I sure hope Michael Ware, CNN’s Baghdad correspondent, has his life insurance paid up. With the recent suspicious killing of two reporters, one clearly as the result of an American airstrike, he has to be a pretty brave man to say the following (via Raw Story):

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spoke on Tuesday with Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, asking him about the newly-released National Intelligence Estimate which “suggested al Qaeda is seeking to leverage al Qaeda in Iraq for attacks against US targets outside of Iraq.”

“That statement in the NIE is about three years too late,” Ware responded. “Al Qaeda has reorganized itself through the war in Iraq that America handed it on a silver platter in its own backyard. … The war here … has energized the jihadi community across the globe.” Ware asserted that “Iraq veterans” among foreign terrorists “are creating a whole new momentum back in their homelands,” but said that “the true danger of al Qaeda in Iraq is the template or the model it offers” even to those who have never been to Iraq.

Equally quick to insist that the NIE should not be taken too literally, Ware said, “We must be aware of the spin, the smoke and mirrors from the administration, trying to reshape the message on Iraq being specifically about al Qaeda … trying to evoke some Pavlovian response from the American public to fear them into again supporting the war. That doesn’t quite hold water.”

No, the Bush spin conflating Al Qaeda in Iraq with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan doesn’t hold water, despite the frequent talking point by the Bush administration and the Pentagon recently that the only people American troops are fighting against, and killing, in Iraq are “Al Qaeda fighters,” a claim most US media has reported uncritically and without challenge. The New York Times Public Editor saw fit to criticize his own newspaper’s reporting in this regard. Even Stratfor, hardly a bastion of “dirty fucking hippies” and other assorted lefties, has lately taken the Bush administration to task for its deliberate attempt to confuse the American public by claiming that Al Qaeda in Iraq is identical to the Al Qaeda organization headed by Osama Bin Laden which attacked America on 9/11:

(cont.)

Bush has not given a straightforward justification for his concerns from the beginning, and he is not starting now, although the thought of an Iran-dominated Iraq should give anyone pause. But in arguing that the war in Iraq is a war against al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda is getting stronger, he justifies the continuation of the war. In fact, Bush explicitly said that the people who attacked the United States on 9/11 are the same ones bombing American troops in Iraq today. Therefore, the NIE report and Chertoff’s warning of attacks are part of the administration’s effort to build support for continuing the fight.

Bush’s problem is that the idea that Iraq is linked to al Qaeda rests on semantic confusion — many things are called al Qaeda, but they are different things. Something called al Qaeda is in Iraq, but it has little to do with the al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11. They share little but the name.

Yet, perhaps no one has spoken out as forcefully as Michael Ware has done, frequently criticizing those, such as John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who make audacious and ludicrous claims of success for Bush’s policies in Iraq. Between Ware and Laura Logan it’s a virtual tie for which Baghdad correspondent for an America news outlet has been the most outspoken in challenging the constant flow of misinformation emanating from the Pentagon, the White House and war supporters in general. Here’s what he had to say about General Pace’s comments that there has been a “sea change” in the security situation in Iraq:

“With the greatest of respect … I think the general, unfortunately, is suffering from the luxury of distance,” replied Ware. “I think he’s expecting far too much to be able to peer through the US bubble of protection.”

Ware pointed out, for example, that attacks against US forces by al Qaeda in Anbar Province may have dropped significantly, but only because “America’s subcontracted out the fight against al Qaeda to the Baathist insurgents and the tribes.”

“Is there a sea-change in Baghdad?” Ware concluded. “Well, if he’s seeing one, I’m afraid I’m not. Maybe you can see it from the Green Zone, but you can’t see it out here in the Red Zone where Iraqis live.”

It’s blunt statements like these that have made Ware a target of uncontrolled wingnut fury. They even ginned up a fabricated controversy recently in which they asserted, with little or no basis in fact, that Ware had laughed out loud and otherwise acted in a rude manner to disrupt a McCain press conference in the Green Zone back in April. Naturally, the best evidence, the videos of the news conference in question, indicated no disruption, through laughter or otherwise, was caused by anyone at the press conference while McCain was speaking. Statements by other reporters who attended the press conference also supported Michael Ware’s denial of this unfounded claim by (surprise, surprise) conservative provocateur, Matt Drudge. No doubt these new statements by Ware will further incense the Bush dead-enders, and lead to a new round of Ware bashing by the self-deluded Keyboard Kommandos of the right.

So, keep speaking truth to power Michael. That is what a free press is supposed to do in a democracy, after all. Just watch your back, ok?