Mark Kirk: “I just returned from Iraq with 15 bipartisan colleagues, and I learned that 90 percent of Western reporters have left…”

“I just returned from Iraq with 15 bipartisan colleagues, and I learned that 90 percent of Western reporters have left Iraq. Those who remain can only get their stories out if they report injuries to Americans. We are not allowed to learn what else is happening in Iraq. The press does not like to report on other press, but that is a story here. Iraq had only one newspaper, Uday Hussein's newspaper. Now it has over 100, like Azzaman, Ashiraa, Ibn Al-Balad, Al-Nahdhah, Al Mutamar, and an English-language newspaper, Iraq Today. But today is also the first day of school in Iraq, and we have now bookbags given to children in Iraq. This is a bookbag filled with school supplies, notes, calculators, rulers, pens, papers, that went to 1.5 million Iraqi children for the start of school. These are also things that are happening in Iraq, but we are not allowed to hear about them from our newspapers.”