The military last week found some outtakes from a propaganda video released awhile ago by the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Musab Al Zarqawi. In the outtakes. In a press conference, Zarqawi was seen on video firing an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). This is a light machine gun. The gun weighs about 15 pounds and a 200-round magazine adds another 7 pounds to that weight. (Heavy machine guns typically weigh -- with tripod and ammunition -- north of 100 pounds and require two men.)

I saw the video and was amused by both Zarqawi's ineptitude and that of his followers. If you recall, not only did Zarqawi have a problem getting the gun to fire fully automatic, but one of his minions had to clear the weapon for him. One thing not mentioned in the press conference was the fact that Zarqawi was swinging the barrel of the weapon around at his own men. And then you had one of his idiot followers grabbing the gun by its hot barrel.

Well, this show of ineptitude by a terrorist prompted some ineptitude on the part of the press. First, CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre demonstrated how ignorant he is of basic military matters. (via Confederate Yankee)

McIntyre: "This weapon is an American weapon. It's called a SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon, a very heavy machine gun which has a very heavy trigger; it's not easy to fire, and in fact it might be quite understandable that anyone--even somebody with weapon's experience, wasn't familiar with this particular weapon might have trouble firing off more than a single shot at a time...

As the Confederate Yankee notes:

It is bad enough that a U.S. journalist is seemingly making excuses for an al Qaeda terrorist, but not only is McIntyre making excuses, he is making demonstrably false excuses.

The M249 is light machine gun, the lightest dedicated machine gun in the U.S. Military. It fires the lightweight 5.56 NATO round, a cartridge developed from the .223 Remington, a cartridge designed to kill woodchucks and other small game. Most states will not allow hunters to use such a lightweight cartridge for medium and large game because it is so underpowered.

Nor is the M249 plausibly a "heavy" machine gun as far as weight goes. The M249 in the configuration shown weighs approximately 15 lbs, with the 200-round box magazine adding another 7 lbs when full. By way of comparison, the M2 .50 Caliber Browning, a real heavy machine gun, weighs 84 lbs without its 44 lbs tripod and ammunition.

McIntyre also claims that Zarqawi was having problems because of the M249’s trigger. It would be interesting for Mr. McIntyre to reveal his source for his claim that the M249 "has a very heavy trigger." I have been unable to find so much as a single source that describes the standard trigger pull of the M249 as being "heavy." It is such a minor factor in the weapon’s operation that I cannot find it mentioned at all.

Even the fact that the M249 is a fully-automatic weapon doesn't keep McIntyre from trying to float the excuse that some who, "wasn't familiar with this particular weapon might have trouble firing off more than a single shot at a time." Even General Lynch notes at 2:06 that "it's supposed to be automatic fire, he's shooting single shots, one at a time...something's wrong with his machine gun."

After talking to several people familiar with the SAW, Confederate Yankee reports that the consensus was that Zarqawi hadn't cleaned the weapon and that's why it was misfiring.

Of course, The New York Times quickly followed with a piece claiming that we shouldn't be making fun of "Mr. Zarqawi."

While it's disgusting that the Times saw the need to act as a terrorist's public relations agent, what ticked many off was that the Gray Lady had to lie to do it.

The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.

This got veteran David Durant a little ticked.

Frankly, this is utter crap. In basic, we had about one hour's worth of instruction on the SAW. Even I, who had arguably the worst combat skills in our company, was able to load and fire it without any problem. In fact, I found the SAW quite easy to use. It's certainly simpler than the M240B.

So Zarqawi was only familiar with Soviet-made weapons? So what. I wasn't familiar with any weapons beyond an M-16 when I was taught to use the SAW.

If a short, geeky librarian willing his way through Basic Training could figure out how to use the SAW, surely a veteran jihadist like Zarqawi could be expected to do the same.

A commenter over at Little Green Footballs offers everyone a lesson in what Zarqawi doesn't know.

The ****wads at the NYT are full of ****. All you do is pull the charging handle, open the feed tray cover, place the first round in the belt in the feed tray, close the cover and pull the trigger. That's it. In Z's case somebody had already done the first steps. All he had to do is pull the damned trigger. That's it. I swear to God. That is what the Times thinks is so complicated. What do you do if you pull the trigger and it doesn't work? You pull the charging handle, open the feed tray cover, clear the feed tray and chamber, place the first round in the belt in the feed tray, close the cover and pull the trigger. There. Now you know more about the SAW than Z does.

The journalistic question raised here, however, is why would you write this apologetic article in the first place? Seriously. Why?