These are some of the furphies emanating from the Coalition
invaders ... oops ... liberators:

The uprising that wasn't, mythical chemical weapons and other items of 
'breaking news'

By Paul Peachey

29 March 2003

The real war pauses occasionally. The information war goes on 24 hours 
a day. Every opportunity, every scrap of information, has been deployed 
to reassure British and American public opinion that the war is being 
won u and won painlessly.  

Rumours and half-truths have been seized on and presented as facts 
with enormous propaganda power. As the tide of war, and of information, 
moves on, to recall what was true and what was not has often been 
difficult.  

THE DEFECTION OF TARIQ AZIZ 19 March

In the House of Commons on 19 March, rumours began to circulate that 
the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister had fled to Bulgaria. If true, the 
suggestion, put about by American officials, would have been a huge 
coup for the Allies.  

Intelligence sources were united in their disbelief. And they were soon 
vindicated by the appearance the same day of Tariq Aziz on television in 
Baghdad, quashing the latest rumour that he had been killed while 
trying to flee the country.  

BATTLE FOR UMM QASR 20 March, 7.33pm

Rarely can a military target have been captured as often as Umm Qasr. 
Nine days ago, a Kuwaiti news agency set the ball rolling when it 
claimed that the port had been overrun. From then it seemed to be 
captured day after day.  

On Friday, US Marines raised the Stars and Stripes - only for it to be 
removed hastily for public relations reasons - and Donald Rumsfeld, the 
US Defence Secretary, decreed the area "secure". An hour after the 
BBC had announced that Umm Qasr and Basra had fallen in the early 
days, an Iraqi opposition leader said: "It is quite untrue. There 
is still heavy fighting in both places."  

On Saturday, "pockets of resistance" remained, the British said. The 
next day in the "taken" area US Marines encountered snipers, then 
machine-gun fire and grenades. By Tuesday, and the arrival of British 
Royal Marines, the port was declared "open and secure". Baghdad 
continues to deny having lost control of the strategic port.  

DISAPPEARING IRAQI TROOPS 21 March, 3am

Intelligence reports had predicted the capitulation of Iraq's 51st 
Division before war had even started. With thousands of propaganda 
leaflets having been dropped on to the troops and dark hints of 
American contacts with Iraqi generals, large-scale desertions were 
a given. "In the southern area, where there are six Iraqi divisions, 
50 per cent of their officers are planning to surrender once the 
campaign opens," one intelligence officer claimed.  

As the war started, Pentagon sources said the Iraqi military was 
"breaking from within". No surprise then, when Admiral Sir Michael 
Boyce, chief of the UK defence staff, said last Saturday that the 51st 
Division, one of those defending Basra, had surrendered and "that we 
have many thousands of prisoners of war". Geoff Hoon did not take long 
to assert that the 51st had "stopped" fighting. The commander and his 
deputy had given themselves up with 8,000 soldiers surrendering or 
deserting, said reports. The New York Times reported that the division 
had "melted away".  

Within days, elements of the 51st were back at war. It soon became 
clear that the man who surrendered was a junior officer masquerading 
as his commander. Maj-Gen Wall confirmed that elements of the 51st 
had returned to the city, taking up arms again. Predictions of the 
scale of the desertions have proved wildly over-optimistic: yesterday 
US officials said they had only 4,000 prisoners of war.  

CHEMICAL WEAPONS 24 March, 1.33am

On the day of the first significant Allied combat casualties, 
the discovery of a "chemical weapons complex" was a welcome 
propaganda coup for US-led forces.  

If the reports were true, it would have been the first find by the 
invasion force validating allegations that Iraq still had weapons 
of mass destruction.  

The discovery came after a weekend of minor setbacks and tough 
fighting in the early days of the war. Doubts arose almost as 
quickly as the reports that appeared overnight on Sunday in the 
Jerusalem Post, which had a reporter with the troops as they 
entered the complex, and the US news channel Fox, quoting unnamed 
Pentagon officials. By then the other networks had already got in 
on the act. ABC News cited one unidentified official who said an 
Iraqi general captured at the site "was a potential gold mine of 
evidence about the weapons Saddam Hussein said he does not have".  

Former weapons inspectors said the discovery of the site near Najaf by 
the 1st Brigade of the US 3rd Infantry division was probably insignificant. 

US defence officials soon began to row back, saying the factory "may 
turn out to be a chemical weapons site, or it may be a site that was 
producing something else". They remained non-committal. Two Iraqi 
generals in custody were providing useful information, they said. 
Tests were being carried out at the area, which remained a "site of
interest".

Asked about the claims, General Tommy Franks, the coalition commander, 
told reporters: "It would not surprise me if there were chemicals in 
the plant and it would not surprise me if there weren't ... It's a bit 
early for us to have any expectation ... we'll wait for the days ahead." 
And we still are.  

(snip snip snip)

                               -==-

Full story - http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=391830

furphy / furphies - rumour; a false story. From John Furphy, manufacturer
in Victoria of water and sanitation carts, which during WW I were centres
of gossip. 

Cheers, Steve..

---