Briefing drought

Pentagon briefing drought nears 1-year mark amid Iran tension

Celebrities such as Gene Simmons and Gerard Butler have showed up in the briefing room, but Pentagon spokespeople haven't briefed on camera since May 2018.

By MICHAEL CALDERONE

The mood in the Pentagon briefing room was tense Friday when officials went on the record for the first time to blame Iran for recent flare-ups in the Middle East.

Two high-ranking Pentagon officials told reporters that U.S. intelligence had linked Iran to attacks on oil tankers near the Persian Gulf and in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The duo, speaking after weeks of anonymous leaks, did not provide any direct evidence or reveal sources who could back up the claim.

“That sounds like WMD,” Task & Purpose reporter Jeff Schogol said, referring to the case the George W. Bush administration made for war before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

One of the pair, Vice Admiral Michael Gilday, replied that officials had learned through “intelligence reporting” that Iran was responsible, according to a transcript of the session, which was on the record but not on camera. New York Times reporter Helene Cooper responded, “So, we have to take your word on it?”

The Pentagon press corps has chafed for months at what reporters see as a sharp decline in access to information, including limited access to officials during trips. Celebrities such as Kiss rocker Gene Simmons and actor Gerard Butler have showed up in the briefing room, but Friday will be a year since the Pentagon held an on-camera briefing with any department spokesperson.

Last week’s exchange, which came amid escalating tension with Iran and the deployment of additional troops to the Middle East, showed frustration spiking in the Pentagon press corps. Reporters are growing concerned that the U.S. will end up in a military confrontation without the Trump administration ever having to sufficiently — and publicly — defend its case for it.

“We’re talking about some sort of strike on another country and nobody knows why,” said one Pentagon reporter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

“This is not just about having things on camera,” the reporter added. “But the reason we push on-camera is we want people to publicly stand by their decisions to send other people’s children into harm’s way.”

Defense Department spokesman Tom Crosson said that while spokespeople have not taken questions on camera, other department officials have in recent months. “It depends what your definition of a briefing is,” he said, adding that traditional briefings with spokespeople could return at some point.

More broadly, he defended the department’s engagement with the media, noting last week’s off-camera briefing on Iran, and said a contingent of journalists is traveling with acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan in Asia.

The White House has defended its own scaling back of traditional on-camera news briefings by highlighting how often President Donald Trump takes impromptu questions from the news media. And critics of the briefings say they are generally an opportunity for the administration to push talking points.

Those justifications haven’t quelled frustrations among White House reporters over the rarity of on-camera briefings — it’s been 79 days since the last one — especially since Trump’s comments on Iran sometimes seem at odds with what others in his administration are saying.

Reporters who have pushed for more briefings are still pursuing other avenues of reporting, particularly at the Pentagon, where they have more freedom to roam the building and knock on doors than journalists at the White House do.

But they say regular briefings on camera force the administration to put names and faces to its policies. There's a record of Bush administration officials touting flimsy Iraq intelligence in briefing rooms, on TV news shows and, infamously, at the United Nations.

The sessions also allow for a series of questions and clarifications that might have helped “avoid the confusion we’ve had in the past two weeks about the Iran news,” Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron said.

“No reporter is sitting in the briefing room waiting for a camera to turn on,” he said. “But details about Iran troop movements are not supposed to come from leaks and background whispers.”

Pentagon reporters have made their displeasure known on Twitter.

“Gene Simmons delivers briefing at Pentagon podium that has not seen a spokesperson in almost a year,” veteran CNN correspondent Barbara Starr tweeted on May 17.

Days later, her CNN colleague Jim Sciutto tweeted, in response to news that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had canceled a trip, that “in a normal world, there would be an on-camera pentagon briefing in which reporters could ask our military leaders why and the American public would get answers.”

The briefing room is getting some unconventional use these days, reporters say, for happy hours and farewell parties for colleagues. A second Pentagon reporter told POLITICO: “It’s become kind of like a glorified events room as opposed to a briefing room.”