In a post this afternoon, Atrios suggests that the U.S. media is suddenly underreporting news from Iraq. As an alternative, he links to this news story from an Australian paper. He doesn't quite say so explicitly, but Atrios's implication is that the White House has muzzled the press because any real coverage would show the situation there to be worse than they want to acknowledge.

I rarely watch network television, so I wouldn't know. But I did read the article, where I see this:

Wow, Shi'a and Sunni marching together. It almost looks as if President Bush is bringing unity to Iraq the same way he brought unity to the Democratic Party. If so, that's a good thing, though probably not what he had in mind.

Seriously, some of the fragments of news are hinting that politically diverse groups of Iraqis are uniting behind Muqtada al-Sadr. I'm not sure I believe that, but if it's true, terrific. Stop calling him "thug" and start calling him "president". Declare victory and get the hell out.

7:26:23 PM  [permalink]  comment []  

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and various others have lately been telling us that the people we are now fighting in Iraq are "former regime elements." That's easy enough to understand. The former regime is that of Saddam Hussein, whom we deposed. Former regime elements would presumably be those who supported Saddam, so it makes sense that they oppose American occupation.

Tonight I had C-Span on, half-listening to a Pentagon press briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen Richard Myers, when something odd caught my ear. I didn't have the VCR running, but no matter; it was easy enough to find a transcript on the Web, so I could confirm that he really said what I thought he said.

In other words, "former regime elements" can refer to ... well, pretty much anybody. How on earth can an "outside jihadist" possibly have anything to do with Saddam Hussein's deposed regime? Evidently, "former regime elements" is nothing more than a codeword for anyone in Iraq who doesn't like us, regardless of any actual connection to the former regime.

Apparently Kay Bailey Hutchison, the logic-impaired senator from Texas, didn't get the memo. She is taking the "former regime elements" label seriously.

The next item on C-Span was a series of speeches on the Senate floor, and first up was Sen Hutchison. Alas, I can't find a transcript for that one, so I'll have to recount from the best of my memory.

She opened by noting that April 9 is the one-year anniversary of America's conquest of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. She then recalled how surprised we were that Saddam's feared Republican Guard forces did not offer more resistance, and how we wondered what had happened to them. Then she offered this startling revelation: She said she believes these people who are fighting us now, they are in fact the Republican Guard, coming out of hiding one year later to fight back.

Well, the senator is entitled to her beliefs, but this one has no basis in fact. Perhaps next she'll be telling us that the weapons they are using against us are the long-occluded weapons of mass destruction.

Update: Sen Hutchison's speech is now on the Web, and it's pretty much exactly like I paraphrased.

1:18:02 AM  [permalink]  comment []