In March 2004, a photo circulated online showing an American soldier posing with two Iraqi boys. One of the boys was holding a sign that read, "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, then he knocked up my sister!" The Council on American-Islamic Relations saw the picture and complained to the Pentagon about it. The photo also received coverage in publications such as Islam Online. But it turned out that there were multiple versions of the photo in circulation. In another version the sign read "Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad then he rescued my sister," and in yet another version the sign read "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, then all your Base are Belong to us." Obviously the sign was being digitally manipulated, but which was the real version? Eventually the Marine Corps opened an investigation to answer this question. The results of this investigation were not publicly released. Lance Corporal Boudreaux himself insisted that the sign originally read 'Welcome Marines'.

On May 1, 2004 the British Daily Mirror published pictures of Iraqi prisoners allegedly being tortured by British soldiers. The photos generated immediate controversy, as critics pointed out many features of them that seemed suspicious. First of all, they looked posed. The 'prisoners' did not appear to be injured or even sweating. And the British soldiers were wearing incorrect uniforms and driving vehicles not deployed in Iraq. Two weeks later the Daily Mirror admitted it had been duped and fired its editor, Piers Morgan.

In January 2008 five Iranian speedboats approached three U.S. Warships in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. warships attempted to contact the Iranians: "This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. I maintain no harm. Over!" A radio operator on one of the U.S. warships then heard a voice reply, "I am coming to you... You will explode in... minutes." At first the U.S. warships believed this message to be coming from the Iranian speedboats. However, it has since been argued that the mysterious threatening message probably came from a "Filipino Monkey" prankster. More→