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Nightline Daily E-Mail
April 21, 2004
TONIGHT'S FOCUS: A huge death toll from car bombs in Basra. The "cease-fire" in Falluja probably doesn't deserve to be called that. And a number of countries have said they are going to pull their troops out of Iraq. It's another difficult day.
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I'm beginning to dread waking up and turning on the early news. These days, the news out of Iraq isn't great. A horrible series of bombings today in Basra, a city which had been relatively quiet for a while. Among the dead are apparently as many as 20 children who were in a school bus driving by one of the bombs when it went off. There are about 200 wounded, the death toll probably over 70. What is the purpose of bombing Iraqi civilian targets? What are the bombers trying to do?
In Falluja, where there is an ostensible cease-fire, some families were even being allowed to return, there have been a number of serious firefights today. The families are now being told that they cannot return for now, and the Marines fighting there are poised between an all-out assault and an uneasy, and costly, stalemate. And still the toll rises.
Since before the war, much has been made by the administration that the U.S. is not going it alone, that there is, as the President said, "a coalition of the willing." The first President Bush was praised for putting together a broad coalition to oust Saddam from Kuwait. George W. Bush had a tougher time putting together a coalition. The invasion was, for the most part, a U.S./British operation. There are a number of countries that now have troops in Iraq, some only a couple of hundred. But the new government in Spain has said that it will withdraw that country's troops, which, in the wake of the Madrid bombings, does set a dangerous precedent. Whether the bombings had anything to do with the decision, it certainly looks that way. Two smaller countries, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, have said they are going to withdraw their troops, which only number in the hundreds. But symbolically, the impact is greater. Other countries are making similar noise. And it can't be easy for any of those countries to go up against the U.S. on this. And all of this happens with that big clock in the background counting down to June 30th and the handover of sovereignty.
So we'll take a look at all of this tonight, with David Wright reporting from Baghdad, Jim Wooten reporting on the fractures in the coalition. As usual, as I write this, we are still working out who Ted's guests will be tonight. But we will figure that out in the coming hours, and we'll continue to try to make sense of what is happening over there each night that we cover it. I hope you'll join us.
Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
ABCNEWS Washington D.C.
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