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Further suspicions about Bush in Iraq. I received this from a reader, a former Army helicopter pilot:

I bought a US News and World Report last week [12/8 issue, page 22/23]. It had a picture of Bush in Iraq on Thanksgiving. Not the famous one with the turkey that wasn't for consumption but this one seemed equally contrived. In the center of the picture Bush is giving a black female soldier a hug (more of a partial hug... so his face could be caught on camera) while two black soldiers watch with approval.

Then I studied the picture. There was a large crowd of people with only those three black soldiers visible. I could pick out one other African American but he in civilian clothes (press corps maybe). Most of the soldiers were not even paying attention to W. There is one guy who appears to be mocking W.

Then I realized none of the soldiers had weapons... not even side arms... in a combat zone. That is highly unusual. I then noticed there were two Secret Service agents in the picture. It seems odd that a guy who is supposedly loved would have SS protection in a room full of people who love him.

Compare that with the many pictures of Hussein... out in a crowded street surrounded by people, many of them holding and firing AK-47's in the air. A guy, who according to the US was hated and feared by his people, has no problem being surrounded by gun-firing masses. Seems odd.

His point is well-taken. Hussein didn't need to take the security precautions Bush does because he was less hated.

Future historians will doubtless describe the reasons for this "war" as corporate welfare for Bechtel/Halliburton and a series of expensively staged, artifical photo opportunities for the '04 election.

The article and the picture are not available online, unfortunately.

⇒ UPDATE: The pilot writes back with this observation on a more recent WaPo article, saying, "prescreened eh? I knew it. Prescreened and disarmed, but he is loved and revered."

From Dana Milbank's article:

Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-authorized newspaper of the U.S. military, is bucking for a court-martial.

When last we checked in on Stripes, it was reporting on a survey it did of troops in Iraq, finding that half of those questioned described their units' moral as low and their training as insufficient and said they did not plan to reenlist.

With the Pentagon just recovering from that, Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met him were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away.

The newspaper, quoting two officials with the Army's 1st Armored Division in an article last week, reported that "for security reasons, only those preselected got into the facility during Bush's visit. . . . The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit."

The paper also published a letter to the editor from Sgt. Loren Russell, who wrote of the heroism of his soldiers and then added: "[I]magine their dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit. . . . They understand that President Bush ate there and that upgraded security was required. But why were only certain units turned away?"

Russell added that his soldiers "chose to complain amongst themselves and eat MREs, even after the chow hall was reopened for 'usual business' at 9 p.m. As a leader myself, I'd guess that other measures could have been taken to allow for proper security and still let the soldiers have their meal."

{ 10:37 AM }

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