President Bush Must See the Hardships that Iraqis Face

In an editorial today, the New York Times notes that the unfiltered news from Iraq paints a dramatically different picture than President Bush did during his six-hour press opportunity from within the Green Zone last week. Just as the Bush Administration cherry-picked pre-war intelligence going into the Iraq War, they continue to cherry pick the facts on the ground with photo-ops and rosy rhetoric.

Hours before the President’s arrival, a United States Embassy cable reported that its Iraqi employees were facing daily harassment and were lacking basic resources such as electricity. [AP, 6/20/06] The editorial argues that the President must remove his rose colored glasses and see the hardships that Iraqis face instead of merely looking the new Iraqi Prime Minister "in the eyes."

Below is an excerpt from today's New York Times:

Iraq, Unfiltered
Editorial
The New York Times
June 21, 2006

Bush administration supporters regularly accuse the news media of reporting only bad news from Iraq and filtering out more positive stories. But just hours before American television screens began to be filled with upbeat clips of President Bush's surprise trip to Baghdad last week, the United States Embassy there cabled back a far grimmer picture of the mounting difficulties faced by its Iraqi employees.

The cable, reprinted by The Washington Post, told of embassy employees running a daily gantlet of religious dress-code enforcers and harassment by militia-style security guards - even at checkpoints surrounding the fortified Green Zone, where the embassy is located. When the Iraqi employees return to their homes, they face sweltering neighborhoods without regular electric power, daylong gasoline lines, and families torn by religious and ethnic tensions and mounting fears for the future...

Mr. Bush's six-hour visit to Baghdad was mostly spent inside the Green Zone, where he made much of what he had been able to learn from looking Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki "in the eyes." Now that he's home, Mr. Bush needs to take a hard, unfiltered look at the more disturbing picture relayed by America's embassy.

To read the entire editorial, please click here