Ever since we started to have some success in Al Anbar, most journalists have been as hard to find around here as a cold beer. I have a conspiracy theory about this, the details of which I will not burden you. Suffice to say, I think that many of them have already decided that we lost in Iraq and they do not want to confuse themselves with the contrary facts. As a result, the American public perception of Iraq is frozen in 2006, when walking around as I did today in Haditha (see above) would have been deadly for all involved. Most of the media doesn’t know sh*t about Iraq today, but that doesn’t stop their pontification.
But we do have one journalist here with us who wants to see for himself. His name is Tony Perry and he writes for the LA Times. That is him pictured above (perhaps not looking his best), seems a good guy. You can read his article here. I know all those guys in the picture. I wrote a whole blog note re my talk with Sheik Kurdi. I think Mr. Perry has it mostly right. Let’s hope he keeps it up and/or other members of the chattering classes pay better attention.