RUMSFELD WENT TO IRAQ: I suspect that President Bush will be visiting some troops over the weekend, too.

UPDATE: More on Rumsfeld in Iraq here:

“How do we win the war on the media?” asks a soldier. “How do we win the propaganda war?”

That sounds like a question that was planted by the press [perfect comedic pause, appreciative audience laughter]. That happens sometimes.

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Young looks at Syrian involvement in Iraq.

MORE: Here’s the CNN transcript, which has the passage as follows:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how do we win the war in the media? It seems like that is the place where we’re getting beat up more than anybody else. I’ve been here — this is my third tour over here, and we have done some amazing things. And it seems like the enemy’s Web sites and everything else are all over the media, and they love it. But the thing is, is everything we do good, no matter if it’s helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message, but the media doesn’t pick up on it. How do we win the propaganda war?

RUMSFELD: That does not sound like a question that was planted by the press.

(LAUGHTER)

RUMSFELD: That happens sometimes. It’s one of the hardest things we do in our country. We have freedom of the press. We believe in that. We believe that democracy can take that massive misinformation and differing of views, and that free people can synthesize all of that and find their way to right decisions. . . .

I was talking to a group of congressmen and senators the other day, and there were a couple of them who had negative things to say, and they were in the press in five minutes. There were 15 or 20 that had positive things to say about what’s going on in Iraq, and they couldn’t get on television. Television just said we’re not interested. That’s just sorry.

Yes, it is.