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Palin Camp Provides Conflicting Accounts of Iraq Visit

Updated 11:03 p.m.
By Anne E. Kornblut
RENO, Nev. — Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin spent Saturday scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America in the wake of a report that that trip did not include travel into Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

“Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America,” the Globe’s Bryan Bender wrote, adding, later in his story: “[C]ampaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border.”

Late Saturday, a Palin spokeswoman provided yet a third revision to the story, stating that the Alaska governor briefly traveled a quarter of a mile across the border into Iraqi territory at the crossing point.

“Last summer, Governor Palin traveled to Kuwait where she visited Alaskan National Guard troops deployed to the war in Iraq at Camp Arifjen. While she was there she traveled to the K Crossing on the Kuwait-Iraq border, and a quarter mile into Iraq,” spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said. “According to the General who traveled with her, while she was there she presided over a re-enlistment ceremony of an Alaskan National Guard soldier.

“En route back to the United States, she traveled to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. While in Germany, Governor Palin visited wounded soldiers at the Landstuhl military hospital. She then returned home.”

Earlier, the campaign also said she had been to Ireland, but that turned out to have been a refueling stop on the same July trip. McCain aides have expressed indignation at questions about her slim foreign travel.

In her ABC interview, Palin said she had also been to Canada and to Mexico, where her advisers said she went on vacation.

Obama aides described the revisions to Palin’s account as part of a growing pattern of deception. “The McCain campaign said Governor Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but now we know she supported it. They said she didn’t seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn’t lying about?” Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor asked in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

A short time later, the Obama campaign circulated a Bloomberg story that questions whether the McCain campaign has been sending out false crowd estimates.

On two occasions since Palin joined the ticket, McCain aides have cited law enforcement sources in claiming enormous crowds — but law enforcement officials interviewed by Bloomberg denied having given such estimates.