Gentlemen,
Thank you for an interesting debate over my interview.
I would like to clarify one point that I do not seem to have made clear, as it has generated numerous comments that reflect a basic misunderstanding of what I said:
The reason we are unable to go cover every school or bridge opening or “good news” story, is not because of concern over our own safety - it is first and foremost because of concern over the safety of those involved in the project.
Where schools have been highlighted in the media, teachers have been executed and the buildings bombed. Where reconstruction projects have been highlighted by the media, workers have been murdered and the projects bombed.
Following media reports about the Baghdad soccer team, soccer matches have been bombed, with almost a hundred players and civilian spectators killed in multiple attacks.
It is very often those involved in the projects that ask us to stay away.
And for those who question my moral courage I would like to point out the following:
- At age 17 I was counting the bodies from the weekend violence in our local morgue, fire station and hospitals during the anti-Apartheid struggle.
- Since then I have lived with, (often on my own, the only woman for a sustained period of time) Unita rebel troops on the frontline in Angola, Afghan Northern Alliance forces during their war against the Taliban, Palestinians fighting Israelis in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and Albanian rebels in Tetovo, Macedonia, to name a few examples.
- I spent most of the ’shock and awe’ campaign in Baghdad on my own, after driving through the western desert during the war with a trusted Iraqi colleague Firas Ibrahim.
- I have survived being blown up by a double anti-tank mine during a combat patrol with US forces on the Afghan-Pakistan border in which two US soldiers were seriously injured, one losing his leg in the blast.
- I recently watched a US marine being shot right in front of me during an ambush in central Ramadi where I chose to live with US forces at the centre of the deadliest fight in Iraq at the time.
I guess my point is that I have never hesitated to take risks in order to tell what I believe is the most important and honest story.
I don’t need to prove that to you, in spite of taking the time to make this list, because the record of my work speaks for itself and is much more than what is laid out here.
And yet I am doing this anyway because I can’t stand in justice and misunderstanding.
I can honestly tell you that I have no affiliation any way to any political party in the world. I have fundamental, guiding principles and a sincere belief in integrity and personal responsibility that guide me in my work.
And I have no bias or desire to misrepresent the situation in Iraq.
I spend many hours alongside US troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq as they struggle hard to do their best and make a difference. And I always respect their efforts.
But I also know that very often their view of the country is defined by their area of operations and that does not always reflect the big picture. It is a very hard thing to have to cast someone’s sacrifices and achievements against a broader picture that does not reflect the same view, but if it is accurate and indisputed fact, then it is an important way to try give context and understanding to what people are seeing on a micro-level just in front of them.
For example, US soldiers that bring electricity to several hundred - or even several thousand - Afghan villagers in the south of the country where security is a real threat and they had to overcome all odds to make that happen, may feel like they are winning. But when you consider that only 7 percent of Afghans have access to electricity after nearly five years of reconstruction and rebuilding, then you may ask different questions about what has been achieved in Afghanistan.
My job is to ask all the questions, so many more than ever appear in my reporting. But an exhaustive process, I believe, helps me to build a better understanding of the situation so I can frame my story in the most representative way possible.
I realise my example may be imperfect and elieve me, I do appreciate the complexity of counter-insugency warfare and what it takes to rebuild a country.
I just want you to know that I have never focussed on any particular aspect of the war in Iraq to drive an agenda.
I go there, at great risk like so many others, and I get out every day and talk to as many people as I can.
People who talk about ‘roof-top’ journalism or hotel journalism really do not know what they are talking about. Firstly because many Iraqis come to our hotels to meet with us, from Sunni insurgents to tribal sheikhs to government soldiers, policemen, politicians, students, professors, lawyers, ordinary people, human rights activists and yes, even American Generals, embassy officials and State Dept representatives.
You can meet a lot of people in your hotel, but that still is not a substitute for getting out and seeing things for yourselves. All I want you and everyone else to know is that even in peaceful countries, journalists meet contacts, sources or conduct interviews in hotels. Think of the print reporter that builds en entire story over the phone - it happens all the time.
And when we do go out, we have to consider the safety of the people we go to meet. For many Iraqis, having western reporters show up at your door can be a death sentence.
So we go to the areas where in our best judgement we are not being irresponsible by doing so.
I would draw your attention to the comments made by Gen Abizaid and Gen Pace regarding civil war at the last Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing.
I know and respect Gen Abizaid, and he is not a man to use such words lightly.
On a final note, we recently lost two CBS colleagues in Baghdad, and one of them had just spent weeks embedded with me and the marines in Ramadi, and then we embedded with US Navy Seals, Green Berets and the Iraqi counter-terrorism forces.
It is a disservice to them, and many others like them, to suggest that journalists in Baghdad are not doing their jobs properly.
I can assure you all that we are doing our best, and more than anything we appreciate the huge responsibility we carry for the many people, Iraqi and American and others, who have so much at stake in this conflict.
There were 100+ responses to her alleged comments at the Liberal Avenger site which claims that the note above is from Lara (again we have yet to confirm that it really is from her but we have no reason to doubt it).
