By Tom Bettag
Rock Center
Almost nine years ago, Ted Koppel joined the 3rd Infantry Division crossing into Iraq and invading Baghdad. For his debut appearance on “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” Koppel takes viewers back into Iraq as the U.S. military completes its withdrawal. But is America really leaving? Many people have the impression that the U.S. presence – and U.S. government spending - is finally ending in Iraq. Koppel makes it clear that this is far from the truth.
He tells the story of some 16,000 people who will be left behind. Koppel and his team obtained extraordinary access to the U.S. embassy, the largest embassy in the world, with a footprint the size of Vatican City. He also traveled to the U.S. consulate in Basra, which faces regular rocket attacks from Iranian-funded militia.
For them, it isn’t over; it’s just about to begin. Radicals within the Iranian Parliament have threatened that once the U.S. military has pulled out, American diplomats will be considered an occupying force and must be driven out. Koppel points out that many of the Americans staying in Iraq are contract security specialists - former Marines and Navy seals who do dangerous jobs but stay below the radar. In fact, an estimated 1,500 of these contractors have died in Iraq -more or less anonymously - since 2003.
The anguish at being left behind without military protection makes people at the new U.S. consulate in Basra, Iraq talk about being Fort Apache. Or as one security officer put it, “It’s like building a consulate on Omaha Beach.” This report is an effort to ensure that the Americans who are left behind are not forgotten.
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Thank you, Rock Center, for bringing Ted Koppel back to a significant reporting role in America. His former show, Nightline, is a shadow of its former self. His beautiful use of the language in his reporting makes television worth watching. In a sense, it's like Brian Williams' sense of humor. A sardonic note from Brian makes the nightly news a better experience.
Mr. Koppel mentioned that 4,000 people died and 50,000 were injured in the Iraq war. The actual numbers killed is just over 105,000. This figure comes from the esteemed website Iraqbodycount.org, which has kept a very careful count of the killed. This includes Iraqis killed by Americans, Americans killed by Iraqis and Iraqis killed by other Iraqis. The difference is that this figure includes Iraqis whereas Mr. Koppel's does not. They are humans too, Mr. Koppel. Excluding them is odd and disrespectful.
Great piece, Ted. Good to see you back on the air. From the above it looks like Tom produced. Bet you thought about Leroy a time or two when you were over there. Take care old friend. Gordon
What's really sad is how little by little the truth comes out to show Americans why they were fooled and the United Nations knew the Bush Administration were lying. One Trillion dollars of taxpayers money unaccounted for and the biggest lie WMD's. It was always about oil and nothing else and Americans fell for the lies. For 8 years Americans watched Law Makers spend money like it grew on trees and the lost of our brave soldiers all because the Big Oil companies wanted to take Iraq's oil by removing Saddam. It was sad the Media was given the prograganda to report but Americans didn't seem to show much interest. The history will show Iraq was never a War but an invasion to remove a Dictator to control Iraq's oil as the Afghanistan War was left aside. The search for Bin Laden ended in 2004 and even Bush said he really never thought of him. As thousands of soldiers died wondering why their overseas, once President Obama reopened the search and captured Bin Laden the soldiers felt the mission was done and those who died did die for something. Today many Law Makers are upset Libya/Egypt no longer have Dictators who worked with the US and now Iraq is free and doesn't have to be controlled by the USA.
That awkward situation where Ted Coppel was asking each Iraqi soldier his religion, I kept saying OMG WHERE IS RICHARD ENGEL TO TRANSLATE!
Ted, Tom we enjoyed watching your pieces from Iraq - they brought back a lot of memories!
A&F