A relatively slow day today.  The Governing Council was not ready to sign the TAL.  It looks like they will do it next week.  We have started the setup on it though.  Cong. Flake was in town on a CODEL visit.  Gordon and I took a minute to get our photo taken with him.  We have done a lot with him over the past few years.  He is a very easygoing guy. 

 

We also had Secretary Thompson back in today.  I had him for interviews with Fox and CNN that went very well.  The rest of the team had him out on the road at a couple of Hospitals and eating dinner with Wisconsin troops out at the BIAP (Airport).  The Ministry of health is the first Ministry that we are going to hand back to the Iraqi people and it is the most organized.  We have made huge gains in reinvigorating their health systems.  Their health technology was decades behind the times, but we are getting them up to speed.

 

Speaking of health issues, there is a gentleman named Rich Galen here with us.  Rich is an old friend of Gordon’s and the father of a good friend of mine.  Rich is a syndicated columnist in his normal life, but gave that up to come help strategic communications with regional media. Rich has been on the ground since November.  As part of his regional media outreach, he gave an interview to a San Francisco Radio station where he stated that we could use some Oreo’s in Baghdad, since that time we have literally been shipped hundreds of packages of Oreo’s.  Needless to say the goal of dropping a few pounds has been severally set back.  Enjoy the photo.

 

That is pretty much it for tonight.  Very busy week ahead.  History in the making coming up.  Responses are most appreciated.

 

Take Care Everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

History has begun.  We spent the majority of today preparing for the event that will announce the new constitution for Iraq.  Today was the deadline for the transitional administrative law.  This is the document that will outline the future of Iraq.  They did not reach a conclusion but we expect them to come out with it tomorrow.  We had a press conference at 10 pm this evening with three members of the Governing Council to give an update on where the meetings are.  It should appear on your news all day.  It ended up being quite a challenge because we had some major power issues and hour ahead of the conference that we had to jump through our asses to trouble shoot.  But all went well.   We went out for a beer afterwards and met some very cool Brits and took a minute to just relax. 

 

Be watching over the next few days.  You should some very historic movements from the Governing Council.  The attached photos give you just a snap shot.

 

Take Care Everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

Fridays again are a little less demanding, but today we had Sec. Tommy Thompson in town.  He did a tour of a military hospital and then came over to the conventions center to do a few interviews.  We did a shot for Fox news and Al Hurra.  Then we took him around and introduced him to some of the troops and over to the Press Center.  The Col. That runs the conventions military detachment is a Wisconsan so Thompson got all fired up to meet him.

 

We also started going through some of our new toys as well.  We are getting over a million dollars worth of equipment for the studio, mobile A/V support, the press conference room and the press center.

 

After all of that was done we did a live shot for Dan with NBC Nightly news which went very well.  Look for Dan to do big things after he finishes here.  He is a talented spokesperson.

 

The big thing to do at the end of the day (which usually really is the end of the day) everyone watches DVD’s on the computers.  Tonight we watched So I married an Axe Murderer and Office Space.  A little levity to end the day. 

 

Well not much else right now.  We have a lot coming up in the next week.

 

Take Care Everyone

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

Can you say event, event, event.  We opened the Press Center today with Ambassador Bremer.  Then we took him over to the IMN studios for interviews with Arab Media. Then we had General Sanchez in the Press Center.  Then we had Senor and Kimmit in the Press Center.  Then we had Senor on Nightline.  All this while making good progress on the studio and working on planning several other events.  It was a busy day but our team is working very well and everyone is pleased with how we are helping.

 

The issue with the audio we captured keeps coming up with the media. I love it.  It is so much fun watching Dan pull the correct quote out.  

 

The interview with Nightline went very well.  It took place at about 8 pm this evening.  We ended up having about 45 minutes to set the shot up and had a lot of fun playing with the look.  We work everyday with Military crews that are specialists in Audio and a few that are specialists in broadcasting. They hung around for the interview and we ended being able to have a little tutorial of sorts for them with the cameramen.  We laid out the shot and they watched on the monitor to see how the various pieces we were playing with affected the shot.  The guys ate it all up.  As dull as it sounds, it was actually pretty cool.

 

They really are a top notch group.  They are all from the Guard.  They have a great attitude about everything, nothing but can do!  Pretty amazing for the supposed part time soldier.  These guys are the ultimate professionals.

 

Well I am going to head to bed now.

 

Take Care Evryone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

It was a very interesting day today.  We have a friend, Scott Sforza who is with WH Communications, that comes in and out of Iraq frequently to work on communications issues.  In many ways he is the reason that we are here.  He has been on the ground since Tuesday of last week. A great guy and when he is on the ground things get done.  He is leaving tomorrow, so I velcroed myself to him so we could try and get a few more things done before he left and so I could meet all of his contacts and to keep pushing things forward.  We made good progress.  We got the filing center pretty much done (see pictures).  Made progress on the Studio and did briefings and interviews for Senor and Kimmitt.

