If the administration were smarter it wouldn't let anyone intelligent visit Iraq, as they tend to report that the emperor has no clothes — or at least no realistic Iraq policy.
Lawrence Korb just got back from a trip to Iraq. “Unreal” seemed to be his overall reaction to the PowerPoint-laden presentations he heard from various American and Iraqi officials, most of which were entirely divorced from the ground-level reality of day-to-day life in Iraq. In a different sense it also applies to his conclusions about the surge:
Getting through Iraqi customs was a chore….The long wait did allow me to speak to some of the contractors about the situation on the ground. When I assured them I was not a member of the press, they were unanimous that the surge was not working….The most optimistic projection was “maybe temporarily.” But most people speaking off the record believe that the insurgents will shift to other areas and lay low for a while in Baghdad.
Actually, wasn't the ban on brains the initial US occupation strategy?
