Anderson (in Waveland,
Mississippi) interviews Peter Bergen (in DC), Aneesh
Raman (in Baghdad) and Michael (in Brisbane) on the
sectarian violence ripping through Iraq following the
bombing of the Golden Mosque in Sumarra. Michael
points out that Zarqawi outlined this exact plan to
disrupt the democratic process in a letter to Osama
bin Laden over a year ago, and that the only group to
benefit from this violence is al-Qaeda.
Length: 8:54
Michael was one of the
main contributors to this amazing episode of the PBS
series. This is a compilation of clips covering his
portions of the episode.
"The Insurgency" is
produced and directed by Tom Roberts, and co-produced
by Matt Haan, but a lot of this new report comes
courtesy of the contacts and personal video journals
of Michael Ware of Time magazine. He and Ghaith
Abdul-Ahad, a photojournalist from Iraq whose access
to insurgents is equally impressive, get very close
to their subjects.
In one case, too close. There's a frightening piece
of footage here, as part of the 2004 battle for
internal control of the city of Tal'Afar, in which
Ware comes face to face with a terrorist intent on
killing him.
Ware is documenting, with his handheld video camera,
proof of a Ba'athist claim that the insurgent forces
of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi so brazenly controlled the
town that their flags adorned its main boulevard.
Ware sees one flag, then another, and films them. In
the process, he films one of Zarqawi's men, who leaps
from the curb, screams for the vehicle to stop, and
heads right toward Ware and his camera.
The camera captures, in freeze-frame, the rebel
soldier pulling the pin on his grenade, and walking
forward with apparent murderous intent. Ware lives to
tell the tale - but at the moment that image is
frozen, it's hard to imagine how.
Length: 19:39