Contemporary Poetry

politics and poetics 79

and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof

of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead

of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would

protest that they had known all along that the statement was

a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical

cleverness.^50

Along these lines, What I Heard About Iraq is Weinberger’s
attempt to hold politicians accountable for both warmongering and
misinformation. Central to Weinberger’s text are acronyms which
are presented with a chilling sense of rationality. Weinberger
reports that ‘I heard a marine at Camp Whitehouse say: “The
50 / 10 technique was used to break down EPWs and make it easier
for the HET member to get information from them” ’ (p. 42 ). It is
later explained that the ‘ 50 / 10 technique’ was ‘to make prisoners
stand for 50 minutes of the hour for ten hours with a hood over
their heads in the heat’ (p. 42 ). Moreover, EPWs are explained
as ‘enemy prisoners of war’ and HETs are ‘human exploitation
teams’ (p. 42 ). What I Heard About Iraq also reports that photo-
graphs of coffi ns are banned and that the Pentagon renamed body
bags ‘transfer tubes’ (p. 38 ). Weinberger reminds us how political
language shields its audience from uncomfortable truths and mis-
carriages of justice. Overused words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘libera-
tion’ are also highlighted to indicate how they perform brutishly.
On the ‘fall’ of Fallujah it is reported: ‘I heard an American soldier
say: “It’s kind of bad we destroyed everything, but at least we gave
them a chance for a new start” ’ (p. 65 ). Also, it is reported: ‘I heard
Muhammed Kubaissy, a shopkeeper, say: “I am still searching for
what they have been calling democracy” ’ (p. 65 ). Tim Woods sug-
gests that ‘the questioning of the nature of language to inform one
about reality results in a political conclusion about the manipula-
tion of discourse to inform one about specifi c ideological truths.’^51
Weinberger’s use of ‘found’ materials as a basis for his poem pow-
erfully illustrates the mendacities of political discourse surround-
ing the Iraq war. His critique moreover is enacted without a need
for the poet to perform a political rhetoric of his own.