Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
NBC; CBS; CNN
March 19, 2008
NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now to the meaning of this day forever on the American calendar. It was five years ago that the United States invaded Iraq and started a war that drove out Saddam Hussein, but has taken its toll on the front lines and here at home for America’s many military families and those who support them. It remains a central issue in the campaign for president. Tonight we’ll hear from NBC’s Richard Engel, General Barry McCaffrey in just a moment, but we begin our coverage of five years of war with NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski on duty at the Pentagon.
Jim, good evening.
JIM MIKLASZEWSKI: Good evening, Brian. There’s a growing and somewhat heated debate here in Washington about just how much this Iraq war has cost. Compared to early predictions, that cost is staggering on several fronts.
It was a joyous homecoming this morning for soldiers from the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg. They’re the second of five combat brigades from the surge operation to come out of Iraq. While at the Pentagon, President Bush adamantly defended his order to go to war.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight America can and must win.
MIKLASZEWSKI: But at what cost? At the outset the Bush administration predicted the total cost of the war at $60 billion. As of today, that total is actually $608 billion – ten times more and growing. Ninety thousand American ground troops stormed across the border in the 2003 invasion. Baghdad soon fell, and the Pentagon boldly predicted the number of U.S. forces would drop to 30,000 within months. But as violence increased, the number of American troops spiked to 169,000 last September. Today there are 158,000 troops in Iraq, 10 percent of them women.
Then there’s the human cost of the war – 3,991 U.S. military have been killed; 29,451 wounded, many scarred for life. The five-year war has produced 1,031 amputees.
D.J. EMERY [U.S. Marine Veteran]: I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. And I couldn’t feel my legs.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Combat stress is also taking a toll. As many as 30 percent of U.S. combat forces returning from Iraq exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Twenty percent of Army veterans have been diagnosed with full-blown PTSD.
MICHAEL WALCOTT [U.S. Army Veteran]: You know, you can barely breathe, and you’re just reliving everything. It was like all those mortars were coming in.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Five years of war is also stressing the entire force. At least half of these combat troops from the 82nd Airborne have already had two combat tours in Iraq.
If the surge operation goes according to plans, three more U.S. combat brigades will be home by the end of July. But senior military officials predict that significant numbers of U.S. troops will still be in Iraq three years from now, as the cost of the war continues to rise, Brian.
WILLIAMS: Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon for us tonight. Jim, thanks.
***
CBS Evening News, 6:30 PM
KATIE COURIC: Finally tonight, on this fifth anniversary of the Iraq war the true cost isn’t measured in dollar, but in human lives – lives lost and lives changed forever. Well over 3,000 American children have lost a mother or father in Iraq or Afghanistan.
From Ft. Campbell, Kentucky tonight, David Martin.
DAVID MARTIN: What began five years ago as “Shock and Awe” has become a daily grind of grief and survival for the nearly 4,000 families of the fallen.
STEPHANIE DOSTIE [Widow]: It’s the first thing I think about in the morning still, last thing I think about before I go to bed at night.
MARTIN: Stephanie Dostie’s husband Shawn was killed in December, 2005. Dana Lamberson’s husband Randall was killed four months later. With the soldier in the family dead, she had to move out of their base housing.
DANA LAMBERSON [Widow]: He was the one that went around and put every nail in the wall. I was going to have undo everything that he did.
MARTIN: Every time Digna Lopez comes back to Fort Campbell, Kentucky she visits the memorial where her husband William’s name is inscribed.
DIGNA LOPEZ [Widow]: I miss him so much.
MARTIN: What’s been the hardest part?
LOPEZ: Oh, my God. Being a mom and a dad, 24/7. The only thing in the world that my kids might want, I cannot give them, which is their dad.
MARTIN: Three soldiers, three widows, seven children who will grow up without a father.
For Bailey Dostie is means family outings to Arlington National Cemetery.
DOSTIE: She still cries for him every day.
MARTIN: Children love to dress up like grown-ups, but it should never be like this.
DOSTIE: It was the first time that I actually pulled the uniform out of the trunk. They were excited just to put that uniform on.
ANNOUNCER: The Gold Medal of Remembrance is bestowed upon Kelsi Lamberson.
MARTIN: You’ve heard of Gold Star mothers who have lost a child in war; now there are Gold Star children who have lost a parent.
KELSI LAMBERSON [Daughter]: It really tells you how short life can be, like, my dad was only 36.
MARTIN: That’s not a lesson you’re supposed to learn on your 12th birthday, which was the day Kelsi’s father Randall died. How does a mother handle that?
DANA LAMBERSON: And I told Kelsi that this day belonged to her 13 years longer than it did her dad. (Laughter.) So – I think she liked that.
KELSI LAMBERSON: But you don’t forget about it. You don’t – like, it’s sketched in your mind for the rest of your life.
