Teh Heh.

The Pentagon is pissed off that a Times editorial claimed that “There have never been enough troops, the result of Mr. Rumsfeld’s negligent decision to use Iraq as a proving ground for his pet military theories, rather than listen to his generals.” They say:


Whether the Times believes there were (or are) enough troops in Iraq, it is demonstrably untrue that troop levels in Iraq are the result of Secretary Rumsfeld’s “not listening to his generals.”



In fact, The Pentagon got Dorrance Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, to write a letter to The Times.


Remember Dorrance Smith? We do.

The Coalition Provisional Authority running Iraq, created by the Bush administration, dissatisfied with the American television news decisions on covering the conflict, is about to create its own broadcast operation, with the capacity to bypass the networks, live from Iraq, 24 hours a day.


"We’ve had to rely on events covered by the networks and their interpretation, and their feed back to the United States," said Dorrance Smith, the former ABC News producer and an advisor to President Bush and his father, now senior media adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority.


"That’s about to change," said Mr. Smith, "because we’re about to have total 24-hour connectivity."


Asked if he would call the new operation an American Al-Jazeera, a broadcast operation institution untethered by commercial considerations, Mr. Smith said it was more like a "C-SPAN Baghdad."


Yeah, how'd that work out, Dorrance?