| Dwyer notes that Senor had a habit of gilding the lily, aka lying, according to WaPo reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book about the first years of the Iraq War, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City."
Like here:
"In April 2004, a few reporters asked (Senor) about a paroxysm of violence that had Americans hunkering down in the Green Zone," Mr. Chandrasekaran wrote.
"'Off the record: Paris is burning,' he told them. 'On the record: Security and stability are returning to Iraq.' "
His on-the-record message, however far-fetched, was cued to an election year in the United States.
The "Paris is burning" reference, while apparently apt in describing the SNAFU of Baghdad, is weird. I assume it refers to Hitler famously asking whether his plan to destroy Paris, with Allied armies on its doorstep in 1944, had been accomplished. (It wasn't, thankfully.)
It does not really fit to what was happening in Baghdad then.
The larger point is that Senor was lying every day about the Iraq War, because that was his job.
Senor and other young Republican hacks in the Coalition Provisional Authority were primarily working to re-elect Bush, so getting the good news out about the great success of the Iraq War was the No. 1 priority.
In Mr. Chandrasekaran's book, he describes the Green Zone as heavily populated by Republican loyalists who brought little experience to the towering task of restoring Iraq to any semblance of normalcy after the invasion.
Mr. Senor has objected to the descriptions of the Green Zone as being essentially a Republican clubhouse. For many reporters who covered him, though, his personal affability could not bridge the gap between the brutal disintegration of civil life in Iraq and the daily briefings Mr. Senor gave.
In his telling, the occupation was going well. The Iraqi people were resolute. Democracy was coming. Ten-hour waits for gasoline in a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves? "Good news," by Mr. Senor's reckoning, the signs of an economy stirring to life, and also of hoarding by the Iraqis.
Yet in the spring of 2004, a violent insurgency was taking hold in Iraq. The infrastructure was in ruins. Billions in aid were vanishing. Power plants were bombed, gas stations were bombed, hotels were bombed, fruit markets were bombed. Death squads were taking over.
"I can tell you that the majority of this country, the majority of the population, is returning to normalcy and wants a stable, democratic Iraq to take hold," Mr. Senor said on April 7, 2004.
Since then, more than 90,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.
Senor is evidently the favorite of NYS Republican and Conservative Party leaders, after more well-known and differently tainted Rudy 9/11 and George Pataki passed on the race.
Senor is the establishment choice in part because he can raise the necessary tens of millions from the Bush/neocon network.
But also because he's such an accomplished liar, a skill that's practically required of Republican candidates these days. |
