No one cheered on the U.S. invasion of Iraq louder than Fox News, but the conservative cable channel's reporters also put American troops in danger with their irresponsible journalism—at least according to a new book by former Marine.

"Although I'm sure other networks weren't blameless, Fox News, ironically, earned the worst reputation for their carelessness with Department of Defense ground rules for embedded media—and possible Coalition lives," writes Josh Rushing, a Central Command spokesman-turned-Al Jazeera correspondent, in his new book, Mission Al Jazeera.

Most famously, Geraldo Rivera almost got kicked out of Iraq after he drew a map in the sand on live TV showing the locations of American units. At least as bad, but less publicized, was when a Fox reporter showed where the weak spot was on an Abrams tank: "So if you were a Fedayeen soldier and didn't know that much about the Abrams tank you might say, 'Oh, I should save my RPG shot until I can get around to the side.' Thanks, Fox News!"

More of Rushing's revelations after the jump ...

• Vanity Fair writer Michael Wolff's smart mouth almost earned him a thrashing. After asking some sarcastic questions about the purpose of the press conferences, the snarky scribe was pulled out of the building by strategic communications director Jim Wilkinson, who "threatened to punch Wolff in the mouth," and yelled at him, "A lot of people don't like you. Don't fuck with things you don't understand. This is fucking war, asshole. No more questions for you."

• Rushing had no such problems with Fox personnel; in fact, one of the network's reporters was such a sycophant that he "would ask before a live interview what questions I wanted him to ask."

• General Tommy Franks was outright hostile to reporters from Al Jazeera. When Rushing asked him to call on the Qatar-based network's reporter Omar Al Issawi first during a press conference, the general replied, "Sure, right after I rip off his head and shit down his throat!"

• Right-wing pundits appear on Al Jazeera only because they're paid to
do it. When Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute showed up for an interview, she told Rushing, "You're paying me. There is no way I would set foot here if you weren't." Blogger Debbie Schlussel is another pundit for hire. "So both Schlussel and Pletka believe Al Jazeera is a terrorist organization that should be treated as an enemy of the United States; they would never lower their good names by appearing on such a dangerous network, unless of course they were paid $300."

• Rushing has praise for only two reporters who covered the war. "Of all the American journalists at CentCom working for U.S. media companies for the most part, only [CNN's Tom] Mintier and [AP's Nicole] Winfield asked the hard-hitting questions and a took a different tack."