Iraq War Wounds Bob Woodruff
by Charles Coughlin
A recent news article reports “‘ABC World News Tonight’ co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device. Both journalists suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also has broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and were being evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, ABC News President David Westin said Sunday night. ‘We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical,’ Westin said. Woodruff and Doug Vogt, an award-winning cameraman, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. They were wearing body armor and helmets but were standing up in the hatch of the mechanized vehicle when the device exploded, exposing them to shrapnel. An Iraqi solder was also hurt in the explosion.”
Any claim by Rumsfeld and company that the Iraq War is under control is just more neocon propaganda. It’s a safe bet that our military was trying its best to protect Bob Woodruff, and he almost got killed. There have been an increasing number of days with large numbers of casualties. One website notes that in January (so far) there were five days in which four or more US soldiers died. On Jan. 23rd five US soldiers died. On Jan. 20th six. On Jan. 13th four. On Jan. 7th, seventeen and on Jan. 5th, eleven US soldiers died. There have been sixty deaths in January with a couple days left to go.
Some critics of Bush have demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. The typical response from the neocons is that “We’ll stand down when the Iraqi army stands up.” The only problem with that little neocon sound bite is that an army of Iraqi collaborators will never be able to defeat the rebels. Even our military with Abrams tanks and Apache helicopters has been losing sixty troops per month killed.
The best course of action would be to pick one of Saddam’s old generals (assuming we haven’t tortured them all to death), reconstitute the Republican Guard and put him in charge as the new dictator. The babbling collection of apprentice politicians in the current Iraqi government has little chance of maintaining order except for the mullahs who have their own militia.
Without a strong man running Iraq, there will be a civil war as soon as our military leaves Iraq. So do we stay in Iraq for another ten years hoping that the Iraqi army miraculously improves? Do we keep losing American soldiers just so that George W. Bush doesn’t look like the arrogant, reckless fool that he is? No. Not one more soldier should die for Bush’s worthless legacy. It isn’t our job to create democracies all around the world. The sooner we face the truth, the sooner we can get out of the Iraqi quagmire.