Gates in Baghdad: Three Day Old Fish

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Oh please.

In light of Col. Timothy Reese’s memo regarding the rapid and irreversible deterioration of U.S. – Iraqi military cooperation since we withdrew from Baghdad June 30th, this photo of Secretary Gates hobnobbing with Iraqi military commanders last Tuesday in the Iraqi capital are just pure propaganda. And then, how much credibility are we to give to more of the same looking at photos shot the same day in Talil (1, 2, 3), a shared command post where U.S. troops have shifted to an advisory role?

(image: Stringer/Reuters. Baghdad July 28, 2009)