I just sent off the following Email to the two reporters who wrote the previous story in the LA Times.
"It's obvious from reading this story that neither one of you were with Rummy on the trip. You used the AP wire to write what is really an opinion piece. I guess it is easier to do a "rip and rewrite" than to check what actually went on while Rumsfeld was in Iraq.
Here are a couple of things that he was involved with while there that the wire reporter ignored.
Read the interchange he had with a wounded soldier. An excerpt.
>>Then remarkably, the young soldier, who had just lost his left hand and right eye from an explosion, came to the defense of the Secretary of Defense, stating "Mr.. Rumsfeld, I want you to know, that you are doing a fantastic job. I know that you are taking a lot of heat for the problems with getting armor for vehicles. I want you to know that things are vastly improved. Our vehicles are great, and I have never searched through junk piles for scrap metal."<<<
That's from a "Powerline" post: powerlineblog.com
>>>A soldier endorses Rumsfeld
Reader Richard Mattson has alerted us to an astonishing eyewitness report by Captain Dan Mattson (his brother) deriving from Secretary Rumsfeld's in-theater visit. Today Secretary Rumsfeld visited a military hospital just two miles from the dining hall tent in Mosul where the huge explosion occurred as staff were sitting down for lunch Tuesday. Captain Mattson reports from the hospital:<<<<
There was a great quote by Rumsfeld in the AP Military reporter, Bob Burns, story. Did you read it? If you did, why didn't you use it?
>>>
"How do we win the war in the media?" asked one soldier in Mosul. Another soldier in Tikrit wondered why there is not more coverage of reconstruction efforts going on in the country.
"I guess what's news has to be bad news to get on the press," Rumsfeld responded to the first question - after supposing, with a big grin, "that does not sound like a question that was planted by the press."<<<<<
There was also some other good quotes that I read today on the wires . But I guess they didn't fit your frame. To bad. If you had used some of this material, it would have made a much better and fairer article.
Bill Millan - Waikiki |
