Governors Told Not To Ask Questions About Iraq Troop Withdrawal

Before their Iraq briefing at the White House yesterday, the nation's governors were instructed that they were not to ask any pesky questions about a timetable for bringing the troops home.

So by the time California's Arnold Schwarzenegger was on his third question about a timetable for bringing the troops home, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace was just the tiniest bit out of patience -- just as some of the governors were with what one observer described as the strangely Soviet-style Q&A.

Later, the president also stopped by to speak with the governors, who were in town for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

"Obviously, there's concerns about the decisions I have made regarding Iraq, and I understand that," he told them.

"Look, I mean, there's a lot of debate here in Washington, D.C. And if you want, we can spend some time during the question-and-answer talking about why I made the decisions I made."

The questions he took, however, had been submitted in writing, and pre-screened. And somehow, why he made the decisions he made never came up.