Cheney In Iraq: "Kick The Press Out"

Nick Juliano
Wall Street Journal
Wednesday May 09, 2007

Vice President Dick Cheney’s surprise trip to Baghdad today was meant to deliver a tough message to the Iraqi government – put off your vacation plans and get back to work.

U.S. officials have been livid since discovering that Iraq’s fledgling parliament – hardly a hive of activity in the first place – was planning to take a two-month summer recess, postponing work on a bill spelling out how oil money would be shared among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups or a law authorizing new regional elections.

The new American ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, told reporters flying with Cheney that the vice president would convey American displeasure over the planned vacation. “The reality is, with the major effort we’re making, the major effort the Iraqi security forces and military are making themselves, for the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand,” Crocker said.

Once safely ensconced in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, however, Cheney appeared to reserve his toughest language for his normal target – the press. Cheney held a lot of photo ops with key Iraqi leaders like Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, but was adamant about not taking questions. At one point, Cheney emphasized to the assembled journalists that “this is just a photo spray.” Later in the day, as reporters filed into an embassy conference room for another photo of Cheney they overheard him tell his staff “then we kick the press out.”

Cheney was supposed to be in Abu Dhabi today, according to his public schedule. Reporters had pressed Cheney staffers for days about whether he would go to Iraq on the current trip. The staffers never denied it outright, but didn’t tell the reporters accompanying Cheney until after Air Force Two had lifted off from Andrews Air Force Base. Not all of Cheney’s aides made the trip — some staffers, including his daughter Liz, flew separately to the United Arab Emirates.