An excerpt from his interview on Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: You are home to work on a one-hour documentary which will run on MSNBC on March 21st, the fourth anniversary of the war. In offering this proposal to NBC, you wrote something and I want to share it with our viewers and come back and talk about it. These are Richard Engel’s words.
“As Iraq has changed, I have changed. The war has cost me my marriage. I’ve had friends killed and kidnapped, survived bombings and attempts on my life. I have seen Iraqis freed from the numbing, terrifying fetters of totalitarianism, and had their lives destroyed by the religious bigotry, ignorance, greed and opportunism unleashed by this war. It has changed my outlook. Violence and cruelty now seem, to me, to come easily to mankind; a new belief that disturbs me. But I am also more appreciative of how quickly life can turn for the better, or for the worse.”
“As Iraq has changed, I have changed. The war has cost me my marriage. I’ve had friends killed and kidnapped, survived bombings and attempts on my life. I have seen Iraqis freed from the numbing, terrifying fetters of totalitarianism, and had their lives destroyed by the religious bigotry, ignorance, greed and opportunism unleashed by this war. It has changed my outlook. Violence and cruelty now seem, to me, to come easily to mankind; a new belief that disturbs me. But I am also more appreciative of how quickly life can turn for the better, or for the worse.”
This war has had a profound impact on you, hasn’t it?
MR. ENGEL: It has been my life for the last four years, and I’ve had many friends who’ve had, you know, terrible things happen to them, Iraqis, and part of the, part of the purpose of this documentary is to show some of the stories that we’ve been living ourselves through, and to try and show—internalize a little bit what it, hat it has been like for me. And one of the stories I want to talk about is my Iraqi—one of my best friends there, whose father was kidnapped and he remains missing, and it’s just a very human story. He goes every day to what I think must be the worst place on the planet. It’s the main morgue in Baghdad and he sifts through the hundreds of bodies that are in terrible state of decay. These are only unidentified bodies that are brought to the morgue and he’s searching for his father, and he’s told me, “I don’t even know if I saw him I would be able to recognize him because the bodies are so badly decomposing.” And these kind of stories just, we’ve come across so many, and after four years they do have an impact. I think he, he—this young man is starting to lose his hair, I think he’s losing his mind. It’s an entire country suffering from post-traumatic stress. So our own experiences, I think, also reflect to a degree what the country has, has gone through.
MR. RUSSERT: Criticism that the American press corps ignore the good news and only covers the bad news.
MR. ENGEL: I’ve heard that criticism a lot and I think we’re going to hear it a lot more over the next year, because there’s tremendous incentive for both the U.S. administration and the Iraqi government to declare a lot of success. It’s clear that the Iraqis want the—this war to start winding down. The American people seem to want that as well, so the easiest way is to just declare success, “everything is going very well.” It makes everyone feel good and it seems like you’re having a lot of progress. The reality is that there have been moments of progress, but in general, I think over the last four years, it has not gone very well. The region is very unstable. People in Iraq are not being attracted to this new democracy; instead, they’re fleeing in the millions into—spilling over into other countries. And now it’s becoming a major refugee crisis as Jordan and Syria are starting to turn people away and don’t want the Iraqis any more. So I think in general we’re going to hear more of this criticism. But if you read and you look back at the record that the media has put forward of the war over the last four years, I think it’s been fairly accurate.
MR. ENGEL: I’ve heard that criticism a lot and I think we’re going to hear it a lot more over the next year, because there’s tremendous incentive for both the U.S. administration and the Iraqi government to declare a lot of success. It’s clear that the Iraqis want the—this war to start winding down. The American people seem to want that as well, so the easiest way is to just declare success, “everything is going very well.” It makes everyone feel good and it seems like you’re having a lot of progress. The reality is that there have been moments of progress, but in general, I think over the last four years, it has not gone very well. The region is very unstable. People in Iraq are not being attracted to this new democracy; instead, they’re fleeing in the millions into—spilling over into other countries. And now it’s becoming a major refugee crisis as Jordan and Syria are starting to turn people away and don’t want the Iraqis any more. So I think in general we’re going to hear more of this criticism. But if you read and you look back at the record that the media has put forward of the war over the last four years, I think it’s been fairly accurate.
MR. RUSSERT: Have you yourself had some close calls?
MR. ENGEL: Yeah, no more than most people, but I’ve just been there for a long time, so two attempted kidnappings and our bureau’s been bombed twice, and I’ve had three hotel rooms destroyed, and had friends killed and other colleagues kidnapped and just over time, things start to add up. You know, if you are there for a very long time and you roll the dice everyday, sometime the—your number might come up. But I’ve been very lucky so far. Other colleagues at—at CBS and ABC...
MR. RUSSERT: ABC.
MR. ENGEL: ...have been seriously injured or, or killed.
More on Engel's interview.
And Richard Engel did indeed sacrifice his personal life for the truth of reporting....Your work is appeciated...
5 comments:
Good Morning/Afternoon Biloxi,
US backs terrorists
and what version are we getting state side?
Japan buddying up with Iran Iran keeps getting more and more friends
Another Arab view
Richard lost everything of value in his life to stay in Iraq and let Americans know the truth. I hope the next President gives him an honor for his service. He is the only reporter who knows and tell the truth about the inside of Iraq. He's lost friends and his wife just to let families of our brave troops know the real truth. We owe this man so much that we could never repay. He puts his life on the line every day yet continues. We hear how great things are going in Iraq but Richard gives only truth. Yes 60 min show allow Americans to know that the Kurds are doing just find and building their country with no help from the United States. It seem if you don't let the US get involved you succeed but if Bush gets involved it's a civil war. Peaches reads Richards blog site when she can so you know I trust Richard. I told you the troops know the truth and they know the Liar-in-Chief is just that a liar.
"The arrested terrorists have confessed that they enjoyed the United States' all-out support."
And that statement is pretty frightening..
Chicago Native:
You know that the Gerbil will deny that the U.S. back the terrorists. Japan is buddying up with Iran and the Veep is on his way to Japan to panhandle for Iraq. The joke is on the Administration.
Post a Comment