Anne Garrels was NPR's Iraq correspondent during the war. Gutsy and smart and not in any sense "embedded," she was able to see and report on the war that became a serious embarrassment to those who started it as well as many who were sent to oversee the aftermath of the invasion and the "rebuilding." Her interview on that war with NPR the other day has much of the reporter's realism without the bias we hear from the cheerleaders of the invasion. She ended with this:
NPR: You were in Iraq before the war. You covered it as it was happening. You were there for years in the aftermath. As you look back on it now, did Iraq turn out the way that you thought it would? Did it meet the expectations that you had as you reported on this war?
GARRELS: Not at all. I did not realize that the U.S. would be so ill-prepared. It was a terrible waste of money and lives. You know, Iraqis certainly don't love us any more for what we did there. We really have gained very little. It's good that Saddam is no longer there but the situation is far from resolved. All of this, you know, the sectarian issues, the security issues, the country is sliding more and more into an authoritarian regime. It is a tinderbox waiting to explode again. ...NPR