MARTIN: The valentine Stephanie Dostie left at her husband’s memorial will someday blow away, but his name will forever be there, etched in stone.
David Martin, CBS News, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
***
The Situation Room (CNN), 4:00 PM
WOLF BLITZER: Five years after the invasion of Iraq U.S. troops appear to be making some progress in lowering the violence that’s been directed against them and against Iraqis. Many attribute that to the so-called surge. Others suggest it’s simply a matter of cold, hard U.S. cash. Let’s bring in our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE: Wolf, as U.S. commanders explain progress in Iraq, they usually cite three things: the surge, the so-called awakening, and the ceasefire by Muqtada al-Sadr. But some critics say they should add a fourth factor: cold, hard cash.
It’s a truth many hold to be self-evident, that more American troops means less Iraqi violence.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt.
MCINTYRE: Maybe. But there is doubt about some military experts who argue there’s actually a mightier force at work: money. Hundreds of millions in hard cash given to Iraqis for everything from picking up garbage, as in this case last year in Ramadi, to taking up arms against al Qaeda.
COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR [U.S. Army (Ret.)]: Normally when you begin paying off your enemy on the scale that we are, it is seen by your enemy, as well as others, as a tacit admission of failure, not of success.
MCINTYRE: The former deputy commander for General Petraeus bristles at the suggestion the U.S. is bribing bad guys to back off.
LT. GEN. RAYMOND ODIERNO [Former Deputy Iraq Commander]: It’s about reconciling them with the rest of the government of Iraq. It’s a confidence-building measure in reconciling them with Iraq.
WILLIAM COHEN [Former Defense Secretary]: If it’s only a question of a tactical distribution of money for a short period of time, then it won’t stand up and it’ll be reversed the moment we leave.
MCINTYRE: But U.S. commanders on the front lines insist anger, not greed, is what’s behind the so-called awakening and has given rise to groups like the Concerned Local Citizens and Sons of Iraq.
COL. JOHN CHARLTON [U.S. Army]: We didn’t advertise, you know, that hey, you know, join the police force and we’ll give you money. These guys lined up by the hundreds because they were sick and tired of what al Qaeda was doing to their communities and they knew that they had to stand up and fight.
MCINTYRE: But what happens when the money dries up? Pessimists predict a quick return to civil war.
Already some of the sheen is off the surge. As U.S. troops begin to leave, violence, though still lower, is starting to rise and the loyalties of militias on the U.S. payroll appear very much in question. Wolf?
BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre with that report.
March 19, 2008
NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now to the meaning of this day forever on the American calendar. It was five years ago that the United States invaded Iraq and started a war that drove out Saddam Hussein, but has taken its toll on the front lines and here at home for America’s many military families and those who support them. It remains a central issue in the campaign for president. Tonight we’ll hear from NBC’s Richard Engel, General Barry McCaffrey in just a moment, but we begin our coverage of five years of war with NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski on duty at the Pentagon.
Jim, good evening.
JIM MIKLASZEWSKI: Good evening, Brian. There’s a growing and somewhat heated debate here in Washington about just how much this Iraq war has cost. Compared to early predictions, that cost is staggering on several fronts.
It was a joyous homecoming this morning for soldiers from the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg. They’re the second of five combat brigades from the surge operation to come out of Iraq. While at the Pentagon, President Bush adamantly defended his order to go to war.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight America can and must win.
MIKLASZEWSKI: But at what cost? At the outset the Bush administration predicted the total cost of the war at $60 billion. As of today, that total is actually $608 billion – ten times more and growing. Ninety thousand American ground troops stormed across the border in the 2003 invasion. Baghdad soon fell, and the Pentagon boldly predicted the number of U.S. forces would drop to 30,000 within months. But as violence increased, the number of American troops spiked to 169,000 last September. Today there are 158,000 troops in Iraq, 10 percent of them women.
Then there’s the human cost of the war – 3,991 U.S. military have been killed; 29,451 wounded, many scarred for life. The five-year war has produced 1,031 amputees.
D.J. EMERY [U.S. Marine Veteran]: I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. And I couldn’t feel my legs.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Combat stress is also taking a toll. As many as 30 percent of U.S. combat forces returning from Iraq exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Twenty percent of Army veterans have been diagnosed with full-blown PTSD.
MICHAEL WALCOTT [U.S. Army Veteran]: You know, you can barely breathe, and you’re just reliving everything. It was like all those mortars were coming in.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Five years of war is also stressing the entire force. At least half of these combat troops from the 82nd Airborne have already had two combat tours in Iraq.
If the surge operation goes according to plans, three more U.S. combat brigades will be home by the end of July. But senior military officials predict that significant numbers of U.S. troops will still be in Iraq three years from now, as the cost of the war continues to rise, Brian.
WILLIAMS: Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon for us tonight. Jim, thanks.
