Media repeat GOP mischaracterization of Mahoney's Iraq comments

Reports in the Politico and The Washington Post selectively quoted Rep. Tim Mahoney's (D-FL) remarks in a teleconference with local reporters following his trip to Iraq in a manner that falsely suggested Mahoney supports continuing President Bush's escalation strategy in Iraq. Mahoney, citing specific successes in Al Anbar Province, told local reporters that the United States was making gains against Al Qaeda in Iraq. However, in the same conference call, Mahoney noted that the fight against Al Qaeda is "only one conflict," adding: "There's another conflict going on, and that's the Iranian support for the Shia and the Shia militias, and this is in areas where you have the Shia and Sunnis together. That's where the majority of the violence continues, and this is the part that's the civil war." Mahoney also called for a change in strategy by the fall, stating that "it's clear that the United States does not have the capability of maintaining the levels ... that we've seen in both matériel and manpower to sustain the surge. What that tells you is, is that there's going to have to be a different strategy as how we move forward come the fall and going into next year." Nevertheless, as The New York Times reported on September 3, Mahoney was "quickly quoted in a Republican press release as saying the escalation of troops in Iraq 'has really made a difference and really has gotten Al Qaeda on their heels.' " The Times called the Republican quotation "a snippet from a local Florida newspaper article," adding that in the same article, Mahoney stated: "There is going to have to be a different strategy."

The reports in the Politico and the Post attributed Mahoney's comments to a quote in a Florida newspaper, but omitted Mahoney's call for a "different strategy," as reported in the Times. The Times also cited Mahoney's attempt to clarify his remarks, reporting that he said: "To a large extent, the progress I talked about was taken out of context. ... [E]verybody I talked to at the beginning of the surge back in February all said the same thing, 'This is a three-legged stool.' There has got to be economic progress. We haven't seen it. There has got to be political progress -- nonexistent."

An August 24 Politico article explicitly contrasted Mahoney's call for a "drawdown" of troops in Iraq with the snippet from Mahoney's conference call, suggesting Mahoney reversed himself on the issue of troop withdrawal:

Over the last several weeks, several Democrats in targeted races have softened their position on the war, fueling even more outrage from the left.

Just one month ago, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) told his local newspaper that the choice was not "whether" to stage a drawdown of U.S. forces deployed in Iraq, but "how." Now, he says the surge "has really made a difference and really has gotten al Qaeda on their heels."

An August 25 Politico article stated that Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) "suddenly came out in support of President Bush's troop surge in Iraq." The article later linked the snippet of Mahoney's comments with Baird's change of positions:

Baird, who had just returned from a trip to Iraq, now opposes any timetable for troop withdrawal.

Those statements effectively hooked a boulder to the Democrats' gathering momentum for a swift troop pull-out. And Baird wasn't the only one. Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) came back from Iraq and told his local newspaper that the surge "has really made a difference and really has gotten al Qaeda on their heels."

These August conversions, though, have not been limited to the Democrats. The waters are muddied for both parties. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a bigger fish than either Mahoney or Baird, urged the president on Thursday to begin pulling troops out of Iraq by Christmas.

An August 21 Washington Post article said:

Not every Democrat has come back from Iraq supporting a drawdown of U.S. forces in the coming months, as party leaders have advocated. Staking out positions that could complicate efforts to achieve party unity in September, a few Democratic lawmakers have returned expressing support for a continued troop presence. One of them, Rep. Brian Baird (Wash.), said yesterday that he will no longer vote for binding troop withdrawal timelines.

After claiming that the "Democratic Party grows increasingly divided over the war's progress," the Post article quoted Baird and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and repeated the distortion of Mahoney's remarks, suggesting that Mahoney was no longer in favor of "supporting a drawdown of U.S. forces":

Last Friday, Baird told the Olympian, a newspaper in his district, that he now believes the United States should stay in the country as long as necessary to ensure stability.

That followed comments by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) suggesting that his trip to Iraq made him more flexible in his search for a bipartisan accord on the future U.S. role in the conflict. "If anything, I'm more willing to work to find a way forward," he told reporters late last month.

Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), who was with McNerney, told his local paper that the troop increase "has really made a difference and really has gotten al-Qaeda on their heels."

In the very next sentence, apparently referring to comments about Iraq by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) but not to Mahoney's comments, the article stated that "[a]t times, such statements have been clearly taken out of context."

Mahoney again clarified his remarks on the September 4 edition of ABC News Now's Politics Live, telling ABC News political director David Chalian that "my statement was taken out of context to try to support the president's policies." Mahoney added: "[What] they didn't talk about was the fact that there's a raging civil war in most of the country and that we have a government that's ineffective."

