ABC News reports:
"Sen. Barack Obama's campaign staff and the Pentagon are putting forth different versions of what happened before Obama cancelled a planned Friday morning visit to the Ramstein air base in Germany. The Obama campaign has suggested the Pentagon interfered with its decision to visit U.S. troops at the Ramstein and Landstuhl U.S. military bases in Germany -- something the Pentagon denied Friday."
The Pentagon has fired back at Obama's accusations, saying:
"We made it clear to him that campaign staff and press would not be permitted to accompany him," Morrell said of Obama. "We relayed those ground rules. They made a choice based upon the information we relayed to them. It was their choice. We had nothing to do with it." Now, apparently, Obama's team is upset with the Pentagon for setting the record straight ...
MSNBC 1:02 PM ET ANDREA MITCHELL: “Spin from both sides: the Pentagon would have told you that these are rules that everyone follows. That he was welcomed, he could have gone if he had gone with just a senate aide, but that no campaign aides could go with him. Privately, some people are suggesting that one of the issues was a general – Scott Gration -- who travels with him who's a campaign aide and retired air force general and that the general was told that he could not use his privilege as a retired member of the military to accompany Senator Obama because he is now joined the political campaign. … So that may have been one of the stumbling blocks. … The Obama people certainly feel resentful. They had a planned event. They were planning to leave the press corps on the tarmac and go in themselves, and that they feel the pentagon made it difficult and reminded them of the rules, about which they didn't need to be reminded having just come from a similar visit in Iraq. But whatever the result, they feel that they have been treated badly by the Pentagon, and that is certainly creating some bad blood.”
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