Now we have the latest in over dramatizing events in Iraq. The latest is “Operation Swarmer”. Time Magazine has uncovered how this has been nothing more than a media blitz:

Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.

The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the “largest air assault since 2003” in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence.

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. (“Air Assault” is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.

During yesterday’s press gaggle, Scott McClellan told reporters the President had “no idea” this operation was going on. It was actually a statement that took reporters and pundits by surprise. Why would the mouth piece of this administration make it look as though the President is not involved in his role as Commander in Chief?

Now that this article has come out I have a theory. This is will quickly become another case of “the media exaggerating the story”. The administration and Pentagon will use it to try and prove their point that the stories from Iraq are wrongly reported. This sounds like an over all plan to me. Considering the way the administration and military leaders have weaved interesting stories that turned out to be exaggerated fables in the past, why should we believe them on this?