Deputy Defense and leading Iraq hawk Secretary Paul Wolfowitz got a Potemkin Village tour of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, in the Kurdish-dominated part of the country:
In the run-up to the Iraq war, U.S. officials often fantasized about being welcomed as liberators in a post-Saddam Hussein era.
A key U.S. architect of the conflict got a taste of that on Saturday when he walked the bustling streets of Kirkuk with an army patrol, drawing a friendly crowd, handshakes and hugs.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz [who does not speak Arabic - BM] went from shop to shop, past hanging meat carcasses and live chickens in cages, asking citizens if life had improved since Saddam was ousted and if Kurds and Arabs in the Kurdish stronghold were getting along. ...
The answers -- in Kirkuk and at other stops on a carefully orchestrated whirlwind trip to Iraq -- largely buttressed Wolfowitz's belief that the war was a necessary gamble and that critics who accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the reasons for the conflict and the difficult aftermath were wrong.
But the news for Wolfowitz was not all good:
Rockets Hit Baghdad Hotel Where Wolfowitz Staying
Anti-American guerrillas blasted the Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying with a barrage of rockets on Sunday, but the No. 2 Pentagon official survived unharmed, U.S. officials said. ...
Wolfowitz, a major force behind the United States invading Iraq, was led away by security forces and appeared composed after descending a stairwell past thickening smoke and blood stains, witnesses said.
Most senior US officials and members of Congress, by the way, are not allowed to stay overnight in Iraq. They are flown back to Kuwaitinstead.
No comments:
Post a Comment