April 22, 2007
Just Another Day: Living In Baghdad
Lara Logan On How Ordinary Citizen Cope In Iraq's Capital
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Play CBS Video Video Logan's Reporter's Notebook Lara Logan discusses her "60 Minutes" report on the many ways in which the war's constant threats to personal security have affected the day-to-day lives of Baghdad residents.
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Video Rescue On Haifa Street A top Iraqi surgeon who was trapped in a dilapidated house on Haifa street with his family was rescued by U.S. troops. Lara Logan has an exclusive report.
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Video Baghdad Family Copes With Life In Full: Bombs, shootings and long gas lines are just some of the obstacles that residents of Iraq's capital city must deal with daily to survive. Lara Logan reports.
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Mahmud al Wadi won't go for a ride, without a loaded gun. (CBS)
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
All of his children, Rafif, 11, and 13-year-old Mustafa, have seen things no parent wants their child to see. "One day, we see there's two fighter, they killed two boys in front of us," Mahmud explains.
Mahmud says the two fighters just shot the two people in the street and left their bodies on the road. "And they see the blood of them," he explains.
His children remember the incident, and his daughter wept when asked about it.
It’s a story heard over and over in Iraq. And no one has been spared, not even the most privileged.
Dr. Quoresh al-Kasir is one of Iraq's most prominent surgeons, and was a guest of President Bush at the White House in 2004. He and his family lived on Haifa Street, an upscale Sunni area, where fighting broke out in January between the mostly-Shiite Iraqi army and Sunni gunmen.
"The Iraqi Army tried to kill my family and my kids," Dr. Quoresh explains.
That was when CBS News first spoke to Quoresh. He and his family were trapped by the fighting, and CBS broadcast his desperate cry for help on the Evening News.
"The snipers were on the other building," Quoresh explains. "When the shots started to come through the windows my sons and my daughter, you know, they were in front of my eyes, expecting at any moment the Iraqi army comes and shoots my children."
His wife Nala, sons Zaid and Taif, and his daughter Dina still can’t believe they survived.
"What was it like for you that time, when you were stuck in the apartment, trapped there during the fighting?" Logan asks Dina.
"I feel I will be dying," she recalls.
Her brothers nod in agreement. "'Cause this is the end," Zaid adds.
"You thought it was the end?" Logan asks.
"We are all are crying, me and husband, and my son, and my daughter all are crying that time," Quoresh's wife Nala remembers.
As the fighting raged for 10 days, they all hid in the bathroom of their dark apartment, without heat, electricity, and running short of food.
"We were so hungry at that time," Quoresh remembers. "So my wife said, 'Quoresh, we had to had, I don't know, the kids are hungry.'"
"I go to the kitchen and prepare something to eat," Nala explains. But out of fear of the snipers, Quoresh's wife couldn't walk upright past the windows.
"So she crawled and went to the kitchen. And then we sat in the bathroom near the restroom. We ate," he remembers.
The day after the CBS News report about the doctor and his family’s plight was broadcast, the U.S. decided to launch a rare rescue mission, sending in soldiers from the 4/9 Cavalry to save them.
With U.S. helicopters hovering over Haifa Street, a convoy of Bradley fighting vehicles drove down the dangerous road to Quoresh's house. When soldiers yelled to locate them, the family came out, luggage in hand, and was hurried into the Bradley vehicles and taken to safety. No shots were fired and the rescue mission was very quick and precise.
"We heard the helicopters starting to come to the area," Quoresh recalls. "My sons and daughter said, 'Oh, Baba, the American started to reach the area.'"
"I remember that. It was a moment really, it was a start of a new life," Quoresh says, describing his feelings of the rescue.
Quoresh's daughter Dina says the rescue was "like a dream."
His life was saved, but Quoresh lost his home and almost everything he owned. He says he was targeted because he’s a doctor.
Nearly 200 physicians, including 15 of Quoresh's closest friends, have been murdered by those intent on destroying Iraqi society, which is one reason why 18,000 Iraqi doctors – half the physicians in the country – have fled for fear of ending up like many of the people who pass through their hospital doors.
