This is part of the account from Reuters:

"A tank was receiving small arms fire and RPG fire from the hotel and engaged the target with one tank round," General Buford Blount, commander of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad, told Reuters on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Central Command, the U.S. war headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar, said forces received "significant enemy fire" from the hotel and returned fire in self-defense.

Reporters at the scene disputed this account.

"I never heard a single shot coming from any of the area around here, certainly not from the hotel," British Sky television's correspondent David Chater said.

"In all the three weeks I have worked from this hotel I have not heard a single shot fired from here and I have not seen a single armed person enter the hotel," Swiss television correspondent Ulrich Tilgner said in a report from the hotel.

Spain said it had asked for an explanation of the incident and had been told by U.S. commanders that they had warned journalists 48 hours beforehand that Iraqi military commanders were using the building for meetings. Correspondents at the hotel said they were unaware of any such warning.

Central Command spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said U.S. forces had been fired on from the hotel lobby but, when asked why the tank hit a floor so high up, added: "I may have misspoken on exactly where the fire came from."

Doug, I realize that the journalists who said they never heard a single shot fired from the hotel (let alone "small arms fire and RPG fire") were probably lying, and that Reuters is proably biased because it was one of their reporters who was killed, and the military people always tell the truth, unless they misspeak, of course...but the whole thing doesn't make me very proud to be an American. Just like this whole stinking war. And I'm not so sure the Iraqis feel very good about it, either. Especially the dead ones.

Oh, well, what's the use? My country, right or wrong, right?

Aloha,
Mark