Real-Life Stories from the Front Line was presented by Drexel University, the College of Arts and Sciences and co-sponsored by the International House (http://www.ihousephilly.org/). This lecture was the third and final lecture in a series of Community Conversations concerning human rights and global conflicts. The lecture was held in the A. J. Drexel Picture Gallery at 6:15 p.m. on April 23, 2007. About 50 people settled into the gallery to listen.
Oliver St. Clair Franklin, President of International House, introduced the speaker, David Zucchino, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and correspondent for the LA Times. He was recently embedded in Iraq and wrote a three-part LA Times series following the lives of wounded soldiers.
Zucchino, a thoughtful speaker, prefaced his speech with a warning that he was not a professional speaker, and thanked International House for the opportunity to speak. He began his talk with some startling statistics about the war in Iraq:
108 – Number of car bombs in Iraq in March, highest monthly total yet. (U.S. Military Combined Press Information Center Baghdad)
400 – Attacks per week on U.S. or Iraqi security forces in the spring of 2004; this spring, it’s 1,000 a week. (Pentagon study)
1,200 – Number of civilian deaths in February 2004. The number in February 2007: 2,500. (Brookings Institution)
34,000 – Iraqi civilians killed last year . (UN)
1.8 million and counting – Number of Iraqis driven from their homes and resettling inside Iraq. (UN)
2 million and counting – Number of Iraqis who have fled their country. (UN)
120,000 – Number of U.S. troops needed to stabilize Baghdad, according to an internal Pentagon assessment in 1999. The actual number: fewer than 30,000. (Pentagon)
78 – Percentage of Iraqis in recent U.S.-sponsored poll who believe the U.S. troop presence is provoking more conflict than it is preventing.
6 – Number of Arabic speakers among the 1,000-plus employees of the U.S. Embassy Baghdad. (U.S. Embassy Baghdad)
500,000 – Number of weapons the U.S. has turned over to Iraqi security forces. Of that, only 12,000 were properly registered or accounted for, meaning the U.S. has no idea how many fell into insurgent hands. (Congressional hearings)
4,200 – Megawatts of electricity produced in Iraq before the war; Megawatts today: 3,600. The U.S. has spent $4 billion on restoring Iraqi electricity. (Brookings Institution)
49 – Percentage of U.S. government contracts in Iraq that are bid competitively. (Congressional hearings)
55 – Percentage of KBR contracts in Iraq spent on overhead rather than the actual projects themselves. (Congressional hearings)
$20.50 - Value of a share of Halliburton stock in March 2003; one share today, adjusted for a stock split: $64.12. (Dow Jones)
$12 billion – Amount of cash in $100 bills flown into Iraq between spring 2003 and spring 2004 that couldn’t be fully accounted for – nobody could say where it all went. That’s 363 tons of cash – gone. Nobody knows how much may have been funneled to the insurgency. (Congressional hearing)
$38 billion – Amount allocated by Congress of Iraqi reconstruction. Amount that has gone for overhead, security, consulting fees, contractor add-ons, fraud and waste: unknown.
$1 Trillion to $2 Trillion – Estimated ultimate cost of the war (American Enterprise Institute). Don Rumsfeld’s estimate in March 2003: Less than $50 billion.
ZERO – The amount of territory controlled by U.S. troops outside their fortified bases. (Forward Operating Bases, Joint Security Stations and Combat Outposts, Green Zone)
Zucchino spoke of how difficult it was to publish information about the war in Iraq. “Photos of bloody Americans are bad news for this government,” he said. Zucchino wanted permission to photograph the caskets that were being sent home, but the government said “no” because it was disrespectful and it intruded on the lives of the soldiers. But Zucchino thought that photographing the caskets was anonymous and would also give the American public an idea of how many people were dying in Iraq. The caskets are unmarked and there was no way to tell which soldier is inside. But the government refused him permission.
Working as a correspondent with the LA Times, Zucchino requested to be embedded with a troop in Iraq. He eventually acquired unrestricted access to the Army, which took him six months, and began to investigate and interview soldiers. He said that the LA Times’ intention was “not to shock and exploit suffering, but to tell a story from the soldiers’ point of view.”
The war in Iraq has fewer casualties than previous wars, and only 10% of soldiers die from their injuries, as opposed to 24% in the Gulf War and the Vietnam War, and 30% in WWII. If a soldier is injured and makes it to the hospital, he has a 96% chance of making it out alive.
“Virtually every soldier I spoke with was articulate and polite,” Zucchino said, which was surprising, since he was talking with soldiers as they were being treated in hospitals and were suffering from massive injuries.
The most surprising item Zucchino uncovered was not the skills of the medics, which was also impressive, he said, but what is called “R2D,” or return to duty. “Soldiers felt a tremendous urge to return to their buddies,” Zucchino said. “They were consumed by the need to return.” Injured soldiers who were shipped back to their families would often enlist for another tour of duty, sometimes even before they had fully recovered. “They’re not fighting for Bush or democracy, but for their buddies.”
Zucchino’s reporting on the war in Iraq turned into a multimedia collaboration for the LA Times entitled “The Lifeline” (see it here). He played all three parts for the audience, who sat in captivated silence. The videos were extremely compelling and depicted soldiers with blood dropping down their faces, limbs barely attached to their bodies and dazed, woozy eyes. But the audio that accompanies the pictures is even more compelling: soldiers professing to their health, telling loved ones not to worry, and speaking positively about their futures.
Zucchino closed by addressing journalists’ role in the war. “Do families feel exploited by this type of reporting?” he asked. “The ones I have talked to have said they were thankful their story had been told. They wanted desperately to be with those who had been injured, and this was the next best thing. They needed every detail.”
Ali Cahill is a senior at Drexel majoring in English. She is also the Managing Editor of ASK.