Asked why he remains in Iraq, Quoresh tells Logan, "This is the big question that I have been asked from so many people."
"And what's the answer?" Logan asks.
"And the answer is that I love Iraq," he replies. "Yeah. This is my country."
Produced By Peter Klein and Jeff Newton
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 54 CommentsPosted by toldyouso21 at 12:34 AM : Apr 23, 2007
You Did notice the man Left Not Just town but the country after the interview? The Death squads target those who allow Islam to be disrespected by not requiring proper dress in their home! He had a workable solution in place until that interview....thats how important it was...The man was an outcast after that visit and his family was placed in jeopardy by Ms Logans lack of attention to detail...I see many posts about her experience in the middle east...if that is true ..she HAD to know better!
http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report.pdf
More about Lara from her bio:
(CBS) Lara Logan was named a CBS News correspondent in May 2002 and has also contributes to 60 Minutes.
She provided daily reports on the war in Iraq and was the only journalist from an American network in Baghdad when American troops invaded the city, reporting live from Firdos Square as the statue of Saddam fell.
Logan has reported extensively from the frontlines of Afghanistan and has followed the Green Berets as they search for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Seeing his daughter cry when talking about the murders she witnessed just made me see how this was a young girl from anywhere in the world that should never have to go through this. Just tragic.
It was a powerful story. How can we help???
For the record I'm a fairly ordinary white, middle class American christian who values diversity. I have respected much of what 60 Minutes has done over many years. This piece was appalling. It was more subtle than Imus but displayed the same insensitivity.
He calls ahead to friends and neighbors to make sure the roads are clear of danger. And he tells Logan he never goes the same way, changing his route every day.
CARE TO COMMENT, SENATOR McCAIN??
The local militias should stop this senseless violence and go back where they belong.
Posted by didntinhale but does swallow
your tribe? take it and shove it - people like you are the reason we're in this quagmire and have an idiot in the white house with all his neocon warmongers. when you go out the door, the sudden pressure on your brain is coming from our collective boot up your azzz.
Posted by lisacarley at 12:35 AM : Apr 23, 2007
You should read your own comments--if their outlook and comments were terrible and they treat their dogs better--yours were even worse? They deserve what they are getting over there? Rapes, beheadings etc. So at least they treat their dogs better--but look at you---you appear to be worse than they are, they do NOT deserve what we are doing to them no matter what they believe--if you don't care about how we are destroying a people who did nothing to us--then at least have enough self respect of how you have allowed your own self to be destroyed--until you resemble a depraved terrorist. They too, think the people that get harmed deserve everything they get and then some. Welcome to the club of inhumanity--may you live long enough to regret your horrible words and experience enough trials to have empathy for those you wish evil and our illegal war on.
Nicely put.
The Bush regime dead-enders are eager to risk the blood, treasure, and dignity of others, so long as they are not asked to risk anything.
Fortunately, they are in their last throes.
Yep! We're with you! In the middle of death squads and car bombs, we are sure the people were still so petty as to be concerned with cleavage and custom as you were--instead of being able to tell their stories. Get a clue--prioritize. People are dying, and being raped, beheaded, etc. Garbage is in the streets, and people are hungry--you be petty and worry about the cleavage instead of focusing on the actual message--the horrors of our war of choice--we'll catch you later when you find that clue.
I can think of nothing more cowardly than Americans wanting to fight a war we choose "over there, so we don't have to fight them over here" Why is that a good choice? Why do we want to destroy another country for our own war and destroy another people while we sit at home and cheer it all on? It is like a grown up grabbing a child to use as a shield against a gunman. It is depraved and craven. Only people with no honor fight by proxy--if we really believe in this fight and that so many should die for it--let's put our money and our fire power where our mouths are--let the fight come to us--maybe then, when we have to live like Iraqis--we can truly understand a weigh the costs of a war of choice and the terrible losses it inflicts. We need to fight them here--since we are the ones who want a fight==and stop volunteering other countries for our bs. May God forgive us for being the cause of this particular story and all the others that have resulted from the power vacuum our invasion unleashed.
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