More war footage? Geraldo with the KLA
Check out more Geraldo Specials
Wikipedia page on Operation Iraqi Freedom
Partial transcript
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“Hi everybody I’m Geraldo Rivera. Welcome to a special edition of the program. My team and I have been home from our road trip through Operation Iraqi Freedom for a couple weeks now, but it still feels like we just got here. After the close call in Mosul where we were ambushed, it’s been hard putting it all behind us, the tape of that ambush keeps replaying in my head. Not that violence was unexpected. Attacks on journalists and civilians working for a new Iraq have increased even as attacks on coalition military forces have dropped to half the level they were just a few months ago. Insurgents and their terrorist allies prefer targets that don’t shoot back. Last week, they even killed two Iraqi washer women working in the U.S. laundry. Perhaps the most important conclusion I’ve come to on Iraq is how little sense there is here, of the true progress of the war. And the process of nation building. If your family’s not in the National Guard or the Reserves, or have someone serving in the military, the story is like unpleasant background noise, the dread drone of our troops getting killed by ones and twos. Even politicians who should be concerned seem more interested in how the war started, than in how it will end.
But our big headline after driving the length and breadth of the country is that it is better over there than you think, or you have been led to believe. Our troops are learning how to protect themselves and we are learning how to fight these die-hards and hardcore foreign fighters we’re facing. Our military commanders sincerely believe the situation is markedly improved in terms of reduced casualties, frequency and effectiveness of attacks. And there really are positive things happening on the civil side that we should all be proud of. Free enterprise is igniting, commerce is booming. And with the interim constitution, the beginnings of a democracy are coming into shape. Still, the road from here to victory is likely to be even rockier than our road trip through the country. Watch.”
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