Michael Getler

About the Author: Michael Getler is the assistant managing editor for foreign news at the Washington Post. He formerly covered military affairs for the newspaper.

Along with the Iraqis, the civilian and uniformed leaders of the U.S. military did a pretty good job of mopping up the press in Operation Desert Storm. No one seems to care very much about this except several hundred reporters and editors who know they've been had. The war, after all, was successful beyond anyone's expectations: an overwhelming American-led victory with amazingly low allied casualties that ended after only 100 hours of ground fighting.

Many people by now probably feel they have a pretty good picture of what happened and may not have noticed or cared much if the news...