I like to highlight dishonesty in the media on this website and today I saw something on the frontpage of Yahoo that was a flat out lie.  Here is what the first news headline on Yahoo’s frontpage said today: "Bush Halts Iraq Troop Pullout Amid Spike in Baghdad Violence".  I’m reading this headline and thinking, did Bush stop the surge brigades from returning home this summer?  I would be very surprised if he did so I immediately clicked on the link and the of the article when I clicked the link was "Bush Suspends Summer Troop Pullouts from Iraq". 

I’m thinking now he must have really suspended the return of the surge brigades, then I read the first two paragraphs of the article and it appears to be saying the surge brigades have been suspended in Iraq as well because of the flare up with Sadr:

President George W. Bush on Thursday announced a suspension of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer to allow the military to reassess the security situation.

The announcement came amid a spike in violence in Iraq in recent weeks. Iraqi police said on Thursday that U.S. air strikes killed 10 people in the eastern Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, where street fighting had eased after four days of clashes that have killed close to 90 people. [Noah Barkin - Reuters]

Then finally on the third paragraph the truth of what really happened is revealed:

Bush endorsed a recommendation by his commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to complete a limited withdrawal of combat troops by July but then impose a 45-day freeze of the total at about 140,000 troops before considering more possible cuts.

This Reuters reporter is spinning an entire article about US troop withdrawals being delayed when in fact the troop withdrawal of the surge brigades is going to be completed as scheduled.  No other US units in Iraq were scheduled to redeploy other then the surge brigades.  So how does Yahoo make a headline of "Bush Halts Iraq Troop Pullout Amid Spike in Baghdad Violence" and Reuters a headline of  "Bush Suspends Summer Troop Pullouts from Iraq" when no such thing is actually happening.  Bush is actually continuing the planned summer troop withdrawals and has endorsed the plan to reduce combat tours from 15 to 12 months. 

Once again this is why I have little respect for what I read in the media.  There is no news in this article, but the reporter Noah Barkin has attempted to create news by inventing this narrative of Bush delaying US soldiers from going home which as I have shown isn’t true.  The headline of this article should have been, "Bush Continues Summer Troop Withdrawals from Iraq".  Why didn’t Noah Barkin write this headline?  Could it be because then it wouldn’t be on the frontpage of Yahoo?