Couric: 'Real Progress' In Iraq
Evening News Anchor Says Police Finally Making Inroads
Ground Zero Today: Six Years After 9/11
(CBS) BAGHDAD, Iraq One week before Gen. David Petraeus is expected to give his report on U.S. progress in Iraq, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she has already seen dramatic improvements in the country.
"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric said Tuesday. "I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda."
Couric traveled to the city of Fallujah in Anbar province, which U.S. forces entered in April 2003 and again in November 2004. That is the same city where, in house-to-house fighting, American forces uncovered nearly two-dozen torture chambers.
"We found numerous houses, also, where people were just chained to a wall for extended periods of time," U.S. military intelligence officer Major Jim West said back on Nov. 22, 2004.
"The face of Satan was here in Fallujah, and I'm absolutely convinced that that was true," said Marine Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl.
It is also the city where four American military contractors were set on fire, mutilated and hanged from a bridge by insurgents.
Now Fallujah is "considered a real role model of something working right in Iraq," Couric said.
Evening News Anchor Says Police Finally Making Inroads
Ground Zero Today: Six Years After 9/11
(CBS) BAGHDAD, Iraq One week before Gen. David Petraeus is expected to give his report on U.S. progress in Iraq, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she has already seen dramatic improvements in the country.
"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric said Tuesday. "I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda."
Couric traveled to the city of Fallujah in Anbar province, which U.S. forces entered in April 2003 and again in November 2004. That is the same city where, in house-to-house fighting, American forces uncovered nearly two-dozen torture chambers.
"We found numerous houses, also, where people were just chained to a wall for extended periods of time," U.S. military intelligence officer Major Jim West said back on Nov. 22, 2004.
"The face of Satan was here in Fallujah, and I'm absolutely convinced that that was true," said Marine Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl.
It is also the city where four American military contractors were set on fire, mutilated and hanged from a bridge by insurgents.
Now Fallujah is "considered a real role model of something working right in Iraq," Couric said.
