In Washington, a town in which most people, both government and non-government employees, are involved, one way or another, in public relations spin, the thing that will get you in the most trouble is telling the simple truth. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter recently stepped in it by stating what should have been obvious to the world: he blamed Iraqi forces for the loss to ISIS of Ramadi, an important Iraqi provincial capital, telling CNN that, ‘The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they withdrew from the site.’
Although evidence that Carter’s conclusion was not rocket science came in the form of video showing Iraqi military vehicles fleeing at high speeds from the town, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi diplomatically rebuffed the provider of U. S. military assistance to his forces by saying, ‘I am sure he was fed with wrong information.’ Yeah, right.
In classic Washington form, Vice President Joe Biden had to call Abadi to clean up Carter’s truthful indiscretion. The White House issued the following statement: ‘The vice president recognized the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces over the past eighteen months in Ramadi and elsewhere.’ Although episodes of ‘sacrifice and bravery’ on the part of the Iraqi troops very well could have occurred, these forces, which the United States spent eight years training, cut and ran in critical situations when ISIS forces, inferior in number, initially took over about one-third Iraq last year and in Ramadi more recently.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on June 2, 2015.
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