Media Picks up on McHenry; Pentagon Gets Involved

by: Brandon Friedman

Wed Apr 09, 2008 at 03:22:40 AM EDT

Via McClatchy:

Pentagon tells lawmaker not to air Green Zone video again

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon told a North Carolina lawmaker Tuesday that he couldn't re-air a video he'd shot in Baghdad after accusations surfaced that he breached operational security in detailing enemy rocket attacks.

Those accusations are 11 posts below this one.  The McClatchy piece--which appeared in the print version of Wednesday's Charlotte (NC) Observer--credited VoteVets with bringing this to light, as well as provided some answers to questions I still had.

On Monday, a veterans group called VoteVets.org accused McHenry of giving away intelligence information that could have aided terrorist organizations in targeting the Green Zone.

"The bottom line is that whoever launched that strike could take the information McHenry provided and use it to kill Americans in the Green Zone," wrote Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group that has called for troop withdrawal and promoted veterans for political office. "This is why professionals operating in a combat zone are trained not to reveal any battle damage after an attack."

After Friedman's posting, McHenry's office pulled the video and sent it to the Pentagon for review.

So they say.  McHenry's office followed with this statement on Tuesday afternoon:

"The Congressman shot the video in the company of State Department and military personnel, and was not briefed on withholding its publication," his spokesman Wes Climer said in a written statement. "We voluntarily removed the video after learning that it might infringe on accepted protocol, and then contacted officials at the Department of Defense, who supported our decision."

The Department of Defense "supported our decision?"  That's funny.  That's a mild way of saying, "The Department of Defense told us to shut our yaps or we won't ever be invited back into theater as part of a CODEL."

A Pentagon spokesman said he didn't know what McHenry was told, "but we routinely brief our operational rules to our visitors in Iraq and Afghanistan ."

"We do not as a matter of policy discuss attacks in a way that would provide the enemy any better understanding of the effectiveness of their attacks," said Lt. Col. Todd Vician.

A spokesman for the Multi-National Forces in Iraq said that he didn't know what the rules were for congressmen, but the military is not allowed to talk about battle damage.

This is like the parents telling the kid, "We don't do that in our family."  

And frankly, at this point, members of the military are tired of covering for these chickenhawk wannabe-heroes who go around looking for glory the easy way.  We're tired of them starting wars they can't finish and we're disgusted with their enthusiasm to use a military which they don't understand in the slightest.  

To be quite honest, it's only because McHenry is a Congressman that the Pentagon and MNF-Iraq spokesmen were so lenient with him.  

If Patrick McHenry wants to tell war stories so badly, he should resign his Congressional seat and go enlist.  He's only 32.  That way, he could get some training--so that next time he's in a combat zone trying to be a tough guy, he won't be such a bumbling, self-promotional fool about it.