Couric: 'Real Progress' In Iraq

w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r · September 5, 2007

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.

Many more Iraqis have joined the Iraqi Security Forces in the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province. Despite mutual distrust, stemming from the power shift after Saddam Hussein's Baathist government fell, Sunnis and Shiites are working together in the ISF to fight al Qaeda in Iraq.

While Hussein was in power, Sunnis were in positions of authority over the Shiites, and now are fearful that the majority of Shiites will seek revenge. Iraqi Shiites fear a return of Sunni power in Iraq.

However, Sunnis in Anbar continue to join the ISF.

"The spike in police has really been significant," Couric said. "The incidents in Iraq have gone down dramatically."

Security and stability have improved in Iraq, but basic services remain in disrepair.

"I think everyone I talk to agrees that restoring basic services is really an imperative step in bringing stability and some kind of sense of society to Iraq," Couric said.

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