Why the Need to Lie Again?

”Operation Swarmer”

With much fanfare, this Administration told us that they had just done the biggest air power battle of this war, since the invasion of Iraq. Another “Shock & Awe”. Hurrah!

Now the real story is coming out. And here’s how it goes.

Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted Humvees, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough, slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.

The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural area northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the “largest air assault since 2003″ in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence.

there were no air strikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.

Our soldiers and Black Hawk helicopters being used for a photo-op is outrageous. What was this Administration so afraid of coming out in the media, that they would waste the time and money better spent somewhere else? But why tell a lie that is so easily exposed? Is it that they just can’t tell the truth anytime?

Although, I am glad for our soldiers that were in on this. It gave them a reprieve from all the horrors they face every day. The military and the reporters helped themselves to the Farm women’s freshly baked bread. It was the only worthwhile thing to come from that “massive air strike”. Almost a picnic.