One Utah

This just in from CBS anchor Katie Couric, on assignment in the Baghdad for the first time, interviewed by Bob Schieffer this morning (emphasis added):

SCHIEFFER: Katie, what are your impressions after being there on the scene? We’ve all followed this for years from afar but once you’re there, anything surprise you in particular?

COURIC: Well, I was surprised, you know, after I went to eastern Baghdad, I was taken to the Allawi market, which is near Haifa [Street], which was the scene of that very bloody gun battle back in January. And, you know, this market seems to be thriving. And there were a lot of people out and about. A lot of family-owned businesses and vegetable stalls.

And so, you do see signs of life that seem to be normal. Of course, that’s what the U.S. military wants me to see, so you have to keep that in mind as well. But I think there are definitely areas where the situation is improving.

But everyone agrees, Bob, that if these people, the people of Iraq, do not get basic services like electricity, like running water, it will be impossible to win their hearts and minds and have them fully support the national unity government or anything that’s going on here.

Of course, Kouric failed to note that Haifa Street (which isn’t in eastern Baghdad, in fact it runs northwest from the main entrance to the Green Zone west of the Tigris River) has been cleared of insurgents three times since 2003 and they came back twice– why can’t they retake the area again?

As Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) told ThinkProgress:

I will tell you that when you get in the Green Zone, there is a physiological phenomenon I think called Green Zone fog. … It’s death by powerpoint. … It’s always that their argument is winning. …It’s very, very easy to be influenced, from their point of view, that things are better.

Kevin Drum points out that this is part of a concerted PR offensive run by General David Petraeus, aimed at manipulating politicians and the media into supporting the continued, open-ended occupation of Iraq.

For months the military transports to Baghdad have been stuffed with analysts and congress members, and every one of them has gotten a full court press of carefully planned and scripted presentations, tightly controlled visits to favored units, and assorted dollops of “classified” information designed to flatter his guests and substantiate his rosy assessments without the inconvenience of having to defend them in public.

And it’s worked. Even though there’s been no discernible political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he’s managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn’t matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality.

Does anyone remember Vietnam? In the Saigon briefing rooms, America was always winning the war. But this was before PowerPoint and nobody believed the daily brief, which reporters derisively dubbed “the Five O’Clock Follies.” Today, the military commanders and the government are lying more than ever– but few dare to contradict the official spokespersons.

UPDATE: By now, you’ve probably heard or seen President Bush giving a brief middle-of-the-night talk to the Marines at Al-Asad Air Base in a remote part of Anbar Province. “You’re doing work in the sands of Anbar that’s making us safer in the streets of America,” Bush said, attempting once again to link so-called “Al Qaeda in Iraq” to the 9/11 attacks. Shameless.

Ken Levine on HuffPo talked to several returning Iraq veterans at the Dallas-Forth Worth airport and got the real assessment:

I asked them what it was like over there. Answer: “bad!” And then I said, “When do you think you guys will all come home?” Almost in unison they said, “When a Democrat is elected.”

Related posts:
GAO Report: Failure in Iraq
AP Says Iraq Civilian Casualties Have Doubled
NIE Key Judgments on Iraq Stability
‘Petraeus Report’ Not Needed
Anthony Cordesman: ‘only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq’
O’Hanlon and Pollack: A War We Might Not Win

This entry was posted Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Disaster, Iraq, National Politics, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.