Iraqi Leader Disparages US Media Coverage

U.S. media coverage of Iraq was so gloomy that during a recent visit to the U.S. the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan wondered whether the situation had deteriorated to such a degree during his absence that he should stay away.

"CNN International and [Arabic television network] al-Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq," Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani was quoted as telling a visiting group of Americans on Monday.

"When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn't return," he said.

Barzani was speaking during a meeting with a group of Americans who have lost sons during the conflict in Iraq. The group is in the country, according to the trip organizers, to learn for themselves what their loved ones died for.

The Americans also met with Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani.

"The emotional meeting lasted for an hour as the families and Barzani exchanged stories of loss at the hands of Saddam Hussein's violent regime," reported Joe Wierzbicki, spokesman for Move America Forward (MAF), the group that organized the visit.