Recently, I wrote about Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi "private visit" with senior American officials, including the President, VP and Secretary of Defense, as well as key Senators and Congressmen.  This visit took place Friday, August 25, 2006. Contemporaneous accounts only disclose Mahdi's visit with the Secretary of Defense.  AP's account was headlined, "Rumsfeld and Iraqi official say Iraq is getting safer." This was usually paired up with a story about the violence and chaos in Iraq and an obligatory commentary castigating Rumsfeld for some real or imagined sins mishandling Iraq. The TV guys ran quick clips of the Secretary and Mahdi outside the Pentagon accompanied by a dismissive and sneering voice—over.   Based on extensive news database searches this is the only mention of this meeting until Jackson Diehl's  Washington Post piece, which I excerpted from generously in my earlier commentary.  While Diehl's column is generally...(Read Full Post)