Michael Ware gave a stunning report to Wolf Blitzer on the situation in Baghdad and said Condi Rice was "so far divorced from the reality that she couldn't possibly hope to understand it".Blitzer: At this point, she comes in for a few hours, a day or whatever, into Iraq, she immediately goes to the very secure green zone. Does she really see what's happening inside Iraq? Does she leave there with a better appreciation of either the sectarian violence or the insurgency?
Ware: Of course not, Wolf. I mean, you could just imagine the umbrella of security that encases someone like the Secretary of State. But I mean, going from the airport, which is its own self-contained little bubble, to the green zone, which is the ultimate bubble here in Iraq, I mean, U.S. Officials and contractors and all manner of people will come into six to 12 months in Iraq but never leave the green zone. They don't know even what it's like to walk an Iraqi street, certainly not without the shroud of heavily-armed American soldiers about them. They don't know what it's like to go to someone's home and sit and talk with them, to shop in the markets, to have blackouts, to not have water, to have the cure for benzene. Secretary Rice is so far divorced from that reality that she couldn't possibly hope to understand it, certainly not from fleeting visits to an artificial bubble like the green zone. Wolf?
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