I just saw Iraqi foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Asked about the "senior Iraqi Foreign Ministry official" assassinated outside his home on Saturday, he dismissed the importance of the killing, saying (paraphrase) "he was just an employee." (That is a very close paraphrase, maybe even the exact words.)
That of course contradicts the many news stories about the incident.
I also have a link to a CNN poll going on right now with the question, "Should President Bush have been notified earlier of the wayward plane?"
Not groundbreaking news, this, but worth highlighting before it disappears forever. Zebari
is a "top Iraqi official", and he is either lying to downplay the killing, which, for one thing, would be some insult to his family, or every news story about the shooting was wrong.
Some of the stories about the assassination:
Gunmen kill top Iraqi
By The Associated Press
BAGHDAD - Gunmen assassinated a top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official last night in a drive-by shooting while he stood outside his Baghdad home, police said. Jassim Mohammed Ghani, the ministry's director-general, was killed at about 9 P.M. in western Baghdad's al-Kharijiyah district.
AP story in Israel
Top Iraqi Bureaucrat Assassinated
Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News
BAGHDAD, 15 May 2005 -- Gunmen assassinated a top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official yesterday in a drive-by shooting in the capital as the US military pronounced its weeklong offensive near the Syrian border over.
Jassim Mohammed Ghani, the ministry's director-general, was killed at about 9 p.m. in western Baghdad's Al-Kharijiyah district, Capt. Talib Thamer said. Three bystanders were also wounded in the attack.
Arab News
The coffin of Jassim Mohammed Ghani, a
Director General of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry who was slain in a drive-by shooting outside his Baghdad house Saturday night, is taken from the Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, May 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)
ABC News photo caption today
So was he a "Director-General," a "top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official," or was he just "an employee." And does it matter?
Here's the link to the CNN poll. It was at 73% "yes" when I was there.
