ABC >> Bush read Iraq (not so good news) Memo on his way to Baghdad

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=2098207

<snip>

ABC News has also learned that President Bush read the cable on his way to Baghdad during his surprise visit to the new Iraqi government last week.

The cable's author remains unknown, but State Department officials told reporters that U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad was not the author. Although Khalilzad's name appears at the bottom of the message, it is standard practice for an ambassador's name to appear below all such correspondence leaving the embassy.

When asked to respond to the cable today, a State Department spokesman responded broadly, saying: "Yes, there are problems. Yes, there are challenges. We are working to solve them. The Iraqi government is working to solve them. But broadly speaking, you've got some very positive things going on."

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071

'Wash Post' Obtains Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

NEW YORK The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says shows that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."

This cable outlines, the Post reported Sunday, "the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government."

It's actually far worse than that, as the details published below indicate, which include references to abductions, threats to women's rights, and "ethnic cleansing."

...

As a footnote in one of the 23 sections, the embassy relates, "An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militiast are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq."