The Progress Myth in Iraq
by Molly Ivins

It was such a relief to me to learn we are making ³very, very good
progress² in Iraq. As the third anniversary of our invasion approaches,
I could not have been more thrilled by the news reported by Gen. Peter
Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on a Sunday chat show. Vice
President ***** Cheney¹s take was equally reassuring: Things are
³improving steadily² in Iraq.

I was thrilled‹very, very good progress and steady improvement, isn¹t
that grand? Wake me if anything starts to go wrong. Like someone bombing
the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra and touching off a lot of sectarian
violence.

I was also relieved to learn‹via Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, so
noted for his consistently accurate assessment of this war‹that the
whole picture is hunky-dory to tickety-boo. Since the bombing of the
mosque, lots of alarmists have reported that Iraq is devolving or might
be collapsing into civil war. They¹re sort of jumping over the civil war
line and back again‹yep, it¹s started; nope, it hasn¹t‹like a bunch of
false starts at the beginning of a football play.

I¹m sure glad to get the straight skinny from Ol¹ Rumsfeld, who has been
in Iraq many times himself for the typical in-country experience. Like
many foreign correspondents, Rumsfeld roams the streets alone, talking
to any chance-met Iraqi in his fluent Arabic, so of course he knows best.

³From what I¹ve seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and
abroad has exaggerated the situation,² Rumsfeld said. ³We do know, of
course, that al-Qaida has media committees. We do know they teach people
exactly how to try to manipulate the media. They do this regularly. We
see the intelligence that reports on their meetings. Now I can¹t take a
string and tie it to a news report and then trace it back to an al-Qaida
media committee meeting. I am not able to do that at all.²

No horsepoop? Then can I ask a question: If you¹re able to monitor these
media committee meetings, how come you can¹t find Osama bin Ladin?

But, Brother Rumsfeld warns us, ³We do know that their goal is to try to
break the will; that they consider the center of gravity of this‹not to
be in Iraq, because they know they can¹t win a battle out there; they
consider it to be in Washington, D.C., and in London and in the capitals
of the Western world.²

I¹m sorry, I know we are not allowed to use the V-word in relation to
Iraq, because so many brilliant neo-cons have assured us this war is
nothing like Vietnam (Vietnam, lotsa jungle; Iraq lotsa sand‹big
differences). But you must admit that press conferences with Donny Rum
are wonderfully reminiscent of the Five O¹Clock Follies, those wacky but
endearing daily press briefings on Southeast Asia by military officers
who made Baghdad Bob sound like a pessimist.

Rumsfeld¹s performance was so reminiscent of all the times the military
in Vietnam blamed the media for reporting ³bad news¹² when there was
nothing else to report. A briefing officer once memorably asked the
press, ³Who¹s side are you on?² The answer is what it¹s always been: We
root for America, but our job is to report as accurately as we can what
the situation is.

You could rely on other sources. For example, the Pentagon is still
investigating itself to find out why it is paying American soldiers to
make up good news about the war, which it then passes on to a Republican
public relations firm, which in turn pays people in the Iraqi media to
print the stuff‹thus fooling the Iraqis or somebody. When last heard
from, the general in charge of investigating this federally funded
Baghdad Bobism said he hadn¹t found anything about it to be illegal yet,
so it apparently continues.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told the Los Angeles Times Iraq
is ³really vulnerable² to civil war if there is another attack like the
al-Askari bombing. By invading, said Khalilzad, the United States has
³opened the Pandora¹s box² of sectarian strife in Iraq.

Could I suggest something kind of grown-up? Despite Rumsfeld¹s
rationalizing, we are in a deep pile of poop here, and we¹re best likely
to come out of it OK by pulling together. So could we stop this cheap
old McCarthyite trick of pretending that correspondents who are in fact
risking their lives and doing their best to bring the rest of us
accurate information are somehow disloyal or connected to al-Qaida?

Wrong, yes, of course they could be wrong. But there is now a three-year
record of who has been right about what is happening in Iraq, Rumsfeld
or the media. And the score is: Press‹1,095, Rumsfeld‹zero.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0309-31.htm