Jason Rhyne

Congressmembers taking advantage of their August recess to visit Iraq have been shocked to discover copies of their biographies--which include detailed information about the legislators’ position on the war--in the hands of soldiers throughout the Green Zone.

“The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank,” writes the Washington Post in a story by Jonathan Weisman. “So when Rep. James Moran asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.”

What the soldier showed Moran was his own thumbnail biography, which informed military personnel and other officials in Baghdad exactly where Moran stood on the war.

“Moran on Iraq policy,” a section of the document read, listing as well some of Moran’s more controversial quotes, including “This has been the worse foreign policy fiasco in American history,” the Post reports.

California Rep. Ellen Tauscher says she received the same treatment--even though she initially backed the war.

“Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq with no end in sight,” her bio reads. “This is beyond parsing,” Tauscher told the Post. This is being slimed in the Green Zone,” she said, going on to dub the military’s manipulation as the “Green Zone fog.”

The icy reception for legislators hasn’t been limited to loaded bios. The Post also described the congressional delegations as “brief, choreographed and carefully controlled,” often “show[ing] only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see.”

“At one point, “ the paper reports, “as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.”

"Spin City," Rep. Moran said of the incident. "The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated."

Republican Jon Porter, now on his fourth trip to Iraq, was taken aback--especially by the bios. "I had never seen that in the past. That's new," he told the Post. "Now I want to see what they're saying about me."

Think Progress has obtained the following copies of the distributed bios of Reps. Moran and Tauscher.

Originally published on Friday August 31, 2007.