Also see below:     
US Troops Given Misleading, Inaccurate Bios of Democratic Lawmakers Visiting Iraq    [

    Lawmakers Describe "Being Slimed in the Green Zone"
    By Jonathan Weisman
    The Washington Post

    Friday 31 August 2007

    The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

    In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."

    The bio of Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) - "TAU (rhymes with 'now')-sher," the bio helpfully relates - was no less pointed, even if she once supported the war and has taken heat from liberal Bay Area constituents who remain wary of her position. "Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq, with no end in sight," the bio quotes.

    "This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone," Tauscher said of her bio.

    More than two dozen House members and senators have used the August recess to travel to Iraq in the hope of getting a firsthand view of the war ahead of commanding Gen. David H. Petraeus's progress report in two weeks on Capitol Hill. But it appears that the trips have been as much about Iraqi and U.S. officials sizing up Congress as the members of Congress sizing up the war.

    Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.

    Tauscher called it "the Green Zone fog."

    "Spin City," Moran grumbled. "The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated."

    But even such tight control could not always filter out the bizarre world inside the barricades. At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children's cartoons.

    When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, "But this is my favorite television show," Moran recalled.

    Porter confirmed the incident, although he tried to paint the scene in the best light, noting that at least they had electricity.

    "I don't disagree it was an odd moment, but I did take a deep breath and say, 'Wait a minute, at least they are using the latest technology, and they are monitoring the world,' " Porter said. "But, yes, it was pretty annoying."

    It was the bio sheets that seemed to annoy the members of Congress the most. Just who assembled them is not clear. E-mails to U.S. Central Command's public affairs office in Baghdad this week went unanswered.

    "I had never seen that in the past. That's new," said Porter, who was on his fourth trip to Iraq. "Now I want to see what they're saying about me," he added, when he learned of the contents of his travel companions' rap sheets.

    For one, the quotations appeared to be selected to divide the visitors into those who are with the war effort and those who are against. For another, they were not exactly accurate. Under "latest Iraq vote," Tauscher's bio noted that she had voted in favor of legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill's enactment.

    She did vote that way - in May. On Aug. 2, Tauscher voted in favor of her own bill, which mandates that troops be granted a leave from combat at least as long as their last combat deployment before being shipped back to Iraq. That vote might have been a little too popular with the soldiers she was meeting, Tauscher said.

    Still, Porter was quick to add, for all the drawbacks, the trip was worth it.

    "No doubt you will have people speak the company talking points," Porter said. "But I spent time with people who were not officers, four of them from Nevada, two who were very blunt" about their support for the war and their anger over partisan fighting in Washington.

    "I tend to lean with the rank-and-file members of military who have nothing to gain," he added. "They want to go home as soon as possible."

 

---

    Go to Original

    US Troops Given Misleading, Inaccurate Bios of Democratic Lawmakers Visiting Iraq
    ThinkProgress.org

    Friday 31 August 2007

    This morning, the Washington Post has a story on how lawmakers are being "slimed in the Green Zone" when they travel to Iraq for congressional delegation trips. Reps. James Moran (D-VA), Jon Porter (R-NV), and Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) recently returned from such a trip. While there, Tauscher and Moran noticed sheets of paper that "seemed to be everywhere" in the Green Zone, "distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank."

    The sheets of papers were short, thumbnail biographies of the two lawmakers. ThinkProgress has obtained copies of the bios for Moran and Tauscher. Instead of the official bios readily available on the congressional websites, they were new ones that cherry-pick the representatives' "most incendiary" statements:
moranbio.gif tauscherbio.gif

    The bios also either ignore or or completely misrepresent the lawmakers' records. The Washington Post notes:

Under "latest Iraq vote," Tauscher's bio noted that she had voted in favor of legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill's enactment.

She did vote that way - in May. On Aug. 2, Tauscher voted in favor of her own bill, which mandates that troops be granted a leave from combat at least as long as their last combat deployment before being shipped back to Iraq. That vote might have been a little too popular with the soldiers she was meeting, Tauscher said.

    Moran's bio says that he "[v]oted NO on legislation requiring the withdrawal of U S troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill's enactment." In reality, Moran voted "yes." He also voted for Tauscher's dwell-time legislation.

    When Porter learned about his colleagues' rap sheets, he stated, "I had never seen that in the past. That's new. Now I want to see what they're saying about me."

    ThinkProgress spoke with one of the delegation's military escorts, Maj. Toby Patterson, who said that he didn't know who made the bios or why they were created in the first place. He added that his office, the Marine Corps liaison for the U.S. House of Representatives, usually just uses lawmakers' readily-available bios off of congressionalquarterly.com.