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All three networks ran updates from Iraq: NBC chose news from the regime in Baghdad; CBS examined regional threats; and ABC aired Exclusive footage from photographer Sean Smith of The Guardian newspaper in London. Smith was embedded with a platoon of the USArmy's Second Infantry Division in Baghdad.
ABC had Nick Watt narrate Smith's grisly footage: we saw an explosion blow the skin off an Iraqi soldier; we saw a burning Bradley armored vehicle with seven dead inside, six GIs and their Arab translator; we saw a taxi cab circling a neighborhood looking for an address and its driver killed with a shot through the neck when a GI decided it looked suspicious. ABC's substitute anchor David Muir called the footage "rare and raw." He asked his colleague Martha Raddatz (no link) about the bitter, candid comments of the GIs: "The longer you spend with them, the more they will talk about their frustration and exhaustion," she reflected. "You really have to be out with them to hear that sort of talk."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sat down with NBC's Richard Engel to tell him that Iraq "should be ready for a major US troop withdrawal by the end of this year." Both police and military will be trained to replace US forces by then, he predicted, revealing that "US and Iraqi officials are already preparing an exit strategy from Iraq." Engel explained why al-Maliki is so anxious to take over: "He worries he may be losing US support" so he has decided to seek backing from Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite opposition leader, and al-Sadr wants US troops to leave "while Shiites remain powerful."
On CBS, Allen Pizzey used the news hook of the carbombs that killed 80 in Kirkuk for an inquiry into which of Iraq's neighbors is the source of most of the terrorist attacks on civilians that foreigners perpetrate. And the winner is Saudi Arabia--Pizzey did not even mention Iran. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's National Security Advisor told Pizzey that he sent a request to Riyadh to crack down on "would-be jihadists." Each month, 60-or-so suicide-minded Saudi nationals infiltrate by way of Syria. Mused Pizzey: "The Saudi connection puts Washington in an awkward spot because the kingdom is a favorite ally in the region."
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