 

I had some interesting conversations with folks.  The guys in the first picture helped us hang all of the flags in the filing center.  The one on the right is Ali (sp) (Yes Jessica the song from Aladdin is totally going through my head).  He is an engineer and helps run the facilities side of the Convention Center.  As we finished the night, he asked me when we were going to start giving visas to visit the United States.  We had a long discussion about the travel restrictions that he has been living under with Saddam.  The last time he left the country was 1979.  His father was a merchant so when he was young he was able to travel with his father, but when Saddam took power in 1979 that all went out the window.  The only way you could leave the country under Saddam was to get government approval and pay through the nose. All he wants to do now is travel.  He wants the CPA to set up a travel agency at the Convention Center.  It’s exciting to see his enthusiasm, but hard to fathom what they lived through.

 

After we left the convention center we went to a Chinese restaurant that opened a few weeks ago in the Green zone.  It’s late at night so we were the only ones that were in the restaurant and we started to talk with the waitress and the owner of the place.  They were actually Chinese.  They decided that there would be an opportunity to start a business so they flew to Jordan and then drove 10 hours to Baghdad.  They found a location and opened the restaurant and will be opening an Internet café in the next 10 days.   Capitalism at its finest!

 

Well it is getting late and I have an early morning.

 

Take care everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

We had a good day today, a little frustrating at points but good none the less.  We had more interviews for Bremer with Arab media as well as more briefings for Dan and General Kimmitt.  All went very well.  One of the challenges that we face is that things are very fluid when it comes to the schedule.  The situation forces it to be – whether it is a security issue or melt down with the Governing Council – flexibility is a must, which makes advance very difficult.  

 

We have laid on several great events (and sent teams out into the field) only to have them canceled or severally altered, but that is just the challenge that we will deal with and overcome.  We are looking at this as we have 127 days until the hand over of the government and any day we don’t get a message out is a lost opportunity to win hearts and minds.

 

Some folks were asking about our contacts with Iraqis.  Are contact thus far has been limited.  There are a significant amount of Iraqis that live and work in the green zone.  Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is the big contractor for everything you can think of and they hire a lot of Iraqis.  With this group I have been amazed at the proficiency of English.  The majority of these folks have passable English and a lot of the folks that I have come into contact with just floor me with how fluently they speak.  The guy vacuuming the convention center was incredible.

 

Our contact in the red zone has been similar, but a little different.  The English is still surprisingly good, but definitely not as wide spread.  Our contact in the red zone is limited to visits to event sites where we always have a significant security presence.  It is very common for the Iraqis to stand and watch you in groups during the site visit.  You kind of feel like a monkey in a cage at times. If you have a camera they love for you to take their picture. If you have camera in your hand, they will yell for you to take their picture.  If you’re a female and you have a camera in your hand they really get excited and surround you if they are in a group to see the digital photo.

 

Everyone that I have come into contact with has been extremely gracious and deferential. 

 

I have included some photos of our room.  Gordon and I were lucky enough to get into a trailer with Dan and our friend Brian McCormack.  They have half and Gordon and I have the other half.  It looks bad in the photos, but actually it is just fine.  We could be living in a tent or ballroom with a couple hundred of our close personal friends so there will be no complaining from me.  Our heater hasn’t been working in our room and it has been very cold the past few nights (30’s) – which leads to a very funny Gordon story that I will tell everyone when we get home.  (It is a very visual story.)

 

Well that is all for tonight.

 

Take Care Everyone!

 

 

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

Pretty eventful day today.  Rumsfeld was in town and we took him to see the guys at the Police Academy.  He had a private meeting with the Iraqis who captured # 41 on the black list and then we took him out to give the recruits a big shot in the arm for completing their training.  The graduation of the first class of Police Officers is next week.  The Director of the Academy is a 6’5 350lb Scottish cop.  A great guy, salt of the earth.  You can only understand every third word he says, but he’s great.  Watch your news they should have some coverage of the deputy minister getting the crowd all fired up and chanting for Rummy.  Rummy put on a great speech for the guys.

 

It was an interesting event to be a part of because these guys literally are the ground level of remaking this country.  If you don’t have trust in your police forces to keep you safe, who can you trust?  These people are putting themselves in huge danger by being a part of the police force, but they do it and are very proud and eager to make their country a better place.  We had one female that we were going to have in a camera shot, but she refused because the danger is so bad for these people, she lies to her family and tells them that she works at a library. And yet she still wants to do the job.  Pretty inspiring.

 

The Aussie’s on the list will be happy to know that we just set up an interview for our Spokesman Dan Senor with the Aussie “60 minutes”.  I had a nice chat with the sound tech who actually grew up in Canberra. It should be airing in the next week, so keep your Eye out for it.

 

On another funny note, you go all the around the world to Baghdad, and while doing laundry you meet a Helicopter pilot from Tucson, who grew up in Mesa.  Man it is a small world.

