Gag Order Leaves Troops, Reporters Speechless Mike Littwin Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday 25 November 2003

Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules.

No talking to the troops before the rally.

No talking to the troops during the rally.

No talking to the troops after the rally.

In other words, if I've done the math right, that means no conversation at all - at least, while on base - with any soldiers. After all, who knows where that kind of thing could lead?

Just as an example: It could lead to a discussion about why the president has time to get to so many fund-raisers and no time to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq.

There could have been debate, and we all know the risks in debate, as to whether it's really the families' privacy that is being guarded by the rule against photos of coffins as they arrive from Iraq. Or whether it's the president's standing - the latest Gallup Poll showed 54 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq - that is being guarded from what one general once called "the Dover test."

Or somebody might have wanted to reminisce about Cpl. Gary B. Coleman, 24, of Pikeville, Ky., giving flesh-and-blood detail to the chilling statistic that Coleman was the latest casualty from Fort Carson, a post that has now given up 31 lives to the war in Iraq. Coleman, who was on patrol when his car crashed into a canal, trapping him inside, left behind a wife he had married only weeks before shipping out.

I'd have been happy just to have asked whether any of the troops who cheered the president lustily - long "whoops" and "USA, USA" chants - thought that standing for 2 ½ hours in a hangar waiting for the president to arrive was the best use of their time. (OK, I have to admit I cheated and snuck in one brief interview in the parking lot. A soldier excitedly told me he shook hands with the president and that he thought - and I hope this isn't too controversial - it was "way cool.")

But even here, or maybe especially here, a soldier or two might have, in conversation, questioned the need for the war in Iraq. This is not exactly a welcome notion in the White House. The Bush campaign has put up an ad in Iowa saying that certain of his opponents are "attacking the president for attacking the terrorists," as if opposing the war in Iraq is the same as opposing the war on terror.

The cameras went instead to Bush, who gave his speech standing in front of a huge American flag (think George C. Scott in the opening scene of Patton) while dressed in an olive-green Army jacket bearing a Fort Carson 7th Infantry Division insignia.

There were no "mission accomplished" signs anywhere. There were, though, maybe 6,000 troops, mainly dressed in camouflage, some of them standing atop battle vehicles. It was the ideal setting for his speech.

The president praised the soldiers' sacrifice and thanked them for their help in bringing democracy to Iraq - if not necessarily to Fort Carson. He got the biggest cheer when he said democracy will come to Iraq "because the United States of America will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs."

But there is something that apparently makes the president nervous. Although the lack of access to the troops was explained as a logistics problem - too many media members needing escorts - it couldn't have been quite the problem, say, of embedding media in Iraq.

Immediately after the speech, the president went upstairs for what was an emotional meeting with around 100 family members of the fallen soldiers. The meeting was, of course, closed to the press, as it should have been. And, I guess, it could have been a logistics problem that prevented the media from meeting with the families after they talked to the president. It could have been a privacy concern.

Or it could have been an Elaine Johnson issue.

In his speech, Bush didn't mention Elaine Johnson, whose son Darius Jennings was one of four Fort Carson soldiers on the Chinook helicopter that was shot down Nov. 2.

When Johnson was at the Fort Carson chapel a week ago for her son's memorial service, she wondered aloud why the president had visited South Carolina in the week of her son's funeral but had not bothered to attend or to send any message to her or her family.

"Evidently my son wasn't important enough to him dead for him to visit the family or call the family," she said then. "As long as my son was alive he was important, because he sent him over there to fight a war."

There was no such headline this time. All anyone saw this time was Bush's speech in a visit that was as organized as any presidential campaign stop.

In fact, the last thing anyone heard as the president left the room was some in the audience chanting, "Four more years." And no one got to ask their names.

Bush's Iraq Visit a Pre-Election PR Stunt: Analysis By Agence France-Presse ABCNews Online

Saturday 29 November 2003

"Electoral raid on Baghdad" read the caustic headline in the left- wing Paris daily Liberation that summed up European newspaper editorial reaction to President George W Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops in Iraq.

The brief visit, arranged in top secrecy, occurred too late for most papers to give it full coverage, and almost all ran the same wire agency photo of Mr Bush, clad in a grey army bomber jacket, carrying a large tray of roast turkey, potatoes and grapes through a crowd of smiling soldiers.

Those which did comment were mostly sceptical of Mr Bush's motives, with the US presidential election now less than 12 months away.

"The turkey has landed," ran the front-page headline in the London Daily Independent.

