread where they are relevant. I was responding to the notion that our military killed these guys on purpose, not with the value of the war itself.
There’s a whole chain and hydra of dishonesty and misinformation involved with the perpetration of this war/occupation.
More journalists have been killed in Iraq than during WWII!
Linking Al-Jazeera with Al Qieda is just part of the lies.
The levels and inclusion of privatized mercenaries, special ops of the military, the mercenaries and CIA/intelligence agencies, the lies about holding, torturing and kidnapping detainees along with all the other dishonesty leads me to one conclusion: like any other criminal activity look for motive (prevent the truth from coming out), opportunity and method.
Presence, no, you are totally right. Bush himself got on the radio and ordered that tank to fire…
Come on guys, this isn’t the issue to argue on!
Jewbacca what part of an army sargent confessing do you fail to understand? Newsflash a world exists outside of the bubble of unreality promoted by that fat junkie Lush Limpballs:
From the article from those who can’t be bothered to read:
Adrienne Kinne is a former Army sergeant who worked in military intelligence for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004. Trained in Arabic, she worked in the Army translating intercepted communications. She told me in an interview this week that she saw a target list that included the Palestine Hotel. She knew that it housed journalists, since she had intercepted calls from the Palestine Hotel between journalists there and their families and friends back home (illegally and unconstitutionally, she thought).
If you neo-cons don’t start embracing the “reality based” community you are complicit in blatant war crimes just like the “good Germans” were.
Jewbacca who do you think draws up “target lists?” It certainly isn’t the on the ground grunts but someone fairly far up the chain of command who in turn must have been quite certain that there would be no repercussions for targeting civilian journalists. It’s called a war crime for those paying attention.
Jewbucka:
You believe in war & savagery so much why aren’t you in uniform? Too old? Too busy
making those buckas?
Chickenhawk trolls never have anything original to say, because they believe whatever the programmers on tv tell them to
believe — they can’t believe their lying eyes or their confused ears - right jujubee,
stick with whatever the “authorities” force
feed you…like GWBush is a uniter not a divider. hahah
As a practical matter, the tankers were almost certainly shooting at a target they were ordered to shoot at, rather than deliberately targeting journalists; that decision was made higher up. Like most of the US military, they probably didn’t know who the fuck they were shooting at. (Putting it in military language, these guys don’t know the meaning of IFFN.) For the tankers, it is a video game, except for the few that found out the hard way that people don’t like it when you go around trying to kill people. This is known as the Nuremberg defense.
The terror technocrats do not care, a target list is just a shopping list.
The US lies are already whoppers, the military is a heartless bureaucracy.
What crimes could they ever be blamed for, what court would prosecute?
All military are trained members of an armed terror species, full of abuse and dangerous. Each and every one of the US armed forces is a paid terrorist. Who is the bigger terrorist? Is it the clerks who make the kill lists, or the trained goons that enact them? Is the guards on the gas and torture chambers?
Is it jet pilot aiming another surgical strike, or the factory worker assembling the death machine? A busy hive of little ants, with little brains, each does its part, makes war on another hive of ants. Little insects on the face of earth, the world burns with your hate.
Raven, yes, exactly, which is why a spanish court going after the actual soldiers on the ground for this was bullshit.
I don’t believe even that higher ups did this on purpose. Why would they need to? They already fooled people into supporting the war!
You guys are just playing into base anti-americanism, that targets our soldiers.
Jewbacca EVERYONE in the chain of command is culpable during a massacre of civilians. Whether it’s Lidice or Mai Lai, you do know your history well enough to know that, don’t you right wing troll?
GDE can you read the article? They knew the hotel was full of civilian reporters when they targeted it and didn’t care, that’s a war crime:
“Said Kinne: “[W]e were listening to journalists who were staying in the Palestine Hotel. And I remember that, specifically because during the buildup to ‘shock and awe’ … we were given a list of potential targets in Baghdad, and the Palestine Hotel was listed. [P]utting one and one together, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe , and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation? And unfortunately, my officer in charge … basically told me that it was not my job to analyze … someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.”
She said the officer in charge was Warrant Officer John Berry.”
Doesn’t get much more specfic than that for people that can read the English languagem you can read, can’t you?
raven, did that intel officer have contact with the guys in the tank? Did she warn them not to fire?? NO!!!!
Stop blaming our troops! This was NOT anything like My Lai and to bring that up in this context is disgraceful. You guys are WAY off the mark on this one. To claim the guys in the tank should be prosecuted is beyond disgusting.
By all means, prosecute Bush and the top guys, even those lower down who messed up, but some of you are talking about the battle-level troops, and that’s outrageous.
Well as soon as the witneses are out of the way then the war crimes can begin.
Who gives a flying fuck who gave the order guys, it was given by someone. I saw the footage on TV and a special on CBC and it clearly showed the tank moving into position, taking aim even with some reports clearly standing on the roof and outside and on balconies and firing into the hotel that the world knew was filled with reporters etc. This was not a mistake but another in a long list of war crimes
It makes me FURIOUS to think the US military targetted journalists. This war is a disgrace and a crime and those responsible for the murder of the journalists should be prosectuted.