More than two dozen federal lawmakers have taken advantage of the August recess to travel to Iraq, hoping to see for themselves what conditions are like on the ground. But before they arrive, military officials are apparently letting the troops know in advance whether the lawmakers support the administration’s policy or not.
Jonathan Weisman explained today, “[T]he trips have been as much about Iraqi and U.S. officials sizing up Congress as the members of Congress sizing up the war.
The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.
In the soldier’s hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen’s meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. “Moran on Iraq policy,” read one section, going on to cite some the congressman’s most incendiary statements, such as, “This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history.”
The bio of Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) — “TAU (rhymes with ‘now’)-sher,” the bio helpfully relates — was no less pointed, even if she once supported the war and has taken heat from liberal Bay Area constituents who remain wary of her position. “Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq, with no end in sight,” the bio quotes.
“This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone,” Tauscher said of her bio.
I’ve heard about “You’re either with us or you’re against us,” but this is ridiculous.
Now, I can understand distributing some biographical information about lawmakers to troops. If you’re from Tauscher’s district, for example, you might want to know that your representative is going to be there. But what possible use is there for U.S. troops to be informed in advance whether a member of Congress visiting Iraq supports the Bush war policy or not? Why does the military find it necessary to divide lawmakers based on their position on troop withdrawal?
And perhaps more importantly, why is the military distributing these bios with wrong information?
For one, the quotations appeared to be selected to divide the visitors into those who are with the war effort and those who are against. For another, they were not exactly accurate. Under “latest Iraq vote,” Tauscher’s bio noted that she had voted in favor of legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill’s enactment.
She did vote that way — in May. On Aug. 2, Tauscher voted in favor of her own bill, which mandates that troops be granted a leave from combat at least as long as their last combat deployment before being shipped back to Iraq. That vote might have been a little too popular with the soldiers she was meeting, Tauscher said.
The point, of course, seems focused on cherry-picking the votes that would make Tauscher look like she disapproves of the mission.
Now, I should note that there may be a twist to all of this — there are plenty of troops in Iraq who condemn Bush’s policy and would be more likely to have a favorable impression of a lawmaker who voted against the administration’s position. I can imagine a scenario in which these bios were quietly distributed from the opposite perspective of what everyone is assuming today — maybe Tauscher isn’t being “slimed,” but rather, lauded.
But it doesn’t seem that way. It looks like supporters of the administration’s policy want to divide U.S. officials into “friendlies” and “hostiles” — based on whether someone endorses Bush’s failures or not.
So, here are a few questions:
* Who’s writing up these bio sheets? As of now, the source is unclear.
* Who’s distributing them? And under whose authority? (U.S. Central Command reportedly doesn’t want to talk about it.)
* And where’s the information within the bios coming from? ThinkProgress posted a couple of examples of the distributed sheets, which include noteworthy quotes from each member on their war-related opinions. I suspect the typical soldier probably doesn’t have access to Nexis, and probably doesn’t have the free time necessary to compile detailed quote histories on two dozen members of Congress, in addition to keeping up on specific roll-call votes. That suggests to me that, perhaps, an officer higher up in the food chain is putting this information together, which would be a fairly dramatic breach of protocol.
It’s an interesting little controversy. Let’s see where it goes.