Kaloogian may be out but we cannot keep him down it seems. You may remember the saga of his web site posting a photograph of a peaceful corner of old Baghdad in a suburb near the airport…..in Istanbul. This was supposedly taken on his “truth tour” of Iraq.
Update [2006-4-16 17:43:51 by Londonbear]: On Sunday a bomb injured 31 people in the area of Istanbul Kaloogian pretended was a “safe” area of Baghdad. The first replacement showed a police station that was also bombed after Kaloogian posted it.
That was fairly rapidly replaced by a photograph that I showed was taken from an upper floor of a hotel used by minor-VIPs in the Green Zone. (Those not important enough to stay at the Palace but too embarassing to have go missing if they stayed outside the Zone). Now for some reason the hopeful Congressman (hope springs eternal but it seems election will have to wait some time), chose to replace the second picture with yet another one. This time no allusions to peaceful streets, this one is just marked Downtown Baghdad A photograph taken by our delegation as we traveled through Baghdad.
Thanks to AA at the orange one for pointing out the change.
Oh, you want to know where this one was taken? You’ll have to wait till you go below the fold.
AA has kindly posted larger images than available here on a page of his but I have used Imageshack to save his bandwidth. His versions are here
OK, enough of the tease. This new picture appears to be taken from the same building as the one taken down. It may even be the exact same place but the photographer has turned through 60 degrees. First an overview, I have spun the GoogleEarth images so the camera is pointing up the picture.
This is the distant shot – the Rashid Hotel is at the bottom.
Now to zoom in to the three elements of the picture that prove the location. The first is the building with the triple roof in the left foreground. There are two blue roof structures, probably covered parking bays, that are visible in the satellite picture. Tne one on the opposite side of the road can be seen in the bottom left corner of the not soon to be congressman’s picture. Note also the top of the building on the right with the (elevator/stair?) structures on top. This corresponds to the top of the block on the right of this picture:
So if we have the two buildings that frame the picture, what about the apartment blocks you can see? You want ’em, you got ’em:
The observant among you may note that the apartments have sets of rooms projecting out from the main body of the building with two “columns” facing the main road and three facing the side road.
Now for the coup de grace that proves the location. Projecting up from the left hand group of aparments there is a strange building that looks like a very high arch. Carrying on using the direction I established you find this Google Earth detail.
Pointing directly act the pink (overpass?) road is the shadow of that very building and you can see the square form it has as a ground plan. The alighnment is not quite exact but you can tie up the corner with the one pointing at the hotel-level camera.
Now a further mystery that AA aludes to in his response. There are a couple of other pictures posted on the deadbeat’s site. One is this which looks suspiciously photoshopped. It’s titled
“Howard Kaloogian in Iraq
Howard Kaloogian in Iraq on the “Voices of Soldiers” tour.”
The other is marked:
“Our delegation stops for lunch at a Subway in Iraq
It was nice finding a little piece of home in Iraq. Here we are outside of a Subway sandwich shop.”
Now having “travelled” up and down both riverbanks in Baghdad, I cannot find a similar jetty and building construction. I am investigating this further.
As far as the Subway goes, I presume this must be withing a secure area as the soldiers inside are collecting their sandwiches with their rifles slung over their shoulders.
Any suggestions for these two?
