Yesterday the Pentagon held a Congressional briefing on Iraq at the National Military Command Center with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker participating via teleconference from Baghdad. According to Dana Bash of CNN, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is running around telling people that he wasn't invited:

JOHN KING: You say, Dana, only about 100 members of Congress went over to the Pentagon for that private briefing. Were all 435 -- all 535, if you include the Senate, were they invited? And if so, why didn't more go?

DANA BASH: Well, you know, that's a bit of controversy, and it's growing here.

Apparently, most of the lawmakers, certainly all in the Senate and about half in the House, were invited. And it's really unclear why most didn't go. Or I should say many didn't go, at least.

I'll tell you that the Democratic leaders in the Senate, they are accusing the White House of essentially not letting them know and the Pentagon not letting them know. Dick Durbin, the number two senator -- Democrat in the Senate, I should say, he said that he never got any indication of it. Never got any invitation at all. Others did, too.(emphasis added)

This fax confirmation sheet from the Pentagon to Dick Durbin's office dated July 13 - six days before the briefing took place and labeled "short notice request - please pass to scheduler" - suggests that Mr. Durbin has got it wrong:

The point here isn't that Dick Durbin skipped the briefing. NBC News reports only 40 Senators made the trip over to the Pentagon yesterday, and I'm told it was a very bi-partisan group. The point is that Mr. Durbin was one of the only Senators who didn't go to the briefing who had enough gall to go to the media and accuse the Bush administration of foul play.

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