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New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Slams Obama Admin's Handling of Iraq

AP
September 10, 2014

New York Times Baghdad bureau chief Tim Arango participated in an "Ask Me Anything" Monday on Reddit, during which he slammed the Obama administration's handling of Iraq.

Arango announced the AMA on his official Twitter account to confirm its authenticity. Questions covered a wide range of topics from the ins and outs of reporting from an international war zone to the ethnic tensions within the country.

The conversation turned to the Obama administration when one Reddit user asked Arango how he would "rate the Obama administration's actions in Iraq."

"It's not my job to rate the Obama administration's actions in Iraq. But I will tell you that after 2011 the administration basically ignored the country," Arango said.

"When officials spoke about what was happening there, they were often ignorant of the reality. They did not want to see what was really happening because it conflicted with their narrative that they left Iraq in reasonably good shape."

Arango then recounted the administration's reaction to a 2012 story he wrote on violence inside of Iraq.

"Tony Blinken, who was then Biden's national security guy and a top Iraq official, pushed back, even wrote a letter to the editor, saying that violence was near historic lows," Arango said. "That was not true."

"Even after Fallujah fell to ISIS at the end of last year, the administration would push back on stories about Maliki's sectarian tendencies, saying they didn't see it that way."

Arango then said the administration engaged in "a concerted effort" to "not acknowledge the obvious until it became so apparent--with the fall of Mosul--that Iraq was collapsing."