And I have seen several broadcasts from troop carriers, on top of tanks, in villages.
TwistofFate -
How do you expect the Iraqis to be able to know where US troops are going to go next, unless they are told for sure?
And unless I am mistaken, responsible journalists take care not to be photographed next to distinguishable landmarks.
I think you have an exaggerated view of what the Iraqis are able to achieve without help. They don’t have the same military intelligence capabilities that the US/UK has, thank God, and unless some big mouth blabs, the idea is to deny them even a rough idea of where the troops are headed next. That way, they cannot set up ambushes.
What is so hard to understand about not wanting the enemy to know your position?
Regards,
Shodan
Geraldo Rivera is a moron who I would NEVER trust.
I couldn’t believe that network put faith in him to accurately represent them as a war correspondent.
Good riddance.
I think you are underestimating the abilities of a guerilla army. They know the terrain better than american intelligence. They can make next to accurate guesses as to what routes and stops troops can make based on weather conditions, local terrain, troop size etc.
Guerilla warfare has been happening alot longer than current military technology. It only takes one guy on a hill with a telescope and a motorbike to be able to report back to a flying column how many vehicles are heading in what direction and at what speed.
I understand that, but I sincerely doubt that Giraldo gave away any information that the Iraqi intellegence havent already planned for.
I would hazard a WAG that the US troops might possibly be heading towards Bagdad. 
Didn’t even need sand. 
I hope the Iraqis don’t read SDMB
Please don’t try me for treason…I said it was a WAG
Are you being delibertly dense? The point is that other reporters ask the commander what is, and what is not OK to broadcast.
Why would he be given that information if they didn’t feel it was safe for him to broadcast?
heh heh…
NPR yesterday was talking to a reporter who was discussing what highway they were on (I’m not sure if he said what direction they were headed). ALL DAY LONG you see old guys in suits on TV pointing out units and such on REALLY BIG, WELL-DETAILED maps on the floor.
We’re all concerned with how things are going in that part of the world. I understand and respect the fact that some Dopers have very personal reasons for being wary. But I must agree with those who say that you can get more detailed information via other means.
With all that said, Geraldo Rivera SUCKS ASS!!
Obviously this whole brouhaha is a plot by the military. They’re tired of Fox’s anti-war stance and seized on this harmless bit of reportage by Geraldo to embarass the renegade network.
I mean, what could the Pentagon possibly know about what intelligence is potentially useful? I’d stake my life on SDMB members knowing exactly what’s helpful to the enemy and what isn’t.
“Why would he be given that information if they didn’t feel it was safe for him to broadcast?”
Yeah, why would you expect Geraldo to have common sense?
I’m in the same boat as SciFiSam. With whom does Geraldo still have an ounce of credibility??? How did he get this gig in the first place?
Wait a minute. What if all these years (going back to the Capone fiasco) being hapless is just a cover and Geraldo’s realy a high level government operative? Maybe it’s all a clever plan - the Iraqi troops will see Geraldo and go to the spot he drew in the sand and then the 101st will carry out their real mission as planned (I’m envisioning Keystone Kops sort of mayhem.)
OR - Geraldo blabs the plan on TV the Iraquis assume that no one could be stupid enough to blab the plan on TV and proceed as if that’s NOT the plan, when it really is.
OR - the TV people figured out that people like me are experiencing waning interest in nonstop coverage and pulled this nonsense to give us a reason to switch back to 24 hour news.
Guys, it’s really a lot simpler than all of this. Whether Rivera gave away sensitive information or not is irrelevant. He promised he would not do X as a condition of going along with the troops, and he went and did X. He broke the conditions he voluntarily agreed to, so he goes.
He’s not a traitor, etc. He is someone who violated an agreement. In doing so, he voided the agreement.
Sua
That’s right. He’s actually a CIA assassin. He’s going to explain everything in his autobiography, Confessions of a Putative Dumbass.
What Sua said. It’s not the journalist’s place to decide what information is OK to release and what’s dangerous. That’s the military’s job. He was allowed to go along because he promised to obey the military’s rules. If he decided he didn’t want to play along any more, they’re well within their rights to kick him out.
In other news, Fox gets a real journalist embedded for the war.
