Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort-of)

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted October 14, 2005.

Just when you think that President Bush couldn't out-Saddam Saddam any more, he goes and does something that proves you wrong.

If any Iraqis caught the hilarious October 13 videoconference between Bush (at the White House) and troops from the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit, it may have seemed like a high-tech version of a familiar scene from the old days, when Saddam used to travel to Tikrit to feel (and, more importantly, to have others feel) his greatness.

The videoconference was a display of just how far the propaganda system has come since Bush took over from Saddam. Instead of visiting Tikrit, which the president lightly acknowledged he could not safely do, Bush addressed -- via satellite -- an adoring bunch of U.S. soldiers that had apparently been given a heavy dose of Kool-Aid before the telecast began.

Oh, there was one Iraqi there--Sergeant Major Akeel from the 5th Iraqi Army Division, whose role in the affair was limited to smiling like a good Iraqi and saying to Bush, "I like you."

Under Saddam, Iraqis were bombarded via their TVs with video of the Iraqi leader meeting his generals in Tikrit, overseeing military parades, listening intently to his commanders, examining their weapons, firing a rifle here, swinging a sword there. For Iraqis, Tikrit represented the mother of all locations for the regime's propaganda commercial shoots. Few were those Iraqis chosen to be in Saddam's midst for these staged commercials, but at least Saddam actually went there.

Two and a half years after the U.S. occupation began, there stood President Bush at his podium in the White House -- in front of a massive plasma TV, holding an earpiece to his head (out in the open this time). Before him, beamed in by satellite, were the 10 handpicked soldiers. They sat in three rows, fawning over Bush and delivering glowing assessments of the situation on the ground.

At one point, it seemed as if one of the soldiers, Master Sergeant Corine Lombardo, was lifting from one of Bush's "major addresses" on Iraq when she told the president, "We began our fight against terrorism in the wake of 9/11, and we're proud to continue it here."

It turns out that the soldiers had actually been coached by Pentagon official Allison Barber before the event, and were given Bush's questions in advance. At one point during the coaching, which was caught on videotape, Barber asked, "Who are we going to give that [question] to?"

At another point, she suggests the phrase, "Sir, together we are working on ..." for a response to a question on cooperation between U.S. and Iraqi troops.

For much of the videoconference, Bush played Fox's Brit Hume as he "interviewed" the soldiers. A telling moment came when Bush asked the troops, "As you move around, I presume you have a chance to interface with the civilians there in that part of the world. And a lot of Americans are wondering whether or not people appreciate your presence, or whether or not the people are anxious to be part of the democratic process. Can you give us a sense for the reception of the people there in Tikrit toward coalition forces, as well as the Iraqi units that they encounter?"

It seems that Bush's presumption about his troops "interfacing" with "civilians in that part of the world" about their anxiousness to "be part of the democratic process" was a pipedream.

Captain David Williams responded by telling Bush, "Sir, I was with my Iraqi counterpart in Tikrit, the city Tikrit last week, and he was going around, talking to the locals. And from what he told me that the locals told him, the Iraqi people are ready and eager to vote in this referendum."

Those sentiments, relayed second-hand from Williams' "Iraqi counterpart," are contradicted by most independent assessments, to which the White House would never dare listen. Furthermore, it provides yet another example of how detached from reality Bush and his minions in Iraq truly are.

There is a simple reason most U.S. soldiers aren't out there chewing the fat with Iraqi "civilians," chatting about how great democracy is: Iraqis overwhelmingly do not want U.S. troops there.

"[Iraqis] aren't sitting in their front rooms discussing the referendum on the constitution," veteran war correspondent Robert Fisk recently said. "The reality now in Iraq is the project is finished. Most of Iraq, except Kurdistan, is in a state of anarchy." Furthermore, the Sunni Arabs of Tikrit, where the soldiers sat during the videoconference, is almost certain to vote a resounding "No" on the U.S.-backed constitution.

And herein lies one of the big farces of Bush's videoconference, and the broader narrative the president needs so desperately to be true. The fact is that Washington will never be able to manufacture a multi-ethnic Iraqi military that is somehow going to deliver or enforce "democracy, American style" in time for the U.S. to withdraw from the bloody, sinking ship that is the Iraq occupation.

Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist and a correspondent for the national radio and TV show Democracy Now! He can be reached at jeremy@democracynow.org.

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