Stephen Colbert takes show to Iraq

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Wearing a camouflage suit and tie, Stephen Colbert took his show to Baghdad to entertain U.S. soldiers in Iraq. For openers, President Obama appeared by video to thank the troops.

"You're welcome," the mock pundit answered.

"I wasn't talking to you," the president deadpanned.

To the roaring approval of hundreds of troops at Camp Victory, on the western edge of Baghdad, Colbert taped the first of four episodes of "The Colbert Report," in which he plays a pompous, blustering conservative TV host.

His first guest was the towering, bald Gen. Ray Odierno. When Obama and the U.S. commander suggested Colbert had to look like a soldier to be a soldier, the general took an electric razor to Colbert's perfectly parted cable-news coif.

The four shows being taped in the domed marble hall at Saddam Hussein's former Al Faw Palace are to air this week on Comedy Central.

At Camp Victory, Colbert was in typical, cluelessly egotistic form. He showed a clip pretending that he himself didn't know his destination until he got off the plane and somebody threw a shoe at him.

In another skit, he arrived at Fort Jackson, S.C., in a limousine for "the full 10 hours" of basic training, then struggled to do push-ups and sit-ups while a drill sergeant barked at him.

And, concluding that the six-year war in Iraq must be over because nobody's talking about it anymore, Colbert said he would take it upon himself to make it official: "By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!"

(To bolster his point, he offered a list of successes, including finding weapons of mass destruction — "easier than we thought" — and told the troops Obama should deploy them to General Motors.)

Odierno gently took issue with the self-sure pundit's suggestion the war had ended.

"We're not quite ready to declare victory," he said. "Things are moving forward but again, it's about bringing long-term stability."

Colbert, who sat at a desk propped up by sandbags painted to make up an American flag, responded by asking Odierno if he can bring long-term stability to the United States when he's done in Iraq.

The 45-year-old comedian, who traveled to Iraq from Kuwait on Friday aboard a military transport plane, has said he decided to make the trip when he noticed economic news coverage was eclipsing reports from Baghdad.

"It must be nice here in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again," he joked. "You've earned so many frequent-flier miles, you've earned a free ticket to Afghanistan."