PRESTOPUNDIT

A remarkable interview with war correspondent Bob Arnot from Iraq:

ARNOT: I think the most interesting point about this bombing, Joe, is that people talk about terrorism. There’s nothing terrifying about it. Some guy blew up a bomb. Nobody was scared. Nobody was even particularly anxious. It is just something that happens every day. The thing that makes it a terrorist event is that you have then 100 cameras that come over and cover it. And that is the frustration, is that it is a very low-level, nickel-dime terrorist war here. There is no civil war. There is no mass insurrection. And it really obscures the truth, which is, there is very steady, day-to-day progress, in terms of getting electricity, water, opening schools, the clinics, more hospitals than Saddam ever had open ...
SCARBOROUGH: Have you heard any suggestions that you may have been the target of this bombing?
ARNOT: Well, the best suggestion was, the bomb was right underneath my window. At this point, honestly, we don’t know whether we were being attacked as NBC or it was local revenge killing of some kind of another or whether just because there are a lot of Western cars out front there.
But the important thing is, if you have been through a lot of wars-and I have been through over 20 of them, lot of history-every war has a lot of chaos after it. Look at Germany after World War II. Look at Kosovo. You expect a lot of chaos. And I think the perspective is, you cannot get caught up in that. France for a year after 1945 was a mess. Germany, the Marshall Plan did not even start for three years afterwards.
This thing, to put it in perspective, has gone like grease lightning compared to all those other wars. You have a plan in four months, instead of four years, like the Marshall Plan. You got the schools open. You have a provisional government in here. They are going to write a constitution in the next six months. We are not telling a Pollyannaish story.
Sure, there were missteps. There were not enough police in here. The plan maybe didn’t account for the kind of chaos. They expected the government to just sort of lop off the top and have people here standing ready to sort of start right back up again. But to their credit, the U.S. Marines said all the way up on the road with them, expect chaos. They expected this thing, like all totalitarian regimes, just basically crumbles into nothing.
And you sort of just are standing there with nothing to work with. But I will tell you, Joe, I have been extremely impressed with Ambassador Bremer. I spent an evening with him, went on the road with him down to Basra. Behind the scenes, he is not like he is on TV. He’s like a kid. He’s fun. He’s energetic. He’s witty. I challenged him on-not challenged-but I talked to him about this Belgian-style federal government. He immediately said, oh, no, that is not going to work. The Flemings take one spot and the Walloons the other. He really knows his stuff. And I talked to his whole staff, took them aside. And every stack of paper, he knows what’s in it. He’s on top of it. And they are bewildered at the CPA, bewildered, that they have all this progress, all these schools opening, all these clinics, and all they see on TV is something that’s made to look like Vietnam. In fact, I call it the Vietnamization of Iraq.
SCARBOROUGH: Now, the latest CNN/Gallup poll reports that 67 percent of Iraqis say Iraq will be better off in five years than it is now. And it is currently better off than it was before the U.S. invasion.
I asked Bob Arnot to explain why no one in America seems to hear about these numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARNOT: I think there are two reasons for it.
The CPA was saying the other night-one is that you have news organizations here that you can cover sort of one story. And it is interesting, Joe. To be honest, with us, today, our satellite truck is gone. We just have this videophone up. I’m doing the news of the day. And what am I doing? Bombing in Mosul and an RPG attack someplace else.
You’re sort of stuck. If you just do that one story today, that’s all can you do, and you kind of can’t ignore it. The strength that NBC has had on this story is having that extra team to be able to come in to sort of look around. My background as a physician is humanitarian. I’m on the board of Save the Children and a bunch of other great organizations, tremendously motivational organizations, and really trying to understand the reconstruction after a war, after civil war.
And it is very, very difficult. It is very, very complex. I met with
this U.S. Army colonel whose name is Russell Gould (ph). What an
inspirational guy. He is fighting the fight of his life. He’s fighting the guerrillas out there. He has not lost a man, thank God, in about siX weeks, because he’s getting those IEDs before they explode. He is making -” he has got a great, great network out there, tremendous intelligence network. But he also had his first district council meeting. He, the other night, sat out there with me in front of the district council. He says: You know what? I am teaching democracy. They have the freedom to speak. And they’re doing that right now. They have the freedom to assemble. He has seen them assemble. And you know what? They have the freedom to make decisions. And they’re marking hard decisions right now.
So, I’ll tell you. The commanders out here. I was with General Hemlick (ph) the other day, one of General Major Petraeus lead men there, 101st Airborne. Again, tears in your eyes sort of motivation when you see the danger they face, and that they took this town called Afghani (ph). And they have that town up, school, clinic, hospital, soccer field, police force, all up and going. And the kids were actually cheering in the street.
