The Coalition Provisional Authority released more information on the "wedding" attacked by US forces near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Not only did that "wedding" take place at an unusual time, but its celebrants all seemed to be about the same age:

Senior coalition military spokesman said that dozens of people killed in a U.S. attack in the Iraqi desert early Wednesday were attending a high-level meeting of foreign fighters, not a wedding. Photos shown to reporters in Baghdad support that contention. ...

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.

No one found dead children at the site of the attack, either, despite earlier reports. Kimmitt told CNN that the tape broadcast of dead children actually came from another incident in Ramadi. While the coalition forces found none of the usual accoutrements of a wedding, such as the aforementioned food, gifts, tents, and so on, they found plenty of other material that wouldn't normally show up on a shower registry at Bloomingdales:

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.

Unless they all left their wallets in that non-existent tent for the Dinar Dance, I'd say that this group of wedding guests did not want anyone to know their true identities. Doesn't that seem a bit odd for a wedding? It does to the CPA, but apparently not to the media. The reporting on the "wedding" attack is eerily reminiscent of Peter Arnett's notorious "baby-milk factory" report during the first Gulf War. It seems that the media still hasn't learned anything about wartime reporting.

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Captain Ed has an update on that so-called wedding which had no wedding tent, no wedding gifts, no wedding clothes, no musical instruments, and no elders present...  yet there were plenty of terrorist training manuals and batteries for making roads... [Read More]

Tracked on May 22, 2004 11:50 PM