Read More of the Same Day's Blog

The theme of the week has been that the usual rituals of light-news Thanksgiving have been upstaged by carnage in Iraq. It happened yet again as Sunni mosques were targeted for reprisal attacks after yesterday's Sadr City bombs. ABC and CBS were still on holiday schedule, however. ABC preempted its nightly newscast for college football and CBS had Russ Mitchell substitute for anchor Katie Couric.

Just like yesterday, Elizabeth Palmer led CBS' newscast and Tom Aspell led NBC's, both from curfew-quitened Baghdad. Aspell recounted the attacks on Sunni mosques in the Huriyah neighborhood: in a "gruesome display of barbarity," six worshippers were doused in kerosene and burned alive. Palmer laid out the "hard-line demands" against Sunnis by Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr: no sectarian killings, no loyalty to al-Qaeda and reparations for desecrated Shiite shrines--plus a timetable for a US troop pullout.

From the Pentagon, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski predicted that the US military might resume its crackdown on Sadr City, the one that was lifted at the Baghdad government's behest earlier this month. CBS' Lara Logan (no link) previewed her profile of Gen John Abizaid for 60 Minutes. Abizaid's major fear is further destabilization from Iraq "into the region as a whole."

Andrew Tyndall 11/27/06 8:58:46 pm

© 2010 Tyndall Report