"George Bush becomes the first US president to visit Iraq in order to provide the television pictures required by his re-election campaign," it said, noting that Hillary Rodham Clinton, "his undeclared Democratic opponent," was on her way to Baghdad from Afghanistan. Liberation noted that more than 430 US soldiers had been killed in Iraq, 184 of them since Mr Bush declared an official end to the war on May 1, and quoted a Gallup opinion poll this month showing that 54 per cent of Americans disapproved of the way the post-war situation was being handled.

"Bush knows that Iraq could become the Achilles heel of his campaign," it said.

The conservative London Times also did not run an editorial but its front-page report called the visit "one of the most audacious publicity coups in White House history".

Europe's leading business daily, the London-based Financial Times, used the visit to repeat its call for general elections in Iraq, rather than the US government's "top-down strategy built around favoured exiles and a timetable synchronised with President Bush's re-election campaign".

The daily Berliner Zeitung said the visit had two other aims.

"Bush wanted to raise the groggy morale of his troops and at the same time to show Iraqis his determination," it wrote.

In Madrid, the centre-right daily El Mundo said the visit was "a publicity stunt which will not solve the problem of Iraq."

The daily Vanguardia, published in Spain's second city Barcelona, said Mr Bush was trying to put a positive gloss on an increasingly difficult situation.

It noted that "George W Bush does not attend the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, but has dinner in Baghdad with those who dream of coming home alive".

The right-wing La Razon said "Caesar Bush" was exploiting Hollywood machinery to the full to send a message loud and clear to those who doubted the wisdom of his military policies.

In Rome, the daily La Republica described the visit as "a brillant stage-managed event and a courageous act".

But it said it was also "obviously an electoral blitz, a Hollywood- style stunt of the kind we will see again and again throughout the campaign".

As the Arabic media saw the secrecy of Mr Bush's visit as a sign of weakness amid spiralling violence in Iraq, newspapers in Israel said the stunt was bound to help the US President's ratings in opinion polls that had been falling alarmingly.

"Bush's popularity will undoubtedly go up in opinion polls this week, but on the condition that his army does not face another painful strike," the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot said.

"It is like playing the last $100 dollar bill at the casino," Maariv said in an editorial, adding that "only one thing can ensure victory for Bush at the November 2004 polls: Saddam Hussein dead or chained up."

Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said the secrecy of the visit, during which the only Iraqis whom Mr Bush encountered were four members of the US-installed Governing Council, showed that Washington was afraid of the Iraqis.

"The US President's sudden visit to Iraq was a sign of the US fear of the Iraqi people," Mr Kharazi said, whose country opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq.

"Bush 'infiltrated' Baghdad for two hours," the front-page headline of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat said.

In Beirut, Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, owned by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, announced that "Bush's secret visit to Baghdad opens presidential election season".

A front-page editorial in Lebanon's leading An-Nahar newspaper compared Mr Bush to Roman emperor Julius Caesar, but said the US President could not repeat the phrase: "I came, I saw, I conquered".

The editorial was headlined: "I came, I saw nothing, but I will conquer".

Many newspapers in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf, carried no commentary on the visit which took place as Muslims in the region were still celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holidays which follow the holy month of Ramadan.

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The Trip That Never Was

From: washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26718-2003Dec1.html

Address:http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=412802

Pilots Didn't Radio Air Force One, Airline Says

White House version of mid-air exchange disputed

Mon 1 December, 2003 20:56

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British Airways says that none of its pilots made contact with President George W. Bush's plane during its secret flight to Baghdad, contradicting White House reports of a mid-air exchange that nearly prompted Bush to call off his trip.

Honor Verrier, a spokeswoman for British Airways in North America, said on Monday two BA aircraft were in the area at the time and neither radioed the president's plane to ask if it was Air Force One.

"We have spoken to the British Airways captains who were in the area at the time and neither made comments to Air Force One nor did they hear any other aircraft make the statement over the radio," Verrier said in response to a question from Reuters.

The White House had no immediate comment on the discrepancy. Bush aides recounted with excitement last week the moment during the flight to Baghdad when they said a BA pilot thought he spotted the president's blue and white Boeing 747 from his cockpit.

"Did I just see Air Force One?" the pilot radioed, according to the White House.

There was a pause. Then came the response from Air Force One: "Gulfstream 5" -- a much smaller aircraft.

As one of Bush's aides recounted, the BA pilot seemed to sense that he was in on a secret, and replied: "Oh."

The exchange was one of the most suspenseful moments during Bush's secret flight to Baghdad, according to the White House.

With three hours to go, Bush had the Secret Service check if his mission was still secret.

"They assured me that there was still a tight hold on the information, that conditions on the ground were as positive as positive could be," he said afterward.

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