A September 13 article in The New York Times by reporter Carl Hulse about legislative proposals for Iraq reported that "[a]s Democrats huddled Wednesday to prepare for the floor debate, a group of leading House Republicans arrived in Iraq to demonstrate their backing for the president." The article added that members of the Republican group “had been in Iraq less than five hours, but in a conference call with reporters they said their initial briefings had already confirmed improvements,” and quoted House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) saying, “Clearly what's happened over the last three months has been real success.” But the Times article did not report who had briefed Boehner nor did it give any indication that Hulse or any of the reporters on the conference call had asked Boehner who had briefed him. Hulse failed to provide any details on the content of the purported briefing. Other media accounts of visits by congressional delegations to Iraq -- including an August 26 article in the Times -- have reported that the trips, in the words of the August 26 Times article, “have amounted to a kind of Pentagon charm offensive.” The August 26 article further reported that the trips are “highly choreographed affairs” that “have clearly set the story line for the September debate, cementing the perception that the military is making progress,” and that "[t]he Congressional Iraq tours rarely include chats with ordinary Iraqis."

An August 31 Washington Post article also described visits by congressional delegations as “choreographed and controlled” and added that such trips “often have shown only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see.” From the August 31 Post article:

More than two dozen House members and senators have used the August recess to travel to Iraq in the hope of getting a firsthand view of the war ahead of commanding Gen. David H. Petraeus's progress report in two weeks on Capitol Hill. But it appears that the trips have been as much about Iraqi and U.S. officials sizing up Congress as the members of Congress sizing up the war.

Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as [Rep. James P.] Moran [D-VA], [Rep. Ellen O.] Tauscher [D-CA] and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.

Tauscher called it “the Green Zone fog.”

“Spin City,” Moran grumbled. “The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated.”

[...]

Still, Porter was quick to add, for all the drawbacks, the trip was worth it.

“No doubt you will have people speak the company talking points,” Porter said. “But I spent time with people who were not officers, four of them from Nevada, two who were very blunt" about their support for the war and their anger over partisan fighting in Washington.

“I tend to lean with the rank-and-file members of military who have nothing to gain,” he added. “They want to go home as soon as possible.”

Further, the Politico reported on September 12 that "[b]efore embarking, the Republican leader clearly intended to use the trip as a venue to help him frame an upcoming debate over the war." That same day, The Hill reported that Boehner's spokesman “said the delegation will attend a series of briefings during the trip that will cover various issues,” including “the improved security situation as a result of the troop surge.”

As Media Matters for America has noted, many media outlets have failed to ask visitors to Iraq about whether they had military escorts -- and the extent to which the military chose the sites that they visited. For instance, the media largely ignored the question in discussions with Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who wrote a New York Times op-ed supporting the troop surge. However, when asked by CNN host Wolf Blitzer, Pollack responded that the trip “was largely organized by the military.”

Several media outlets also uncritically reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) touted the military's purported success in making a Baghdad market safer. But an April 3 New York Times article later reported that the delegation arrived “with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees -- the equivalent of an entire company -- and attack helicopters circled overhead” and that “the merchants there [in the market] were incredulous about the Americans' conclusions.”

From the September 13 New York Times article:

The struggle to settle on a party alternative illustrates the problems Democrats are having finding a way to take on the president that unites their party and avoids criticism that they are weak on national security.

As Democrats huddled Wednesday to prepare for the floor debate, a group of leading House Republicans arrived in Iraq to demonstrate their backing for the president. The lawmakers, led by Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, had been in Iraq less than five hours, but in a conference call with reporters they said their initial briefings had already confirmed improvements.

“Clearly what's happened over the last three months has been real success,” said Mr. Boehner, who previously visited Iraq in July 2006.