He's probably wishing he had time to polish his resume so he can get a shot at a job with the new regime. ("LIVE from the Land Between the Rivers, it's B-TV's Occupation News Tonight. A quality media product of Fox Broadcasting and Halliburton.")

Interesting. Iraq TV used to be on Telstar-5 (a satellite with a north-american footprint) until the shooting started, then it was "experiencing technical difficulties" (!). I assumed they had taken out their uplinks.

Iraqi TV (and a host of other Middle Eastern countries) is alive and well on Telstar 5. They were down for about 2 days, then came back up. It's funny, I had pegged Abu Dhabi TV as the channel with the most interesting video from Baghdad. Imagine my surprise when, after CNN was thrown out of the country, CNN began showing video from Abu Dhabi TV.

The Iraqis still have the Buddy Hackett-looking guy singing ballads about (presumably, my Arabic was never very good) military victory, with a set of pained-looking troops trying to keep up as the backup dancers.

For anyone who is really interested in watching other news sources, MPEG-2 Free-To-Air (FTA) Ku-band satellite channels are the way to go. You can get by in many areas of the U.S. and much of Europe with a 76cm dish (anything under a meter gets FCC pre-emption from restrictions), and a fairly inexpensive receiver, or PCI card for a computer.

While I was changing my proxy server Fox News reported that Iraqi TV had been put off the air. Therefore, I received nothing. Regardless, the article taught me a few things about anonymous proxy servers opening up new web surfing possibilities.

Wow, I'll have to go back and look! I agree about Abu Dhabi -- they've gotten significantly more professional looking recently, as has Al Manar (too bad they are the worst kind of propaganda station). I was cycling between Al Jazeera, Al Manar, and Abu Dhabi TV, and if you turned on CNN, it looked like nothing had changed!

By far the funniest war coverage has to be CCTV (China Central Televison). They were repeatedly cycling thru what had to be clips from "Wings" from the Discovery Channel!

Edited by author 03-25-2003 11:00 PM
When I read "Oops. We just blew it up my first thought was "There goes the SlashBoing effect again".

No. It literally was blown up. Much more serious than the SlashBoing effect.

"Iraqi TV (and a host of other Middle Eastern countries) is alive and well on Telstar 5."

Maybe, but various news outlets are reporting that the U.S. has destroyed the main broadcasting facility in Baghdad.

Something strange is going on here. Neither of the stories linked to mention an E-bomb ... have they been changed? Did this rumour propagate and get disproven or are the blogs merely ahead of the news-wires?

Edited by author 03-26-2003 12:05 AM
It appears that the CBS News story has been altered. Here's how the copy read earlier tonight -- now, all references to e-Bomb have been removed. Link

U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
March 25, 2003


The U.S. Air Force has hit Iraqi TV with an experimental electronmagetic pulse device called the "E-Bomb" in an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine, CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports.

The highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough to fry computers, blind radar, silence radios, trigger crippling power outages and disable the electronic ignitions in vehicles and aircraft.

Iraqi satellite TV, which broadcasts 24 hours a day outside Iraq, went off the air around 4:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET Tuesday). Iraq's domestic television service was not broadcasting at the time.

Officially, the Pentagon does not acknowledge the weapon's existence. Asked about it at a March 5 news conference at the Pentagon, Gen. Tommy Franks said: “I can't talk to you about that because I don't know anything about it.”

The use of the secret weapon came on a day that saw intense action on the battlefield. The Pentagon said the U.S. Seventh Cavalry killed between 150 and 500 Iraqis after being attacked by rocket-propelled grenades near An Najaf in central Iraq. There are no reported American casualties.

I have nothing to do with BoingBoing, in fact I tend to criticize the site, but let me confirm that I too independently saw the E-Bomb story on the AP newswire. This is not a rumor, they reported an E-Bomb that was described as an electromagnetic pulse weapon designed to disable Iraq tv. The fact that this story was pulled, and now everyone is shutting up isn't proof of a mistake in reporting, it is proof that the U.S. mainstream media is by and large government controlled. I laugh when people here thank god they don't live in russia where the media is controlled by Putin. People, wake up, the only real news is coming from overseas media and various blogs. We need blogs now more than ever.

What a load of crap. This liberal claptrap is beginning to make some of you artistes limp in the head! The weapon used was a Tomahawk. If you had a clue, you'd check the news coverage - yes, even Al Jazeera, favorite among the anti-USA types so prevalent here - and see the physical DAMAGE to the building, which is NOT from an E-weapon, or UFOs, or astrologers, numerologists, oxygen bar attendees, Nostradamus followers, Feng Shui converts. It's a run of the mill anti-Berkeley-superiority-complex-coffeehouse-faux-intelligentia style 'BOMB'! Just like your Dad used to use! (For those of you who actually know who your dads were, in your test-tube partial-birth-abortion, clone happy alter-existence!)

That E-Bomb piece is interesting: either they are using a EMP-Device that can be fired off a plane, but the term "Bomb" suggests the US are using atomic bombs that are detonated above the atmosphere. Like they did during the last war. The time iraqui tv has gone offline makes that scenario even more likely. *shudder*

The Iraqi TV feed is back up on Telstar 5 as of 1000 Eastern 2003-03-26. One satellite board I read said it came up around 0245 this morning.

When I go to the satellite feed now all I get is images of dismembered newscasters. Their hair, however, is undisturbed.

Craniac, that was funny!
I can't believe people here would cheer on the bombing of iraqi tv because now iraqi citizens won't be fed propaganda. what a load of BS. we're being fed propaganda everyday on US tv. i'm just as frighetened of our present administration and it's need to control the world as i am of any middle eastern country. wake up US! the New World Order is happening and it's controlled by US ultra conservative anti-environment anti-human rights oil royalty. beware of US labor camps coming to your town soon! phil Dick said it long ago.

sigh. so much fuss about the obvious. almost all news reporters are technically illiterate not to mention a near total lack of military knowledge, no wonder they rarely get it right.