***
CBS Evening News, 6:30 PM
KATIE COURIC: Finally tonight, on this fifth anniversary of the Iraq war the true cost isn’t measured in dollar, but in human lives – lives lost and lives changed forever. Well over 3,000 American children have lost a mother or father in Iraq or Afghanistan.
From Ft. Campbell, Kentucky tonight, David Martin.
DAVID MARTIN: What began five years ago as “Shock and Awe” has become a daily grind of grief and survival for the nearly 4,000 families of the fallen.
STEPHANIE DOSTIE [Widow]: It’s the first thing I think about in the morning still, last thing I think about before I go to bed at night.
MARTIN: Stephanie Dostie’s husband Shawn was killed in December, 2005. Dana Lamberson’s husband Randall was killed four months later. With the soldier in the family dead, she had to move out of their base housing.
DANA LAMBERSON [Widow]: He was the one that went around and put every nail in the wall. I was going to have undo everything that he did.
MARTIN: Every time Digna Lopez comes back to Fort Campbell, Kentucky she visits the memorial where her husband William’s name is inscribed.
DIGNA LOPEZ [Widow]: I miss him so much.
MARTIN: What’s been the hardest part?
LOPEZ: Oh, my God. Being a mom and a dad, 24/7. The only thing in the world that my kids might want, I cannot give them, which is their dad.
MARTIN: Three soldiers, three widows, seven children who will grow up without a father.
For Bailey Dostie is means family outings to Arlington National Cemetery.
DOSTIE: She still cries for him every day.
MARTIN: Children love to dress up like grown-ups, but it should never be like this.
DOSTIE: It was the first time that I actually pulled the uniform out of the trunk. They were excited just to put that uniform on.
ANNOUNCER: The Gold Medal of Remembrance is bestowed upon Kelsi Lamberson.
MARTIN: You’ve heard of Gold Star mothers who have lost a child in war; now there are Gold Star children who have lost a parent.
KELSI LAMBERSON [Daughter]: It really tells you how short life can be, like, my dad was only 36.
MARTIN: That’s not a lesson you’re supposed to learn on your 12th birthday, which was the day Kelsi’s father Randall died. How does a mother handle that?
DANA LAMBERSON: And I told Kelsi that this day belonged to her 13 years longer than it did her dad. (Laughter.) So – I think she liked that.
KELSI LAMBERSON: But you don’t forget about it. You don’t – like, it’s sketched in your mind for the rest of your life.
MARTIN: The valentine Stephanie Dostie left at her husband’s memorial will someday blow away, but his name will forever be there, etched in stone.
David Martin, CBS News, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
***
The Situation Room (CNN), 4:00 PM
WOLF BLITZER: Five years after the invasion of Iraq U.S. troops appear to be making some progress in lowering the violence that’s been directed against them and against Iraqis. Many attribute that to the so-called surge. Others suggest it’s simply a matter of cold, hard U.S. cash. Let’s bring in our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE: Wolf, as U.S. commanders explain progress in Iraq, they usually cite three things: the surge, the so-called awakening, and the ceasefire by Muqtada al-Sadr. But some critics say they should add a fourth factor: cold, hard cash.
It’s a truth many hold to be self-evident, that more American troops means less Iraqi violence.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt.
MCINTYRE: Maybe. But there is doubt about some military experts who argue there’s actually a mightier force at work: money. Hundreds of millions in hard cash given to Iraqis for everything from picking up garbage, as in this case last year in Ramadi, to taking up arms against al Qaeda.
COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR [U.S. Army (Ret.)]: Normally when you begin paying off your enemy on the scale that we are, it is seen by your enemy, as well as others, as a tacit admission of failure, not of success.
MCINTYRE: The former deputy commander for General Petraeus bristles at the suggestion the U.S. is bribing bad guys to back off.
LT. GEN. RAYMOND ODIERNO [Former Deputy Iraq Commander]: It’s about reconciling them with the rest of the government of Iraq. It’s a confidence-building measure in reconciling them with Iraq.
WILLIAM COHEN [Former Defense Secretary]: If it’s only a question of a tactical distribution of money for a short period of time, then it won’t stand up and it’ll be reversed the moment we leave.
MCINTYRE: But U.S. commanders on the front lines insist anger, not greed, is what’s behind the so-called awakening and has given rise to groups like the Concerned Local Citizens and Sons of Iraq.
COL. JOHN CHARLTON [U.S. Army]: We didn’t advertise, you know, that hey, you know, join the police force and we’ll give you money. These guys lined up by the hundreds because they were sick and tired of what al Qaeda was doing to their communities and they knew that they had to stand up and fight.
MCINTYRE: But what happens when the money dries up? Pessimists predict a quick return to civil war.
Already some of the sheen is off the surge. As U.S. troops begin to leave, violence, though still lower, is starting to rise and the loyalties of militias on the U.S. payroll appear very much in question. Wolf?
BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre with that report.