The Media Drops the Ball: Iraq Situation Worse than Reported

Eau Claire, WI
Sep 13, 2004

An Eau Claire man working in Iraq says the presidential candidates are not taking the war in Iraq seriously and the media is letting that slide. Former Eau Claire City Council President Wallace Rogers says that's the impression he got while home on leave. Rogers is back in the Middle East. He says what is going on there is very different from the picture painted by the American media. He says, while he was in Eau Claire, he heard that the U.S. is winning the war and that we are making progress in establishing a democracy. Rogers says that is not what he sees. He says: "I am surprised and disturbed by what's been happening in Iraq that I didn't see or read about during the fifteen days I was just home. Iraq – Baghdad in particular this time – has spiraled into a state of anarchy: important Iraqi government officials are assassinated every other day; American soldiers and marines have been killed at a rate of more than three a day since I've left."

How can this be? President Bush says that we are winning the war on Terrorism and that it can't be won, and that it can be won, and that it can't be won, and that it can and we are.