The front-page WaPo piece that included startling revelations about opposition-research on lawmakers being distributed in Iraq, also included a couple of other gems worth considering. This one, for example, would be funny if it weren’t so ridiculous:
But even such tight control could not always filter out the bizarre world inside the [Green Zone] barricades. At one point, [three visiting members of Congress] were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children’s cartoons.
When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, “But this is my favorite television show,” Moran recalled.
[Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.)] confirmed the incident, although he tried to paint the scene in the best light, noting that at least they had electricity.
“I don’t disagree it was an odd moment, but I did take a deep breath and say, ‘Wait a minute, at least they are using the latest technology, and they are monitoring the world,’ ” Porter said. “But, yes, it was pretty annoying.”
Porter’s spin isn’t exactly reassuring. Sure, I’m delighted that Iraq’s national security adviser has a nice television, but in the midst of a briefing with members of Congress he’s watching cartoons. That’s not “monitoring the world,” that’s Homer Simpson-esque.
In other words, during an official meeting with U.S. lawmakers, the man responsible for coordinating Iraqi intelligence would rather watch a cartoon than discuss national security policy. The Republican lawmaker in the room doesn’t see anything wrong with that.
There was also this description of what the lawmakers were exposed to and able to learn during the trip to Iraq.
Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.
Tauscher called it “the Green Zone fog.”
“Spin City,” Moran grumbled. “The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated.”
This is a sophisticated public-relations scam. Anyone falling for it is a fool.