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ABC filed its annual update of its Where Things Stand survey of Iraq. Each year, together with BBC and NHK, ABC News conducts an opinion poll of the state of the post-war reconstruction. Terry McCarthy was dispatched to illustrate the results.
We were treated to a travelogue from Baghdad to Karbala to Basra to Kurdistan to northern Christian villages that could have been filed by the Iraqi Tourist Board. "You can walk on the streets at night and without body armor. We could eat in restaurants," McCarthy marveled. "We went on a road trip. This is the first time in five years that I have actually driven in a car outside of Baghdad without any military escort." What about the continuing military occupation by the United States? "Everywhere we went Iraqis told us that it was time for the US to leave."
As the US military turns its attention away from Iraq towards Afghanistan, CBS' Lara Logan filed an Exclusive with Stuart Bowen, the Inspector General who uncovered waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq's reconstruction effort: "He was shocked by what he found" in more than 250 audits and inspections. Bowen warned that $32bn has already been misspent in Afghanistan and the US effort there "is headed the same way."
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