Reply #23: It gets weirder [View All]

[Marie26]

There's actually a White House press release of that "background" briefing to the press - however, the official is only referred to as "SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL". So we can't know who's speaking. WTF?

Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials
Room 450
Eisenhower Executive Office Building

12:25 P.M. EST

MR. SNOW: Hello, everybody. The ground rules are this is a background briefing by a senior administration official. We have promised some documents to you; those are still in production. We will notify you as soon as they are ready, but they will be ready for you well in advance of the President's speech tonight. They'll lay out a lot of the basics of the policy. Obviously, feel free to contact us with any questions you have afterward.

But in order to frame it up, I introduce SAO.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm going to try and give you a little feel for what the President is going to say tonight, but I'm going to try to do it in a way that walks you through the logic of the strategy review we've been through, and a little bit, the logic of the President's thinking and how I think you'll hear it tonight. ...

Q: At the start of the war, some of the generals were saying more troops were needed, and the President, at that time, did not listen to that advice. Now the generals are very wary about sending more troops, and, yet, the President is making a decision to send more troops. Why is it that he believes this is a wise course of action after the history of how things have gone in terms of troop levels?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the rationale for it I've really given you. I think, though, I see the history a little different. One of the issues is the Iraqis -- every time we get in discussions with Iraqis about more troops, they generally said, if we need more troops, they need to be Iraqi troops, so please train more Iraqi troops. This is -- Iraqis really want to take more responsibility."

Is this the same "background" briefing that Williams & Russert are referring to? If so, after "SAO" was done, Bush himself strode in to speak to the reporters. But since this was also "background", the reporters were warned not to quote anything he said. It's so surreal.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-1.html