Jeff Koopersmith

CENTCOM Briefings Reveal More Than Pentagon Pap
by Jeff Koopersmith

April 7, 2003 -- WASHINGTON (apj.us) -- Every morning at 7 AM I watch a gaggle of reporters ask inane questions of the king of patience, Brigadier (soon to be three-star) General Vincent Brooks at Central Command -- or "CENTCOM," as cable television titillates.

Brooks is a classically trained Pentagon flack who does a terrific job besting the writers and on-air personalities in the room, all of who appear to have just climbed out of bed at 4 PM local Qatar time.

The Central Command press room looks like a bunker decorated as the 1960's Star Trek set, complete with an array of flat panel television screens boldly displaying a clawing American eagle or, when needed, the latest video-game-like duck shoots, which never show body parts flying out of exploding Iraqi tanks. What's with that, anyway? Does someone inside the Command erase them?

The walls of the "bunker" are covered in what appears to be camouflage -- for drama, I suppose. Brooks stands before a stainless-steel base walnut lectern which looks like the navigation station of a costly yacht. All is very prim.

First things first: has anyone told these journalists that they might think about getting dressed before wandering in? One can hardly stand the inanity as one bed-headed reporter after another asks such questions as, "Could you tell us whether or not our soldiers are still drinking Tang from those yellow food packs that look like cluster bombs?" or, "General, why didn't you blow up the Baghdad bowling alley?"

I expect the press corps to begin appear in pajamas any day now.

The most hilarious scenes occur when the put-upon female reporters rise to ask a question. Why they stand is no secret: they have to so the hormonal males can ogle them.

One of the women, whose pair of "weapons of mass distraction" even I could not help noticing, seemed not to have noticed the sidelong leers she got each time she leaned toward the muff-encased boomed microphone. Another, who sneers and favors very tight jeans and body-clinging waist-high shirts, has a derrière that could compete with Jennifer Lopez.

One finds oneself wondering who's doing who on those long Doha nights.

The men come in all shapes and forms -- but suffice it say that they are, in the main, sheepish, standing before the imposing and in-fighting-shape General Brooks, all of them clad in their wrinkled khakis and shish kebab-stained polo shirts.

Are these guys trying to look overworked for their editors, or is this the "look" we'll be seeing a J. Press next fall?

Occasionally, an Arab reporter will get up and ask a snide question along the lines of, "General, do you actually believe that Iraqi women in Baghdad will greet your troops with open arms?"

Brooks is never, ever rattled. He'll usually answer without the slightest emotion -- quoting the latest Pentagon pap with aplomb.

Another observation I make has to do with what General Brooks wears to these press conferences. He is dressed, like the walls, in desert camouflage. But why? Does he expect to man a machine gun any moment -- or is this simply another dramatic touch, to ease the boredom which is far too evident on these journalist's faces at all times?

I expect some of the tartier scribes to ask Brooks one morning, "Boxers or briefs?"

Pun intended!