Reporter Claims to Have Found Sniper Who Shot Journalist

Foreign correspondent Phillip Robertson claims to have tracked down the U.S. sniper who killed Knight Ridder correspondent Yasser Salihee. In dissecting the article, I noticed the following sequence: 1) Praise journalists; 2) Throw in some Anti-Americanism / how U.S. soldiers screwed up; 3) Later in the article share the fact that soldiers actually followed proper protocol; and finally 4) Throw in his own interpretation, which throws uncertainty onto proper U.S. soldiers' actions.

First, journalist Greg Mitchell starts out by praising the reporter, Robertson by claiming, "one of the most remarkable stories of the war..." and "Amazingly..." Second, he goes on to say that Salihee was "wrongly suspected" by American soldiers of being a suicide bomber before he gets to all the reported facts. Third, the article states that what the U.S. soldiers did were exactly what they were supposed to do in light of potential terrorist attacks. And finally, Mitchell quotes Robertson's own personal view:

"Before I left Joe at his company headquarters at Camp Victory, he said he wanted to tell the Salihee family he was sorry and that he'd never had to fire to stop a car before the 24th of June. 'If I'd seen his hands up, no way would I have fired a shot. We didn't murder him. No way was it murder,' Joe said. But there was desperation in his voice, as if he wasn't sure."