Winks and Giggles at the State Department

C-SPAN addicts listen up. There are laughs to be found in amid the doublespeak of your average daily State Dept. press briefing.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A State Department press briefing sounds like it would be a dreary affair. Well, maybe we’ve become hopeless news geeks, but here at the Wire we think the daily showdown between story-hungry reporters and their slippery nemesis, State Department spokesman James Rubin, is high comedy.

Check out this exchange at the May 24 daily briefing. In his opening statement, Rubin announced the State Department would be providing some “non-lethal assistance” to Iraqi groups who oppose Saddam Hussein. Reporters get inventive in squeezing some details about the plan out of Rubin.

Rubin: I also want to announce that we are planning to forward to the Hill in the next few weeks our plans for initiating a draw-down on non- lethal equipment and training under the Iraq Liberation Act. Under this plan, and in consultation with the Iraqis — that is, the opposition Iraqis — we would provide assistance under three broad categories which will help to build unity among the opposition, develop greater political infrastructure, and enable them to get their message out more effectively.

These categories are: The establishment of an opposition headquarters and satellite offices; training; and public advocacy on behalf of the Iraqi people. This assistance will help the Iraqi opposition build further cohesion and representation of the broad spectrum of Iraqis who oppose Saddam Hussein. There will be a briefing later this afternoon after the meeting here in the Briefing Room with some senior State Department officials who can go into some more detail, but I can try to take some of your questions on this now.

Question: Training in what?

Rubin: It’s non-lethal assistance. Training and civil administration preparing for day-after scenarios for the recovery of an Iraq free of Saddam Hussein. We’re not talking about lethal assistance at this time, so this is equipment from existing Department of Defense inventories that can be used to help them organize themselves and create a more unified front and to be in a better position to get their message out to the Iraqis, who we believe are supportive of their goals.

Question: Could you – just – if you possibly can – one or two examples, as if we could hold this assistance in our hands, what would we be holding?

Rubin: Equipment that would be non…

Question: Not a hand grenade but …

Rubin: A computer.

Question: A computer.

Question: Jamie, maybe I missed this. You said three broad categories and then you came up with … or one?

Rubin: Establishment of an opposition headquarters.

Question: That’s one?

Rubin: That’s one.

Question: Satellite offices is two?

Rubin: No, that’s “and satellite offices.” That would be one.

Question: What’s two?

Rubin: Training of the kind that … in how to organize the opposition and that would be a second. And the third — that’s three, after two — would be public advocacy on behalf of the Iraqi people — that would be in the communications field primarily. But there may be some obvious overlap.

Rubin went on to elaborate on other types of non-lethal assistance the U.S. would provide to anti-Hussein groups:

Question: You said the establishment of an opposition headquarters, here in Washington?

Rubin: Well, the satellite … the offices we would envisage … and it’s obviously something we would be consulting with the Iraqi opposition on … but we would envisage offices … we would not be consulting with the Iraqi government. Let me re-phrase my half a phrase that drew a titter. We would envisage offices in London, New York, and hopefully in the region.

Question: What hotel? (Laughter.)

Rubin: These are … we’re pushing … at least some of us are pushing these questions …because you’re on the record and the briefing is not going to be on the record. So it’s better to get …

Rubin: I think we’ve done about 15 questions by my count.

Question: No, and I say I’m apologizing in a sense for extending what you hope would be just an introduction. We would take all of our questions …

Rubin: No, I was prepared for some questions.

Question: Well, I’m still kind of quizzical about who these groups are … I’m wondering why they aren’t … they’ve been fighting Saddam Hussein from some of the better hotels in London … what is their … what are their credentials? Are they democrats? Are they … have they ever done anything to try to un-horse Saddam Hussein? Are they fundamentalists – against the seculars who run Iraq? There are a lot of reasons not to like Saddam Hussein.

Rubin: And all of them good ones.

Question: Well, some of them, they don’t like his secularism, for instance.

Rubin: Well, we’re not against religion.

Question: I know that, but you …

Rubin: Some might be. We’re not.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate