Reporters on Rice's Iraq Trip Had Government Minders

[Rose Siding]

In Baghdad, Capital Vistas Gradually Shrink With Insecurity
Friday, November 25, 2005; C01
.....
The road between the airport and the Green Zone was officially considered safer, but we still flew in armed Black Hawks moving in diversionary patterns through the sky.

On this latest trip to Baghdad, the bubble shrank even more. No roaming the Green Zone. Not even a stop at the convention center. The press corps, including veteran war correspondents, was sequestered in Hussein's old palace for most of the seven-hour stay. We were discouraged from wandering the palace and were provided escorts to go to the bathroom.

Our one venture out was a short hop to the nearby prime minister's office, also in the Green Zone. All we saw were new barricades trimmed with razor wire, concrete blast walls, roadblocks and time-consuming identity checks. No Iraqis. No vendors. In October 2004, the bazaar had been attacked, one of two almost simultaneous suicide bombings inside the Green Zone that together killed 10, including four Americans.
.....
For the first time, we pulled out after dark. As we flew from the Green Zone, the Black Hawk gunners wore night vision scopes, which look like little binoculars on eyeglasses, so they could spot suspicious activity through the night. The pilot of the C-17 military transport that flew us out of Iraq did not turn on the interior lights until we had reached a safe altitude -- and were well out of Baghdad airspace.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112401051_pf.html

Security issues notwithstanding, to the bathroom? Is that for safety or control of the story?

[SpiralHawk]

1. Corporate media on bended knee. As usual.

"We have assumed the position." - corporate media

[IChing]

2. She controled the bathrooms breaks at the UN

It's a wonder that they were able to report on their freedom of investigative journalism
If they wandered out they might be shot or bombed
so it was for their own protection

[DS1]

3. Can't have any unnannounced Code Browns in the Green Zone

ya know :D

[...of J.Temperance]

4. Mediawhores Government minders = Pimps

Because EVERY whore needs a Pimp, afterall.

[msongs]

7. whores don't need pimps. prostitutes need pimps nt

[...of J.Temperance]

8. Prostitutes ARE whores

What IS it today, with people getting on my case and going after me?

What did I do? Eh?

If prostitutes AREN'T whores to you, what the heck ARE prostitutes to you then...Choirgirls? Nuns?

[Divernan]

5. And now we'll hear those 4 Senators who visited Iraq tell us how great

and improved the situation is in Baghdad?!?!?! At one time I could have believed that by throwing on all kinds of extra security, and setting up special photo ops (like bush did after Katrina)the Bushbots could fool short time visitors. Under the conditions described above, any Congressman who visits Iraq and then reports how the situation is improving, is flat out lying.

[Rose Siding]

9. Soon we'll have just such a report from Jean Schmidt

She's been invited (guess what kind of govt would make such a move after her recent notoriety)

If we threw our backs into it, we could probably write a passable facsimile right now of the kind of report we'll hear from her.

[Lexingtonian]

6. That's a fun article....

Imagine what the reporter thinks the trend lines are for a visit a year from now- Westerners being smuggled into Baghdad hidden in oil drums....

[dkofos]

10. Wouldn't want the truth getting out, now would we.

And all the good SHEEPLE went shopping at walmart.

The End

[daleo]

11. A revealing story

Shows how badly things have deteriorated since the invasion. The paranoia in the Green Zone is now ubiquitous, it seems. The anti-occupation forces must have eyes and ears everywhere.

[me b zola]

12. Controlling the message

Today NBC & MSNBC featured throughout the day a couple of soldiers in Iraq who were spitting out that familar rw talking point that the media never talks about all of the good things happening in Iraq :crazy: The WH is in overdrive to control which soldiers get to speak to the press.