Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston back from Iraq
- Posted by Beth on January 17th, 2007 filed in Blogs, General, Iraq, Support the Troops, The War, Video
They’re back, and have their trip reports at Hot Air (Preston’s report) and at Michelle Malkin’s.
This post is mostly about mistakes. The troops didn’t sit down with us and tick off all the mistakes that they think we have made in Iraq to date, so what follows isn’t their gripe list being published under my name. They did answer our questions forthrightly and we learned much from interviewing them and just talking with them over chow and listening to their crosstalk in the Humvees. So this post is made up of my observations after seeing the war up close and following it from afar, including mistakes, fumbles and ways forward to win–and what victory actually looks like.
Last week, I embedded with U.S. Army troops at Forward Operating Base Justice in northern Baghdad. Outside the wire, we toured the slums and met with neighborhood leaders inching toward self-sufficiency in al Salam. We sipped chai with a sheikh who condemned terrorists on all sides. We watched residents bicker over a civil affairs blanket drop in Khadamiyah. We sat with slimy Mahdi Army apologists in Hurriya. We stopped by a Sunni insurgent enclave, which soldiers I patrolled with dubbed a “sniperville,” in al Adil.
And more is forthcoming:
My syndicated column today provides an overview of the counterinsurgency efforts we witnessed first-hand–and I’m posting the column below, illustrated with photos I took throughout the trip.
We’ll report on our investigation of the Associated Press’s media malpractice in an upcoming New York Post exclusive.
And we’ll both be publishing much more over the next several days, including more in-depth interviews with, and profiles of, the troops at our embed unit on Forward Operating Base Justice–plus some lighter moments on our journey involving The Stinky Pants, our Chai drink-a-thon, an appearance by Che Guevara, and my Helmet Bobblehead imitation. We have tons of folks to thank (I’m hoping to get in touch with each and every one you personally) and I’ll have reflections on the embed program, new media, and the info wars at the end of our series.
Just go read them. Lots of photos in the posts, plus video at the Vent.
Martin says:
I haven’t noticed a multitude of liberal bloggers going to actually report the facts on the ground. I guess they are chickenhacks.