Ifill Chastises 'Excessive' Security for Bush in Baghdad; Totenberg: Trip Was Rude

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Friday night PBS chat shows delivered a couple of slams from journalists at President Bush over his surprise trip to Baghdad early this week. After Richard Keil of Bloomberg News, who accompanied the President’s entourage, described some of the security precautions taken, Washington Week host Gwen Ifill cited “excessive security” as she derided the trip: “I wonder to what degree anybody in the White House thought maybe it might undermine our point if we have to take such excessive security precautions in order to go claim victory or whatever it was the President was trying to accomplish?" So trying to keep the President of the United States and his traveling party, including journalists, safe was “excessive”?

Up next on Washington, DC’s PBS affiliate after Washington Week: Inside Washington. On it, NPR reporter Nina Totenberg suggested Bush was rude toward Iraq’s new Prime Minister since he arrived “unannounced” and she compared Bush going to congratulate a just-chosen leader of a fledgling democracy, where over 100,000 U.S. troops are located, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair flying into DC congratulate Bush: “How would we feel if Tony Blair showed up right after -- you know, to say congratulations and didn't tell us, right after President Bush had won an election?" (Brief transcripts follow)

NewsBusters contributor Tom Johnson alerted me to Ifill’s “excessive” assessment of Bush’s security. On the June 16 Washington Week, Richard Keil of Bloomberg News described how, in landing at the Baghdad Airport, Air Force One came in high and dropped quickly as it maneuvered “side to side” to avoid anti-aircraft fire and that helicopters, which flew them all to the Green Zone, traveled faster and lower than normal. Ifill, a veteran of NBC News, then asked:

"I know it was a, you're flying into a war zone so these precautions are necessary. But I wonder to what degree anybody in the White House thought maybe it might undermine our point if we have to take such excessive security precautions in order to go claim victory or whatever it was the President was trying to accomplish?"

Richard Keil, Bloomberg News, replied: "Well, they made the simple calculation that the President had to go there. Condi Rice actually spent the night about a month ago in Baghdad in the green zone, stayed overnight. Secretary Rumsfeld has been there. A couple of weeks ago Prime Minister Tony Blair, his chief ally in the war, in Iraq, was there. This was pegged to when the Iraqis finally completed their cabinet..."

Inside Washington is a half-hour weekly panel show produced by Washington, DC’s ABC affiliate which carries it on Sunday morning after This Week. Before that, it airs on the affiliate’s all-news cable channel, NewsChannel 8, and Friday night at 8:30pm on DC’s PBS station, WETA channel 26.

In a discussion about the impact of Bush’s visit to Baghdad, Totenberg contended:

"This trip to Iraq was great political theater. It made us feel better. It made me feel better. But if you're the President of Iraq, or the Prime Minister of Iraq -- the newly elected -- and the President of the United States shows up unannounced ahead of time, how would we feel if Tony Blair showed up right after -- you know, to say congratulations and didn't tell us, right after President Bush had won an election?"