AP's bias on display

The AP reports on revent events in Iraq, and the bias is obvious. What I will do is reproduce the article here and highlight the obvious bias so you can see how it's done. Where you see ellipses, I have removed sections that don't discuss events in Fallujah.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on Friday, a day after the city's leaders suspended peace talks and rejected the Iraqi government's demands to turn over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

They're not insurgents. They're terrorists. Even the Iraqis agree with this now.

......In Fallujah, U.S. troops detained the city's top negotiator in the peace talks, witnesses said. Khaled al-Jumeili, an Islamic cleric, was arrested as he left a mosque after Friday prayers in a village about 10 miles south of Fallujah, they said. There was no immediate U.S. comment.

Where was he arrested again? Confusing locations like this throws the reader off and gives them a completely different view than the factual one.

Fallujah clerics insisted al-Zarqawi was not in the city and called for civil disobedience across Iraq if the Americans try to overrun the insurgent bastion.

Ditto. Watch this. The city leaders insist Zarqawi isn't there, then later in the article they say they can't find him. Then how do they know he isn't there? AP never points this out.

If civil disobedience won't stop the attack, clerics said they would proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against multinational forces "as well as those collaborating with them."

.....Fallujah, west of Baghdad, is considered the toughest stronghold of insurgents, who have controlled the city since the end of a bloody, three-week Marine siege in April.

Jets and artillery hammered Fallujah through the night and early Friday in an apparent effort to quash terrorists suspected of planning attacks timed with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Friday.

Suddenly the "insurgents" have become terrorists. In a second, they'll be "insurgents" again. It's all very mystical. And they're just "suspected" of planning attacks? You mean they could be innocent? And it's an "apparent" effort to quash terrorists? All of this implies that they might miss their targets and kill more of those poor innocent civilians.

Three people were killed and seven others injured during the night, according to Dr. Rafia Hiyad of Fallujah General Hospital. On Thursday, the hospital said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded.

U.S. officials, however, indicated the bombing was not a prelude to a major offensive into Fallujah that officials have said they might launch sometime this fall. In Washington, a senior military official, speaking about operational matters only on the condition of anonymity, said the strikes were against specific targets, similar to airstrikes that have gone on for months against suspected militant hideouts.

AP might suspect, but our military seems quite certain about their targets, as you will see a few paragraphs later AP never points out this discrepancy in their reporting. They want you to think "suspected" because that reinforces their view that "innocent civilians" are being killed as the Fallujans routinely claim.

The Iraqi government has been in negotiations with city leaders over a deal to restore government control to Fallujah.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned Wednesday that Fallujah must surrender al-Zarqawi and other foreign fighters or face military action. Talks broke down Thursday when city representatives rejected the "impossible condition" since even the Americans were unable to catch al-Zarqawi, said Abu Asaad, spokesman for the mujahedeen council of Fallujah.

The U.S. believes al-Zarqawi and his group are headquartered in Fallujah.

The Iraqi government doesn't believe this? Just a second ago you said that Allawi is demanding that the city fathers give up Zarqawi. I'm so confused.

During Friday sermons in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, preachers read a statement from Fallujah clerics declaring that al-Zarqawi's presence "is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."

"Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilian houses and killing innocent civilians," the statement said.

The clerics said that in the event of an all-out attack, they would call on all Muslims to launch a civil disobedience campaign against the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

"In case the interim government and occupation troops make no response following the civil disobedience campaign, Muslim scholars and representatives of all Islamic and national groups will declare jihad all over Iraq and declare a mobilization against the occupation troops as well as those collaborating with them," the statement said.

In Friday's operations at Fallujah, two Marine battalions were trying to "disrupt the capabilities of the anti-Iraqi forces," said Maj. Francis Piccoli, spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

"The operations were designed to target the large terrorist element operating in the area of Fallujah," the U.S. command said. "This element has been planning to use the holy month of Ramadan for attacks."

Targets hit included several key planning centers, a weapons storage facility, two safe houses, a meeting site and several illegal checkpoints used by the al-Zarqawi network, the U.S. military said.

Note the specificity of the information. It's obvious that the military knows exactly what they are bombing, and they are not "flattening houses and killing innocent civilians" as the Fallujans claim.

Late Thursday, Fallujah residents reported the most intensive shelling since U.S. forces began attacks aimed at al-Zarqawi's network. Later Friday, U.S. planes continued to fly overhead but the town remained quiet, residents said.

It sure is odd how all these residents can routinely talk to reporters, yet they're in constant fear of death from those evil planes raining death and destruction on them.

You'd almost think they realized they weren't really at risk.