I was with Bremer the other day down with the Marsh Arabs. Again, you know, hi. I asked the kids, George Bush or Saddam Hussein, who do you love? They say, George Bush. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm. You have the Baathist here. There is no question, they have very deep pockets. They have tens of millions of dollars. They brought in this Ansar al-Islam sect. They brought the Wahabis in.
They are supposed to be a very, very tight, tight al Qaeda connection. They basically hire local thugs to do the dirty work. And it is. It is a big fight between good and evil. We are good. And I hope we win.
SCARBOROUGH: Yes.
Hey, I want to ask you about American soldiers, because, when I was in Congress, I represented a district that had five military bases. I still have a lot of friends that are serving the military, a lot of family members. They call me up. They e-mail me. They write me and they talk about being distressed, that their husbands, that their daughters, their sons are overseas doing a great job in Iraq.
And yet you don’t hear that good news, unless you see Bob Arnot reports and maybe one or two other reports sporadically. Tell me how our men and women in uniform are responding to the steady stream of bad news that’s coming out there. And do you get a sense that maybe the worm is starting to turn, so to speak, and maybe some other news organizations may be adding a proper perspective to tell the rest of this story in Iraq, the good news that’s happening out of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq?
ARNOT: Yes. I was on the weekend in a place called Sulaymaniyah. It is so safe they actually have U.S. armed forces up there, an R&R location, where the locals provide all of the security. Down south, again, outside of Basra, I talked to the honorable Hillary Senate (ph), who’s running that district down there. They have not had any car bombs. They have not had any shootings; 85 percent of the country is in reasonably good shape.
Now, you asked about U.S. armed services members out here. If you’re in a transportation pool and you’re going up and down the roads and you’re getting attacked day in, day out. It’s a little tough motivationally. but got to tell you, the individual commanders I have talked to from the 1st I.D., the 101st, out here, in fact the 1st Armored Division, just bring tears to your eyes. It pumps you up just to be around them.
And I’m not being jingoistic. I just mean, in terms of motivational bosses, they are absolutely phenomenal. And it goes all the way down the chains. I was out with these guys the other day-soldiers, I should say. They actually been attacked. Five of them had won Purple Hearts. They were all offered a trip home. And they all refused to take it, saying that they wanted to stay on the streets of Baghdad.
So, the commanders out there are just as spectacular as they were during the war. They have much more meddlesome, much more troublesome problems than they did during the war. But they’re doing a great job. And I’m not being a cheerleader. I just got to tell you, you go out there and you feel absolutely great.
Part of it is, I think, that it is sort of hard to get at those-quote-”good news stories,” because it is hard to get up into those different areas and set up and still cover the news down here in Baghdad. But the big bottom line, Joe, is just perspective. Any war has chaos afterwards. Any war is not as properly planned for as it might otherwise be. But you have to look at the march of progress.
SCARBOROUGH: One final question, because we had a congressman on a few nights ago that actually made-a Democratic congressman that went over to Iraq. He came back. And he actually said that he believed the media was hurting our chances of succeeding in Iraq.
I want to ask, do you get a sense that other media people, other reporters on the ground there, are starting to understand that they may not be giving the full picture to the American people? Do you get a sense that maybe “The New York Times,” who has run a few positive stories of late, CBS News, where you had Dan Rather a couple nights ago saying a lot of these negative stories do not create a proper perspective, do you get a sense they’re starting to understand that maybe they need to tell the rest of the story?
ARNOT: Sure.
I don’t want to be too critical of the press, because, when you’re out here, like we were yesterday, you have a bomb blow off out your window, it is a pretty dramatic and it’s a pretty interesting story. And day to day, that does sort of captivate your attention and it does sort of distract you from seeing the other story.
And, honestly, if you cover wars, you are not probably used to gas turbine generators and what kind of chlorine you use to clean up water and how many clinics are open. But I think, Joe, it is one of the most interesting stories ever, because imagine if it were the other way. Imagine if there were no terrorism and everything perfectly and they were turning the power on. It would be no story at all.
But given this tremendous sort of disparity, given the terrorism, the daily attack on U.S. soldiers out here and Marines, and the fact that they basically can go out there, against all this adversity, and do it make it one of the most interesting stories ever, just showing again how Americans, faced with this incredible adversity, are doing a remarkable job and inspiring the rest of us while they do it.
And I think that is the real story. I walk up to a commander and I say, I am not here to make up a story. I am not here with any agenda. I am telling your story the most honest way I possibly can. I just want to see what you’re doing. They’re very, very open. And when they let down their guard, what you see is great leadership and a great job.