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Thanksgiving was celebrated with a truncated news agenda. CBS pre-empted its newscast, airing NFL football instead. ABC and NBC both had substitute anchors--David Muir and David Gregory respectively--for their regular evening newscast, but NB decided not to post any of its stories online. So only ABC offers its content as videostreams. It led with an Exclusive from Iraq, accompanying Gen Raymond Odierno as he inspected troops in the field in nine different locations. It made the Iraq War the Story of the Day while NBC led with a round-up of Thanksgiving observances.

ABC's Terry McCarthy traveled with the general "from the Triangle of Death…to the killing fields of Diyala…to the once-deadly deserts of Anbar." Everywhere commanders in the field offered good news: "The violence is going down." NBC's Tom Aspell (no link) covered the war, too, from Baghdad where he recounted the 40 days of urban combat that led to the pacification of the capital's "notorious Haifa Street." Interestingly, neither McCarthy nor Aspell even mentioned the so-called surge of troops as a factor in the improved security. Aspell told us that the Battle of Haifa Street began in January, before Commander in Chief George Bush ordered the troop reinforcement. McCarthy credited "the biggest change" to "local citizens abandoning the insurgency." The US military has now signed up 72,000 former guerrillas to serve as "community police."

Andrew Tyndall 11/28/07 11:10:52 pm

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