PZN: "They very much live within a bubble."


Click photo to play
Length: 1:54

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The president said: "I cannot learn it from your newscasts. I have got to learn it from people who are there on the ground."

All right. Let's get to our folks, then, who are on the ground.

Joining us this evening, Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware. He's been reporting from the region since 2001, spends lots of time outside the Green Zone. Our military analyst is retired Army Brigadier General David Grange. He was a commander in the first Gulf War in special-ops, stationed in western Iraq. And White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us this everything as well.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Michael, let's begin with you.

You heard what the president had to say, which is essentially, the good news that out there is not getting reported. Have you found that to be true on the ground where you have been?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, look, really, nothing could be further from the truth.

I mean, the fact that, when President Bush talks about those living on the ground, and he cites General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzad, I mean, these are men who could not be more divorced from the Iraqi reality. They very much live within a bubble, be it physically within the Green Zone or be it within the bubble of heavy U.S. protection.

And this is true even for their advisers and for the commanders and the American soldiers. I mean, they never take the uniform off. The Iraqi people can never talk to them unless through a filter.

It's very different than living amongst them. And when people say not enough good news stories are being told, you ask an Iraqi family what it is that they're experiencing when their street -- the bodies of their neighbors are showing up on their streets. Their kids can't go to school, for fear of crossing sectarian lines. And the kidnapping and killings are just going on around them -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Well, Michael, you raise a good point.

So, let's get to how exactly the president does get his information. That brings us to General Grange. You were there, General Grange.



O'BRIEN: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us, also, Michael Ware joining us from Baghdad, and General David Grange, thanks to all of you.