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NBC's Andrea Mitchell and CBS' Wyatt Andrews were also on the road in the region. They were part of the entourage of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she arrived in Islamabad. ABC assigned its Pakistan-based correspondent Nick Schifrin to cover her trip. Rodham Clinton's arrival coincided with the bombing of the Women's Market in Peshawar. "Local TV channels broadcast a split screen," ABC's Schifrin narrated. "On the right, Peshawar; on the left, Hillary Clinton tried to repair a damaged relationship." The carbomb "was designed to kill as many women and children as possible," CBS' Andrews observed. The death toll exceeded a hundred.
The two State Department correspondents had the same explanation for the antagonism against the United States that the Secretary encountered. CBS' Andrews paraphrased popular sentiment thus: "America pushed Pakistan into confronting the Taliban. The bombings are retaliation." NBC's Mitchell put it like this: "Pakistan's government, under intense US pressure, had began attacking the insurgents in their tribal strongholds…The extremists have started retaliating and as the violence has escalated so has public anger, much of it directed against the United States for aiding the government's anti-terror policy."
ABC's Schifrin accounted for "rising anti-Americanism" by looking at violence perpetrated by the United States itself not by Waziristan-based guerrillas. He quoted from Pakistani television. "Why is it that you are constantly using drone attacks inside Pakistan?" one talkshow host, Mubashar Luckman, asked Madame Secretary. "Why is it US officials are free to break Pakistani law?" asked another, Hamid Mir.
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