From the September 4 edition of ABC News Now's Politics Live:

CHALIAN: You had actually remarked recently that you had observed some military success in Iraq and that the surge strategy was meeting with some success. Not usually what you hear from Democrats. Do you then think that this is a policy that should continue going forward so that it helps bring about the political reconciliation that we have not yet seen?

MAHONEY: Well, I think that the fact that my statement was taken out of context to try to support the president's policies, I think, is really what's kind of interesting here. I did go to Ramadi. I was in Al Anbar. And what we saw was a bit of good luck. We have a situation now where the Sunni tribal chiefs are no longer supporting Al Qaeda. As a result of that, we've seen a dramatic reversal of fortune because now as our troops get rid of Al Qaeda, we now have the local population supporting Americans, and therefore we've seen this change. And the good news is that wherever we can find areas that are relatively controlled by Sunnis and we have the support of the tribal chiefs, we can continue to take advantage of the fact that we can push Al Qaeda out of those areas, and that's good.

What they didn't talk about was the fact that there's a raging civil war in most of the country and that we have a government that's ineffective. We have a government that is representative of militias that are being financed by Iranians, and as a result we're not seeing any diplomatic progress.

From Mahoney's conference call:

MAHONEY: The overall situation, I think, is pretty obvious, whether it be in our conversations with General Petraeus, it's clear that the United States does not have the capability of maintaining the levels of -- that we've seen in both matériel and manpower to sustain the surge. What that tells you is, is that there's going to have to be a different strategy as how we move forward come the fall and going into next year. There is no doubt that there has been some significant improvements in fighting the war on terror. There is no doubt that on the ground, what we have seen is Sunnis, which have been loosely allied with Al Qaeda in Iraq -- and they have been allied with one another [gap in audio] about the Shia taking over the country, and what that potentially means to them, both economically and for their own personal safety, it is becoming clear that the Sunni population do not see that Al Qaeda in Iraq are necessarily the best allies to have.

And that was the primary change in Al Anbar. I mean, four months ago, five months ago, the last place the military would have taken a congressional delegation is into Ramadi. Ramadi was the most dangerous of all the locations, and the job that General [Walter] Gaskin has done, working with the tribal leaders, the job Colonel [John] Charlton had done providing the military to clean out Al Qaeda and then to quickly follow up by securing the neighborhoods and providing direct economic assistance between the United States Army and the local population has really made a difference and has really got Al Qaeda on their heels. And we're starting to see that across the area, the areas that General Petraeus has engaged Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But that's only one conflict. There's another conflict going on, and that's the Iranian support for the Shia and the Shia militias, and this is in areas where you have the Shia and Sunni together. That's where the majority of the violence continues, and this is the part that's the civil war. This is where historically you've had the Shia, which is the majority, 80 percent or so of the population, had been subjected by the Sunnis, and now the roles are reversed. And the concern in the local population, especially from the Sunnis, are their ability to provide physical safety and security for their selves and their families and their communities and what kind of economic opportunity they're going to have.

[...]

The question that you have, and the reason why the benchmarks are so important -- and matter of fact, I'll even say this, that Deputy Prime Minister [Barham] Salih, even said that he thought that the benchmarks were a good thing. He believed that the benchmarks are finally forcing the federal government in Iraq and their legislative body to finally sit down and have to deal with the crisis. That even though we're now in August, some subset of the leadership is going to be working -- Sunni and Shia are going to be working, and Kurds -- are going to be working in the next couple weeks to try to make some progress on these very issues. And I -- clearly, clearly, there is no solution here unless we can get a representative government where both Sunni and Shia and Kurd all feel represent the interests, the Iraqi interests. If that does not happen, we've got serious problems.

I mean, the reason why we're having the success, again, three reasons. One, against Al Qaeda because the Sunni population is turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq. They do not see them any longer as being allies. Second thing is our military has been able to clean out the Iraqi insurgents, I mean the Al Qaeda insurgents. And the third thing is -- and this is where we're -- you know, this is most troubling, and that is, if it wasn't for direct assistance of the United States military in these communities -- hiring people, doing economic development jobs, you know, organizing local, you know, local government -- we wouldn't have the success that we've had. These are the functions that the Iraqi government should be providing and are not. So what I see is, is I see a federal government in gridlock, not able to provide the leadership and bringing the country together and providing the resources out into the provinces that are necessary in order to support national reconciliation and ultimately success. So it is really a bad situation.