//Signed// W. Leon Smith
Publisher
March 18, 2007: Getting a bit desperate for final embed approval, I once again wrote my congresswoman and my senator. "Here is an update on my efforts to try to embed in Iraq, hopefully leaving on March 29, 2007. When I talked with MNFI Baghdad this morning, they said that they were still reviewing my application. With only ten days to go before I am scheduled to leave for Iraq, this doesn't give me much wiggle room to book my flight, etc. so I was wondering if you could give me a little help."
March 19, 2007: I received an encouraging e-mail from CPIC which stated, "Jane, my apologies for the delay..."
Maam, I guess that I understood the date you were talking about. At this time March 29th is way too early to know if you can embed in Kuwait . We have to have your paperwork first and then create a decision memo. This can take a couple of days and then it has to be approved by the command here. Are you still planning on transiting to Iraq? I was wondering how long you were going to be in Iraq because maybe we can work something out when you come back. I am sorry about the misunderstanding and did not realize that you were talking so soon, I figured you would go to Baghdad and then come back through and cover Kuwait. I apologize for the misunderstanding but like I said this process to embed here in Kuwait takes a bit and 6 days from now is not nearly enough time to get the command to sign off on this.
March 23, 2007: Joe Graifoli, a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, contacted me, stated that the Chronicle wanted to do a story on me. Joe then offered to help me get embedded, and his efforts seemed to produce results -- he was told that everything looked good and so, based on what they had told Joe, I booked a flight to Kuwait.
March 25, 2007: I learned from a reporter who was already in Iraq that all I had been told about bloggers not being allowed to embed just wasn't true. "Jane, you've been lied to. The Army has let a blogger live at Camp Liberty near Baghdad. His name is Michael Yon. He is only a blogger and he has been embedded for over one year. They give him an office and everything."
March 29, 2007: The San Francisco Chronicle ran a front-page story on my efforts to embed. "As Stillwater waited for her plane at the airport Wednesday, the Army was still trying to find a unit in which to embed her. 'Oh, yeah, her application looks fine,' said...a media embedding coordinator for Iraq. 'We're just trying to find a unit anywhere that will take her. There's a lot of people out there now.'" However, that day I left for Iraq, still not certain of having an embed -- not just within CPIC and the Green Zone but with an actual unit -- even after almost a whole year of trying to obtain one.
March 30 -- April 17, 2007: Upon arriving in Kuwait, I was flown to Baghdad and housed in CPIC. Things were looking great! I was going to get stories and be embedded outside the Green Zone and everything! And then I went to John McCain's press conference and asked him a hard question about Bush's plans to invade Iran. And the next day I also asked a hard question at General Caldwell's press conference regarding troop pull-outs. And after that, although CPIC started talking constantly about searching for an embed outside the Green Zone for me, no embed ever appeared. Other reporters came and went but I just continued to wait and haunt the CPIC offices, asking them several times a day if they would please find me an embed.
NPR had also arranged to take me into the Red Zone as did CNN. But right after the McCain conference, even those invitations suddenly dried up.
Finally I started looking for my own embeds and scored one with the Iraq Army. But then it too suddenly melted away. I also contacted CPIC supervisor Lt. Col. Garver and General Petraeus' office, etc. and was assured that my not getting an embed was unusual but that they would find me one. But none ever materialized. And whenever a reporter went out on an embed outside the Green Zone, I'd talk with CPIC about letting me go along. Their answer was always negative, citing the short notice of my requests. Finally someone told me that it was not CPIC's fault that I wasn't getting any embeds and that CPIC was merely following orders. The U.S. embassy itself was blocking my embeds. And other reporters told me that they had been warned off of talking to me as well.
And when I finally returned to the Kuwait airbase, guess what? My embed there had also magically disappeared.
Despite all these limitations placed on me, all the articles that I did manage to write from Iraq and Kuwait were featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Lone Star Iconoclast, the Berkeley Daily Planet and OpEd News as well as numerous other media outlets. Associated Press, the BBC and the Times of London ran articles about me.
April 17, 2007: I returned home to Berkeley and was interviewed on television by ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News.
May 1, 2007: I e-mailed CPIC that, "Someone just offered to sponsor another trip to Iraq for me so I am asking you to try to get the embed process going so that I could embed in one of the JSSs in Baghdad." Then I called CPIC to verify but was informed by phone that it was too late to get an embed for May so I changed my embed request date to June 16.
May 5, 2007: I wrote CPIC, "Sorry that my May embed request came too late to be shopped around but attached please find my embed request for June 16, 2007 to July 7, 2007. I am requesting to embed in a Baghdad JSS and/or the Baghdad Red Zone. And I would also like to embed with [a unit] in Anbar province as well if there is time. I have talked with the [unit commander] and he has okayed the embed. Thanks again for all of your help."
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