Bush-Cheney view of Iraq isn't view from Iraq

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/06/23/m10a_cheney_edit_0623.html

Vice President Dick Cheney, meet Zalmay Khalilzad. The vice president shouldn't need an introduction to the American ambassador to Iraq, but apparently they have not been in touch.

A year ago, Mr. Cheney predicted that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes." As it turned out, that was like predicting that the 2005 hurricane season was winding down after Tropical Storm Arlene. But when reporters this week asked Mr. Cheney about that prediction, the vice president insisted that he had been right. Historians, he said, will look back and see that 2005 was "when we began to get a handle on the long-term future of Iraq."

Mr. Cheney must assume that historians won't read the cable sent June 6 by Mr. Khalilzad to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The memo, leaked to The Washington Post, says Baghdad is so dangerous that the U.S. Embassy's Iraqi staff members fear for their lives.

"Islamist and/or militia groups," Mr. Khalilzad says, are harassing staffers "over proper dress and habits." One female worker "is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats." Displaying gender equality, though not the kind President Bush likes to brag about bringing to Iraq, "it is now dangerous for men to wear shorts in public." Iraqis guarding the Green Zone — the fortified enclave that is the only part of Baghdad President Bush dared to visit one week after the cable went to Washington — have become "more militia-like" and "taunting."