Ware didn’t end there, for he knows better than all of the advisors, the commanders, and the boots on the ground: “And this is true even for their advisers and for the commanders and the American soldiers.”
Imagine the arrogance. This one reporter knows more about what’s going on in Iraq than everybody else. Yet, deliciously in this same “Paula Zahn Now” segment, guest host Soledad O’Brien played a clip of an interview that Wolf Blitzer had done with President Bush. Comically, the president isn’t as confident with the media’s view of the world:
I would rather quote the people on the ground, who are very close to the situation, who live it day by day, our ambassador or General Casey. I ask this question all the time: Tell me what it's like there. And this notion that we're in civil war is just not true, according to them. These are the people that live the issue.
I reject the notion that this country is in civil war, based upon experts, not based upon people who are speculating. I fully recognize it's still dangerous, and there's more work to do. The enemy has got the capacity to get on your TV screens by killing innocent people.
That's how I learn it. I can't learn it -- I can't -- frankly, can't learn it from your newscasts. What I have got to learn it from is people who are there on the ground.
Nicely said, Mr. President. What follows is a full transcript of this segment and a video link.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Iraq, Wolf. There's some new casualty figures out today: 8,000 people killed in just July and August, Iraqi civilians killed.
Did the president talk about that?
BLITZER: He tries to put a more positive picture forward, even in the face of a lot of experts, including many of our own reporters on the scene, that the situation is deteriorating rapidly.
But listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: I will read to you what Kofi Annan said on Monday. He said, "If current patterns of alienation and violence persist much further, there is a grave danger the Iraqi state will break down, possibly in the midst of a full-scale civil war."
Is this what the American people bought into?
BUSH: You know, it's interesting you quoted Kofi.
I would rather quote the people on the ground, who are very close to the situation, who live it day by day, our ambassador or General Casey. I ask this question all the time: Tell me what it's like there.
And this notion that we're in civil war is just not true, according to them. These are the people that live the issue.
I reject the notion that this country is in civil war, based upon experts, not based upon people who are speculating.
I fully recognize it's still dangerous, and there's more work to do. The enemy has got the capacity to get on your TV screens by killing innocent people.
That's how I learn it. I can't learn it -- I can't -- frankly, can't learn it from your newscasts. What I have got to learn it from is people who are there on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: And he was also forceful, Soledad, in expressing his full confidence in the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
O'BRIEN: All right, Wolf Blitzer for us -- Wolf, thanks.
Excellent interview with the president.
The president said: "I cannot learn it from your newscasts. I have got to learn it from people who are there on the ground."
All right. Let's get to our folks, then, who are on the ground.
Joining us this evening, Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware. He's been reporting from the region since 2001, spends lots of time outside the Green Zone. Our military analyst is retired Army Brigadier General David Grange. He was a commander in the first Gulf War in special-ops, stationed in western Iraq. And White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us this everything as well.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Michael, let's begin with you.
You heard what the president had to say, which is, essentially, the good news that out there is not getting reported. Have you found that to be true on the ground where you have been?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, look, really, nothing could be further from the truth.
I mean, the fact that, when President Bush talks about those living on the ground, and he cites General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzad, I mean, these are men who could not be more divorced from the Iraqi reality. They very much live within a bubble, be it physically within the Green Zone or be it within the bubble of heavy U.S. protection.
And this is true even for their advisers and for the commanders and the American soldiers. I mean, they never take the uniform off. The Iraqi people can never talk to them unless through a filter.
It's very different than living amongst them. And when people say not enough good news stories are being told, you ask an Iraqi family what it is that they're experiencing when their street -- the bodies of their neighbors are showing up on their streets. Their kids can't go to school, for fear of crossing sectarian lines. And the kidnapping and killings are just going on around them -- Soledad.
