Vitter Needs Only 10 Hours In Iraq
To Declare ‘The Surge Is Working Very, Very Well’
Think
Progress
Friday Aug 24, 2007
Yesterday, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Bob Corker (R-TN) returned
from a brief trip to Iraq, proclaiming that they saw “clear
success” on the ground. But their definitive claims of witnessing
success were seriously undermined
by their traveling partner, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who admitted
to reporters that the senators had only
spent 10-14 hours in total in Iraq.
Now Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), the fourth member of the delegation, is
taking his turn at making sweeping
pronouncements of success in Iraq while downplaying the superficial
nature of his trip:
Vitter said the surge is working.
The United States has made significant strikes against Al Qaida terrorist
forces and reduced sectarian violence in the nation, he said.
Vitter said he met with the chief military commander in Iraq, U.S.
Army Gen. David Petraeus, for about 90 minutes.
“My bottom line conclusion is that the surge is working
very, very well,” said Vitter, who returned to the U.S.
late Tuesday night.
Vitter, who was recently embarrassed
in a prostitution scandal, is hoping that “the trip will help
him play a more hands-on role in the upcoming Senate debate”
over Iraq. “It was very, very helpful to see things on the ground,”
he said.
He is also seemingly hoping that the publicity for the trip will help
redeem his presently tattered image, as evidenced by his unusual pre-trip
media blitz. Despite a request by the military that the trip not be announced
until it was over, Vitter “sent an
announcement to his home state media late last week”:
Voinovich, who headed for a Florida vacation today, announced the Iraq
trip through his office, but only when he was leaving Baghdad late yesterday.
The whole thing was characterized by his staff as extremely hush-hush
until wheels-up.
Why, then, was his Louisiana colleague shouting it from the rooftops
in advance?
Vitter, in fact, sent an announcement to his home state media
late last week. In a statement that ran in Louisiana newspapers over
the weekend, Vitter said: “With an upcoming congressional debate
in September over the impact of the surge, I believe it is vitally important
to see the situation firsthand. Our policy should be formed by the real
general and soldiers on the ground, not the politicians - arm chair
generals - in Washington.”
Vitter included the identities of the other travelers, including Ohio’s
senior senator.
As former Washington Post Baghdad correspondent Jonathan Finer has noted,
“those who pass quickly through the war zone should stop ascribing
their epiphanies to what are largely ceremonial visits.”
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