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The Story of the Day was five years old: a survey of the status of the Iraq War on the fifth anniversary of that start of Shock & Awe. Altogether 40% of the three-network newshole (23 min out of 58) was devoted to one aspect of Iraq or another. President George Bush admitted that things had not exactly gone according to plan: "The battle in Iraq has been longer and harder and more costly than was anticipated" although he insisted that "removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision and this is a fight that America can and must win." Only CBS led with the anniversary. ABC and NBC both kicked off with torrential rain and flash floods from Texas to Pennsylvania before turning to the five-year war.

All three networks had their Baghdad correspondents file progress reports. NBC's Richard Engel found a "renewed sense of optimism" on the capital's streets over the past six months even though unemployment remains at 30%, electricity is unavailable 16 hours a day and two million Iraqis are still living in Jordan and Syria as refugees. On CBS, Lara Logan, too, told us that "the streets of many Iraqi towns and cities are calmer" and then told us one explanation. "It is often because they are now divided, ethnically cleansed." Her other explanation was that Gen David Petraeus "encouraged deals with both Sunni and Shiite tribal militias, even those with American blood on their hands." Petraeus told Logan that an average counterinsurgency lasts ten years--so he is probably half way home.

Terry McCarthy (no link) continued ABC's Where Things Stand series with profiles of three professional Iraqis: an emergency room physician in Baghdad now sees 85% fewer patients admitted because of violence than this time last year; a teacher in Basra is afraid to wear make-up or to walk the streets without a head scarf for fear of punishment by conservative Shiite clerics; and a former general of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard was forced to flee to Jordan in the face of threats from Shiite death squads.


Andrew Tyndall 3/21/08 7:24:57 pm

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