I’m sorry, I misread your post. CNN is reporting that Fox is spinning it, while I just feel that CNN is using words they wouldn’t normally use in a news story. Stuff like “one stunned senior military official told CNN” or “Fox News executives pleaded”. I don’t know if that counts as spin, but emotionally charged verbs and adjectives don’t belong in a news story about your competition.
For those who are wondering why Geraldo is/was working as a war reporter: IIRC, Geraldo established his reputation as a brave, hard-hitting journalist when he was a war reporter during the Vietnam war. He was known for putting himself ‘in harm’s way’ along with the troops in order to accurately report what war is ‘really’ like.
However, I’ve not been impressed by anything he has done since, and I suspect his Vietnam reputation is more due to his having been in the right place at the right time than to any personal qualities/talents.
While I hear numerous people defending his controversial broadcast, none of you actually seem to be qualified to know whether or not his action was/could have been harmful. I would rather hear opinions from some real military folks, although I think the fact that the Pentagon has asked for his removal is sufficient evidence that he fucked up. He may not have revealed anything important in this particular broadcast, but his apparently serious lapse in judgement indicates that he could, and would, do so in the future if given the opportunity.
Aren’t the reporters given a list of do’s and don’ts that they agree to before they are allowed to accompany the military? It seems logical that one of those ‘dont’s’ would be “Thou shalt not reveal troop positions/movements unless given explicit permission by the commanding officer.”
It’s also possible that this is all a big fake-off - Geraldo was either deliberately given, or asked to broadcast, inaccurate information in order to confuse the Iraq military about their true location/movements. In this case the Pentagon objections are being made merely to add credence to the belief that Geraldo revealed important and accurate information.
As someone else has mentioned, Iraq does not have access to the same sort of military intelligence that coalition forces do - no satellite access, no airplane overflights. Even if a ‘spotter’ has info to pass on, all radio broadcasts are compromised because the US has already revealed that we can and do listen in on those conversations, and I believe that whatever telephone service existed is pretty much out of commission. This means all info is preferably passed on in face-to-face communications, which require travel time and luck (that something doesn’t happen to the messenger and prevent his arrival).
Twist of Fate, to give you a partial example of why your scenario about the ‘spotter’ is not particularly threatening: Spotter sees enemy troop movements and radios info to your ‘flying column’, which may or may not be within striking distance. Coalition forces monitor this broadcast, pass on to the 101st commander that a large enemy force is in his area; this commander may then take the initiative and intercept the enemy force himself, or he may select a defensive site and dig in to wait for the attack - neither circumstance very favorable to the enemy. Meanwhile, spotter planes have been sent out to locate this enemy force, and an air strike is called which decimates them before they can get anywhere near the coalition forces.
Quite frankly, I doubt that any large troop movements are possible in Iraq without coalition forces watching them real-time through overhead surveillance of some kind. (An ability that, I would like to point out again, the Iraqi military does not have.)
How is it possible that a sparrow fart like Geraldo is worth this much attention? Even if he sat there on Fox News and read out the entire US order of battle, it wouldn’t matter.
The Oakland Raiders are playing St. Catherines College. If you give the girls the Raiders’ playbook, do they suddenly stand a chance?
Is it the 1997 Raiders? 'Cause Saint Kate might have a chance there…
Seriously, though, this is an incredibly stupid analogy – unlike football (usually, anyway), in this particular situation people die. Even if the Iraqis can’t ultimately prevail in an action against the US, knowing US troop movements, even if only in broad strokes, allows them to be better positioned to kill US servicemen. That means more US servicemen will die. If the former Jerry Rivers endangered even one US soldier, then kicking his sorry ass out of Iraq was the right thing to do.
Betcha he just pissed off the guys and gals in the 101st so bad that they were just looking for an excuse to boot his ass to Qatar. And can you blame them?
I know if I were forced to spend all day and all night with Geraldo and his videophone, driving through a desolate country while having people shoot guns at me, I’d be looking for an excuse as well.
I think we should threaten to give Geraldo to Iraq if they don’t immediately and unconditionally surrender. I know, I know, that would be cruel (to Iraq), but desperate times call for desperate measures.