 

I attached a couple of photos from today. Hopefully I won’t overload as many e-mails.  Brent and Tom, I threw in a photo of a very busy soccer field at the Police Academy.  Maybe you guys could forward this to Scott and get him to send some balls and backpacks out.  There are soccer fields all over the place, and I am sure that we could find some youth orgs that would love the stuff.  I watched a little bit of a basketball tournament the other day at the Olympic stadium.  They love their sports.

 

Take care everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

Nothing much to report today.  We had a few interviews with Geraldo and more work on our filing center and Studio.  The rest of the week will be extremely busy. 

 

I drove for the first since being here.  Just around the green zone, but it felt good to be behind the wheel of a Suburban again. 

 

That is all for tonight. I have to go finish my laundry and the get to bed.  Much more tomorrow.

 

Take Care Everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

 

Today was very eventful!  After a very late night I slept in until 8:30 am.  When I got into the office there was a big furor over an interview that the Ambassador had given to Al Arabia yesterday, the station that had rolled us so bad.  It seems that they misinterpreted Bremer’s comments and Reuters and BBC were taking Al Arabia’s story and running with it.

 

Basically they had Bremer saying that it will take 12 – 15 months to hold elections, when in truth the timeframe had been put forth as an estimate by the UN.  I know it sounds trivial, but in the end it goes to credibility for the Ambassador.  He has not announced when elections will take place and has actually said that it is a decision that US and UN will help the Iraqi people reach.

 

Where it became eventful for us, was that I had been pushing on one of our Press people to record all of our interviews, but in particular the Arabic interviews, so that we have a transcript of the questions the Interpreter asked the Ambassador.  They had not been capturing these interviews, so there was no recourse when something was reported inaccurately.  Christina sat in the satellite truck with a digital recorder and taped both the questions and answers.  I sat and transcribed the answer in question and low and behold the Ambassador had said it correctly!  We were able to throw it in the BBC and Reuters face that they were reporting inaccurately.  It made it as a lead on CNN and few other places.  It is always kind of fun to stick it to the media.

 

From there I had walk-thrus at the Olympic Center and the 2^nd Cavalry unit where they are training the ICDC (Iraqi Civil Defense Corp)  - The Government and military live on acronyms.  There were basketball games going on at the Olympic center.  It was kind of cool.  I have included a photo from here of the pep band.  Look for big stuff in the next few days.

 

Take care all!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

Well it is about 10:00 pm Friday night in Baghdad, about 12 noon for most of the people on my list.  Our office is about as quiet as I have seen it.  Our office is in with Strategic Communications in the Green room. It is a room that looks like it was a nice sized reception space.  It is right in the middle of everything.  See the photos attached.

 

Today was a pretty good day.  We slept in until about 8:30 am.  Most people take until 12 noon on Friday because Friday is the holy day in Islamic countries.

 

A couple of the things that we are working on moved forward today.  We are helping our friends from White House Communications build an International Press Filing Center at the Iraqi Convention Center. We made small progress on that project. We also made some in-roads on building our Studio at the Palace, again in conjunction with our friends at White House Communications.  These two projects are going to be instrumental in altering the way the International media cover what is happening here.  If we can be a small hand in these projects our trip will have been worth every minute.

 

For our Bread and Butter work we did a couple of interviews for Bremer for Arabian TV and a production company out of Maryland.  They went well, but we got rolled severally by the Arabian TV.  It is funny how 15 minutes can become 30.  We did the interviews outside.  It was beautiful day today, very reminiscent of Phoenix in Winter.  There are photos attached from our setup.

 

Several big things coming in the weeks ahead, please watch your news coverage.

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

A pretty eventful day today.  We toured a few sites in the red zone for possible events.  A power plant in Baghdad and a Police facility.   A lot of time spent driving in traffic wearing body armor (that part is necessary but not too fun.)  We also had a major Press Conference with Bremer that we helped clean up.  Small steps every day.  The attached photos will give you a quick snapshot.There is also a photo of a sandstorm that we had the other day..

 

When we venture out of the green zone I am completely dumbfounded by how one man could completely devastate his country.  This is a nation that should be extremely wealthy from its natural resources, but the people live in a poverty that matches or exceeds the worst of border towns in Mexico.  There is garbage everywhere that you go.  We are going to open the country’s first landfill.  The sewage system is pathetic.  The palace regularly reeks of sewage.  It truly shows you the value of what we are fortunate enough to call home.

 

Take care everyone!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

We had a little drop by in our offices today.  

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications

It was another good day today.  I took my first trip outside of the green zone to visit a law school.  We hope to use for an event at some point soon.  We then had interviews that we setup this afternoon.  This work is strong mix of our Presidential and Cabinet work over the past couple of years. Very hands on with the principals, which is a lot of fun.  We have a lot more involvement in shaping message and image.  Very challenging and exciting.

 

Watch for Dan Senor on NBC Nightly with Tom Brokaw tonight.  Some of our work!

 

Gregg Edgar

Coalition Provisional Authority

Office of Strategic Communications