The Script is In - Iraqi Votes Already Counted

BrooklynDodger doesn’t doubt the constitutional referendum votes have already been counted. George Bush won.

The Army Times clarifies the Potemkin press conference by the Army guys occupying Tikrit. The Defense Department picked the group. Somehow, the questions were known in advance by the Tikrit group, the answers and who would make the answer were rehearsed among the group the night before, and then with a deputy assistant secretary before show time.

It’s not a conversation if it’s rehearsed.

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http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1174866.php
October 14, 2005

Soldiers say talk with Bush wasn’t a stunt
Administration critics blast rehearsed ‘conversation’ via satellite from Iraq

By Gina Cavallaro Times staff writer

When the White House and the Defense Department said they needed a group of soldiers for a chat on live TV with their commander in chief, the soldiers were carefully chosen.

The five officers, five noncommissioned officers and one Iraqi soldier sat in three neat rows before a camera at one of Saddam Hussein’s old palace compounds in Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad.

The 10 Americans were identified as experts on the three topics the president wanted to talk about Oct. 13: security in Iraq, security for the weekend referendum there and the training of Iraqi troops.

To White House watchdogs, it was a transparent attempt at bolstering the president’s sagging poll numbers….

But what was billed as a conversation between President Bush and the Task Force Liberty troops may have backfired for the administration, as some say it was a scripted publicity stunt and that the soldiers’ answers were choreographed to match the president’s goals for the war in Iraq and the Oct. 15 referendum there.

Some of that criticism is based on outtakes of comments Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, made to soldiers before they went on the air with the president.
…
“OK, so let’s just walk through this,” Barber said. “Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?”

“Captain Smith,” Kennedy said.

“Captain Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?” she asked.

“Captain Kennedy,” the soldier replied.

And so it went.

“If the question comes up about partnering — how often do we train with the Iraqi military — who does he go to?” Barber asked.

“That’s going to go to Captain Pratt,” one of the soldiers said.

“And then if we’re going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit — the hometown — and how they’re handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?” she asked.
…
The night before the TV event, she recalled, the group sat down and brainstormed about who should address what areas. Some made notes for themselves in case they had time to ask the president other questions.
…
“I guess it didn’t come to anyone’s mind to tell the president that the food sucks in the [chow hall], because it doesn’t, but I don’t think it crossed anybody’s mind to tell him that if they felt that way. But we could have.”