Setting the stage for a massacre in Najaf...
Police fire at reporters as US tanks roll up to shrine
By Adrian Blomfield in Najaf
(Filed: 16/08/2004)
The bullet that whistled through the lobby of the Sea Hotel in Najaf yesterday, embedding shards of glass into a foreign reporter's cheek before lodging itself in an air-conditioning unit, carried an unmistakeable message: "Get out."
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A deputation of journalists was denied an audience with Najaf's governor, Adnan al-Zurufi. The policeman outside his office was brusque. "If you do not leave by the deadline we will shoot you," he said.
That was enough for all but a handful of British and American journalists who hunkered down in the hotel as the deadline expired.
As night fell, shots were fired at the roof of the hotel, from where reporters file their stories.
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... I think Karl Rove has given orders for the pacification of Iraq ASAP by any means necessary. They are not driving reporters out of Najaf at gunpoint for their safety They are driving them out so they can't tell the world what is going to happen next.
In a way, it's a good thing. Because if the Iraq policy is going to completely fail, and I think it will, I want that to happen on Bush's watch. I don't want any Repugs being able to say that Kerry lost Iraq. I want it to be absolutely clear that George W. Bush lost Iraq.