Don't the Republicans complain that if the American public could hear about the good stuff going on in Iraq, we would be more supportive of the president's war policy? That it is Democrats who have led the American people to believe the war is a lost cause by making sure the liberal media only tells us when bad stuff happens?
So how come the Bush administration is now prohibiting enlisted soldiers, "junior" officers (05 and below!), and even career DoD civilians -- in other words, anyone who's not a political appointee -- from testifying before Congress?
According to yesterday's Boston Globe,
Robert L. Wilkie , a former Bush administration national security official who left the White House to become assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs last year, has outlined a half-dozen guidelines that prohibit most officers below the rank of colonel from appearing in hearings, restricting testimony to high-ranking officers and civilians appointed by President Bush.The guidelines, described in an April 19 memo to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, adds that all field-level officers and enlisted personnel must be "deemed appropriate" by the Department of Defense before they can participate in personal briefings for members of Congress or their staffs; in addition, according to the memo, the proceedings must not be recorded.
Too bad, C-SPAN viewers. No more first hand accounts from regular folks. From now on, you only get the sanitized version of events that the White House wants you to see.
Actually, it's worse than that.
Not only will you no longer be allowed to watch the testimony, judge for yourself whether the speaker appears to be telling the truth, whether the questioner is badgering or leading the witness, or who is merely pontificating for the camera. Worse than that, you won't even be able to find out what was said after the fact.
At a closed-door hearing a few days after Wilkie's memo was distributed, Defense Department lawyers sought to apply the guidelines to the testimony of three Army officers -- a captain, a major, and a lieutenant colonel -- set to testify about their first-hand experience training Iraqi security forces.A few minutes into the proceedings, a representative from the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel tried to apply the new provisions. Speaking from the audience, he declared that the officers could not participate if the meeting was being recorded for a transcript -- a regular practice in congressional hearings.
The panel's Democratic chairman, Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell, and ranking Republican W. Todd Aken of Missouri both insisted a transcript would be kept and the Pentagon entourage, including the officers, "theatrically stormed out of the room," said one attendant.
So why are they keeping the soldiers on the ground -- the very people who have been there, done that -- from telling Congress, and by extension the citizens whom Congress represents, what is really going on? What are they trying to hide?
If there's more good stuff than bad, don't they want us to know? Don't they trust the troops to tell us?
Or have they finally figured out that the signature characteristic of the American soldier is to say precisely what he thinks, feels, and knows to be true. And that men and women who have faced enemy fire are not easily intimidated by a pack of Washington bureaucrats.
