San Antonio War Reporter Challenges McCain's View of Iraq

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003568799

San Antonio War Reporter Challenges McCain's View of Iraq
Sig Christenson


By E&P Staff

Published: April 09, 2007 10:20 AM ET

NEW YORK Sig Christenson, a founder of Miltitary Reporters and Editors (MRE), is back in Iraq for his fifth tour of reporting duty for the San Antonio Express-News. E&P has covered each of his tours over the past four years. Besides sending back articles to his paper, he also maintains on this trip a blog at its site, at www.mysanantonio.com.

Here is his entry from yesterday, which he forwarded to E&P.
*

Four long years have passed since the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall. The war that was supposed to be quick and easy has become long and hard. The misery index here in Baghdad is about as high as the temperature in August.

Imagine you live in Muholla 212 in Karkh, a district in Baghdad only
recently liberated from vicious fighting. The high-rise apartments are
riddled with bullets, a few of the windows scorched from missile strikes.
Some of your neighbors were killed by terrorists, at least one of them a
boy.

A drive to the market, if you're lucky enough to have a car rather than the three kids I saw the other day racing down Haifa Street in a donkey cart, is a heroic act of faith.

The killing goes on in parts of this country even as I write this sentence.

We reporters here aren't making it up. We're doing our jobs and sharing the same risks as U.S. troops and millions of Iraqis, and we're not running for any public office.

The same can't be said of Sen. John McCain. He's the pro-war presidential candidate, and he was just here last week on a nice dog-and-pony show to a Baghdad market.

The good senator is luxuriating back home again, indulging himself in
another rant on the media's coverage of this war.

"The new political-military strategy is beginning to show results," McCain, R-Ariz., wrote in Sunday's Washington Post. "But most Americans are not aware because much of the media are not reporting it or devote far more attention to car bombs and mortar attacks that reveal little about the strategic direction of the war.

"I am not saying that bad news should not be reported or that horrific
terrorist attacks are not newsworthy. But news coverage should also include evidence of progress."

Enough already. There have been enough distortions for one war.

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