On the January 25 edition of Fox News' Special Report, during a report on a speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who pledged to take down all “lawbreakers,” Fox News military analyst and retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales Jr. uncritically touted military operations on Haifa Street in Baghdad as “evidence of the Iraqi army and the police on the march.” Scales stated that Iraqi troops and police “are beginning to move into places like Haifa Street ... trying to capture some of the high value targets,” which Fox News chief White House correspondent Bret Baier presented as evidence that the Maliki government is taking the necessary steps to establish security in Baghdad. Baier then reported that "[s]enior administration officials say Prime Minister Maliki is no longer just saying the right things, he's starting to do the right things." But neither Baier nor Scales indicated that they were basing their reports on eyewitness accounts of purported Iraqi troop and police movement, and neither mentioned that, in firsthand accounts of various battles for Haifa Street, The New York Times and CBS News reported that U.S. forces led the fighting, Iraqi forces performed poorly, and residents accused Iraqi forces on Haifa Street of “atrocities.”

In a January 25 article, the Times reported that, while Iraqi army units, in Scales' words, “move[d] into places like Haifa Street,” U.S. soldiers led in the fighting -- sometimes without the Iraqis:

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American soldiers and armored vehicles raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” shouted Sgt. First Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper's bullets. “Who's shooting at us? Do we know who they are?”

[...]

At one point the Americans were forced to jog alongside the Strykers on Haifa Street, sheltering themselves as best they could from the gunfire. The Americans finally found the Iraqis and ended up accompanying them into an extremely dangerous and exposed warren of low-slung hovels behind the high rises as gunfire rained down.

American officers tried to persuade the Iraqi soldiers to leave the slum area for better cover, but the Iraqis refused to risk crossing a lane that was being raked by machine-gun fire. “It's their show,” said Lt. David Stroud, adding that the Americans have orders to defer to the Iraqis in cases like this.

[...]

Ultimately the group made it back to the high rises and escaped the sniper in the alley by throwing out the smoke bombs and sprinting to safety. Even though two Iraqis were struck by gunfire, many of the rest could not stop shouting and guffawing with amusement as they ran through the smoke.

One Iraqi soldier in the alley pointed his rifle at an American reporter and pulled the trigger. There was only a click: the weapon had no ammunition. The soldier laughed at his joke.

As, the Media Channel website noted, in a January 17 online-only CBS News video, chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reported that Iraqi army forces, in earlier fighting along Haifa Street, not only appeared to be taking heavy casualties, but also, according to residents, “carrying out atrocities”:

LOGAN: This is day 12 of the battle between Iraqi forces and Sunni gunmen at war on Haifa Street in the center of Baghdad. It's only a mile and a half away from the heavily fortified Green Zone, yet no one, neither Iraqi nor U.S. forces, has been able to stop it.

“Shame on this government that they can't make one street safe,” said this man, who didn't want his face shown. He's one of several security guards at this government building on Haifa Street who are trying to help the Iraqi army.

This mostly Shiite army has already paid a heavy price in the fight, as these gruesome pictures obtained by CBS News show. A group of Iraqi soldiers appear to have been shot multiple times, some at close range to the head.

But the Iraqi army, in turn, is accused by residents on Haifa Street of carrying out atrocities. Other video, obtained by CBS News, shows the bodies of Sunni residents with obvious signs of torture.

Dr. Quarish al-Kasir, a resident who was rescued from his home on Haifa Street by U.S. troops last Saturday, told CBS News that he and his sons had witnessed uniformed Iraqi soldiers executing a group of unarmed men and shooting two women.

KASIR: Then I started to look again from the window -- oh, this is blood; blood coming from the head. My son, younger son, Kim, he started to turn yellow. I say, “OK, go, go, go, go, and sleep.”

LOGAN: Another Haifa Street resident, who wouldn't be identified for fear he'd be killed, blamed the fighting on the U.S.

“They told us they would bring democracy. They promised life would be better than it was under Saddam,” he said, “but they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad.”

LOGAN: Lara Logan, CBS News, Baghdad.

From the January 25 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

BAIER: But within hours of the [Maliki] speech, a car bomb tore apart a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing at least 26 Iraqis. And later, two rockets and several mortars hit near the U.S. embassy in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Five people were wounded, but none seriously, in what one official called the heaviest bombardment there in months.

Senior military officials believe some of the recent increased violence is a direct reaction to an increased crackdown in Baghdad by Iraqi and U.S. troops, even before the full contingent of additional U.S. troops arrives.

SCALES: We're already seeing evidence of the Iraqi army and the police on the march. They're beginning to move into places like Haifa Street and into some of the more contested areas in Sadr City, trying to capture some of the high value targets.

BAIER: Senior administration officials say Prime Minister Maliki is no longer just saying the right things, he's starting to do the right things.