Veteran Baghdad Reporter Explodes Upbeat U.S. Assessments

[thepurpose]

NEW YORK Journalists in Iraq are often criticized for being too positive or too negative about the conflict there -- or for sticking to their home offices as violence escalates. Yet there is much evidence that often they are still able to obtain, and express, a more accurate assessment of conditions in the country than top military officers or visiting politicians.

Tom Lasseter of the McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder) bureau in Baghdad has long been the forefront of both daring and on-the-mark reporting from the war zone. In his latest dispatch, he observes, "As security conditions continue to deteriorate in Iraq, many Iraqi politicians are challenging the optimistic forecasts of governments in Baghdad and Washington, with some worrying that the rosy views are preventing the creation of effective strategies against the escalating violence.

"Their worst fear, one that some American soldiers share, is that top officials don't really understand what's happening. Those concerns seem to be supported by statistics that show Iraq's violence has increased steadily during the past three years."

Lasseter then quotes an unnamed intelligence office, who has written the reporter (apparently without the military's permission), "As an intelligence officer ... I have had the chance to move around Baghdad on mounted and dismounted patrols and see the city and violence from the ground. I think that the greatest problem that we deal (besides the insurgents and militia) with is that our leadership has no real comprehension of the ground truth. I wish that I could offer a solution, but I can't. When I have briefed General Officers, I have given them my perspective and assessment of the situation. Many have been surprised at what I have to say, but I suspect that in the end nothing will or has changed."

The reporter reveals that McClatchy is withholding the officer's name to protect him from possible retaliation by his superiors or political appointees in the Pentagon "for communicating with the news media without authorization."

But he does quote by name Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of parliament, who says, "The American policy has failed both in terms of politics and security, but the big problem is that they will not confess or admit that. They are telling the American public that the situation in Iraq will be improved, they want to encourage positive public opinion (in the U.S.), but the Iraqi citizens are seeing something different. They know the real situation."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002986575

[patrice]

1. Too many people protecting their careers.

I saw it in a major U.S. corporation, before they finally admitted they were pouring millions and millions down a rathole and laid us all off.

Hannah Arendt said it: Evil is quite banal.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Paragraph three pretty well sums it up. Don't tell Bush, though.

He wouldn't understand.