Freedom isn't the only thing we're spreading in Iraq.
Right in the middle of Armstrong-gate, we now find out the Bush Administration's tactic of paying off journalists is being practiced in Iraq.
From the Financial Times via Eschaton :
After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.
Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters.
Ah yes, ha ha ha...just like the good ole days.
The FT continues:
Giving gifts to journalists is common in many of the Middle East's authoritarian regimes, although reporters at the conference said the practice was not yet widespread in postwar Iraq.
Ironic, isn't it?
The same week we find out that Bush is paying off right-wing "journalists," we now find that government of Iraq is doing the same.
Is Allawi a quick learner, or what?
But this isn't the first time Allawi took an idea from Bush. They share the same speechwriter, don't they?
Watch, next we'll have Allawi coming up with the idea of death squads.