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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.
(Article continues below)
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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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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