The Early Show

Frontline View Of 'America At War'

By Rome Neal

September 8, 2003 / 6:02 PM EDT / CBS

When the war in Iraq began, embedded journalists were as close to the front lines as the troops engaged in combat.

Now, their stories and experiences are part of a DVD and book release titled "America at War. The Battle for Iraq: A View From the Frontlines."

Dan Rather, CBS Evening News lead anchor and managing editor, tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler, "It's only a first draft of history. After all, the war is not over, although a lot of people would like it to be over. What this is designed to be is a reference book. In the future, when the kids or grandkids ask, 'What was the major ground combat part of the war like?,' this book will give a sense of it, a combination of the written material and the DVD."

"America at War" is a historical record of the military conflict in Iraq as seen and experienced by CBS' embedded reporters. Journalists and CBS photographers alike contributed to the book that offers personal commentary, photographs, and video that lay out the stories of war.

The book comes with a full-length DVD on the war that includes feature stories, Rather's exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein and the stories of soldiers on the front lines.

Is there an untold story here? Having been to Iraq four times just this year, Rather says there are several: First, how well the military continues to perform. "What our men and women are still going through, combat at night and sometimes during the daytime and then trying to rebuild schools, orphanages, that kind of work, is really incredible."

Secondly, noting that the problem continues to be the poor planning after the war, he says questions that arise now are "in the area the military should not have to handle or cannot handle. I don't understand why the electricity, fresh water, other very important parts of life haven't been restored there. Neither do the Iraqis."

And "The third thing is, Americans have to be prepared for this situation to get worse. The outlook is not that it gets better short-term; it probably gets worse for the next three months," Rather says.

Read an excerpt from "America at War":

The March to War

To hear U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell tell it, the Bush administration was never in a rush toward war. Powell spent seven and a half weeks negotiating Resolution 1441 line by line, word by word. By the time it was approved unanimously by the fifteen-member U.N. Security Council in November 2002, as far as Powell was concerned, everyone — including the French, the Russians, and the Germans — knew that the resolution's reference to "serious consequences" meant only one thing: either Saddam Hussein complied fully with new weapons inspections or the Bush administration would go to war with Iraq.

But the diplomatic wrangling was not over. By March 2003, Paris and Moscow's call for a second resolution authorizing force had been joined by London, Washington's staunchest ally. Public sentiment throughout Europe against a war was strong, and this made already skeptical leaders more nervous. Many Europeans thought President Bush's personal style was brash and that he was morally arrogant.

The policy disagreement boiled down to this: The Bush administration saw Saddam Hussein as a clear and present danger. Having suffered one huge attack on September 11, 2001, President Bush was unwilling to take any chances that the Iraqi dictator would allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists for use in another attack. Led by France, much of Europe's political leadership didn't see the threat in immediate terms and refused to pledge support for a second resolution.

On the Security Council, Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria were firmly behind the United States on a second resolution. Five other members — France, Germany, Russia, China, and Syria — were firmly opposed. Washington was left looking for five of the six votes from those who were undecided: Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, Cameroon, Angola, and Guinea.

But France threatened to use its veto if Washington got the nine votes required for passage, thus escalating the policy disagreement into a political and diplomatic crisis. In many ways, the confrontation over Iraq had become a test among Security Council members of how much the United States could get away with as the world's only remaining superpower.

Faced with a possible veto, the U.S. withdrew the resolution on March 17. That evening, President Bush delivered his ultimatum speech, giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq or face military action.