Reporter Left Behind Details 'Ruse' With Bush in Iraq

By: E&P Staff President Bush's sudden trip to Baghdad caught White House reporters by surprise -- deliberately so. But, as always, a few were chosen as pool reporters for the trip, as detailed by E&P this morning.

Now, in a pool report from one of the reporters left behind, Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the Baltimore Sun, we get a glimpse of the ruse and how the reporters here, at Camp David, experienced it -- under armed guard, as it happens.

Davis titled her pool report: "In Which The Intown Pool Discovers It Is Part of an Elaborate Ruse, And Is Never Actually In The Same Room As POTUS."

It follows.
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It was a few minutes after your unsuspecting pool had departed the file at Camp David in a minibus to head up to the compound, at 9:10 a.m., when Blackberries and cell phones began buzzing and chirping to herald the news that POTUS was not on the premises, or even in the country, but had instead snuck off the night before on a super-secret trip to Iraq.

Nevertheless, the bewildered pool was deposited at Camp at 9:20 a.m. and led by a Marine into the Evergreen Chapel, where we held for a little under 20 minutes guarded by two Marines holding large guns ? one in the balcony and one at the front of the chapel by the pulpit. We were then led down a paved, wooded path, where we held still longer in front of a lodge marked ?Laurel,? next to a fleet of golf carts emblazoned with ?Camp David.? It was during this wait that one of the White House?s ?In Case You Missed It? e-mails flashed across our Blackberry screens telling of Bush?s surprise trip to Baghdad, its subject-line taking on new meaning.

We were led into the Laurel lodge at 10:35 a.m., turning right to enter a rectangular, high-ceilinged conference room where top administration officials sat at a long conference table facing two plasma TV screens mounted on the wall under a circular Camp David seal. Those present were, from left to right: Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Iraqi Ambassador Samir al-Sumaidaie, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, and Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

The screen on the left was marked ?Baghdad,? and showed a grainy image of POTUS, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seated to his left, at a conference table in front of an Iraqi flag. The image transmitted somewhat haltingly, making movements appear jerky, but Bush?s remarks ? detailed in the travel pool report and on the transcript ? were clear. The [other] screen showed the scene at Camp David, with only Gonzales, Pace, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Sumaidaie and Negroponte in the frame. You have the account of what POTUS said during the teleconference.

When POTUS finished speaking, Maliki began in Arabic, and the Americans donned headphones to hear the translation, which was apparently being done by a man in a glassed-in booth in the far corner of the room, who wore a headset fitted with a microphone. The sound from Baghdad was muted a few moments into Maliki?s statement. Cheney gave a half-smile in the general direction of the pool as he listened to his translation and we stood watching, understanding nothing. Condi nodded slightly as she listened to Maliki. We were escorted out at 10:40.