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A Contrary View
Rich Galen Wednesday November 16, 2005
The Annual Mullings Subscription Drive is finally over. The totals nearly tripled last year's drive which means you have allowed me to continue bringing you a clear-eyed view of the world for another year.
Thank you, each and every reader - whether you paid or not. You are an important part of the process.
Yesterday the United States Senate adopted an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill which requires the President to report, on a quarterly basis, progress being made in Iraq.
This amendment which was introduced by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner (R-VA) was in response to a Democratic amendment which would have required a hard time-table for troop withdrawals.
Frist, according to a Bloomberg report, said that a was a "cut-and-run strategy" which would play "right into the hands" of terrorists who would wait to attack until after U.S. forces departed.
While the Popular Press is using the amendment as an example of Republican and Democratic Senatorial dissatisfaction with the President's Iraq policy - the amendment was adopted by a bipartisan vote of 79-19 - I, on the other hand, think it is an excellent idea.
Long-time readers may remember that I spent some time in Iraq from November 2003 to May 2004. My job (which I did with exceeding lack of effect) was to bring the non-combat news back to the United States.
The idea was to let folks in, say, Buffalo or Tulsa know when we had done things like opened a new school in someplace like Tikrit.
Problem was, no one in Upstate New York or Oklahoma cared much about a school in Tikrit. I'm not so sure the people in Tikrit cared all that much.
After about three weeks I realized that it wasn't what our civilian and military folks were doing in Iraq that Americans would care about; what mattered was where in the United States they were from. People IN Buffalo or Tulsa would care about that school if folks FROM Buffalo or Tulsa had been involved with it.
That became our operating theory: We taped interviews with Americans doing all sorts of things in Iraq and sent those interviews back to their home-town markets. About 500 of them, as I remember.
When I say "we taped interviews" I mean, of course, that a combat camera team from the US Air Force, a Broadcast Operations Detachment from the US Army, DoD civilian volunteer Tom Basile and a wonderful retired Master Sergeant from Missouri did the work.
I mostly sat around and ate Double Stuff Oreo cookies.
But all of their terrific product was overwhelmed by the daily reports of bombs going off outside hotels where Western press was housed; homicide bombers blowing themselves up at police stations; and the murder of dozens of Muslims who had gathered to pray on holy days.
I have no problem with those reports. They were, unfortunately, true. Also unfortunately, they were not complete.
Thus, if the US Senate DEMANDS that the President reports on:
the factories, the water, sewer and electricity plants which continue to come on line;
the Iraqi police, military, and intelligence forces who are being trained to take over more and more of Iraq's security;
the millions of Iraqis who go shopping and to work every day;
the children and young adults - including girls and women - who are going to schools, colleges and universities;
the candidates running for election to the Iraqi Parliament next month �
If the Senate DEMANDS those reports and the President provides them, maybe we'll get a somewhat clearer view of the real progress being made in Iraq.
When Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld was asked about that amendment, according to the New York Times, he said, that:
the "Department of Defense and the Department of State send literally dozens of Iraqi-related reports to Congress each year already" and that the Pentagon alone sends Congress "I don't know, it's something over 900 reports total every year" on an array of subjects.
The piece by Carl Hulse quoted Rumsfeld saying, "I hope someone reads them."
I hope the Senate reads them. Out loud.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Bloomberg story, an oxymoronic Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption photo of a prisoner receiving "degrading treatment."
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
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