Tonight on Nightline Ted Koppel will read the names and show photographs of all U.S. troops killed in Iraq. The original announcement said that he would read the names of those killed in action but this has been changed to include all deaths. The program is scheduled to run 40 minutes, 10 minutes longer than normal.
According to Koppel, the reasoning behind tonight's program is that "Americans need to be reminded of the war."
I would say that we don't need to be reminded as much as we need to be informed. Thanks to coalition efforts in Iraq:
Two new banks have opened in Iraq in the last two weeks. Private deposits there have doubled since last summer.
Iraqi athletes will compete in the Athens Olympics...without having to worry about being tortured by Uday Hussein.
Millions of Iraqi children have been vaccinated against measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, and polio.
The CPA has repaired 2,500 schools and provided almost 80 million books to students.
About 2,200 infrastructure projects are currently under way with 18,000 complete. Projects are on schedule to be complete by the handover to Iraqi authorities in two months.
A national poll conducted in Iraq in late March and early April shows that 63 percent of Iraqis of all sects and ethnicity expect they will be better off in five years.
There are more than 200 newspapers compared to six under Saddam.
Iraqi citizens no longer have to fear being tortured or killed by their own government.
"I am not afraid," Ali says. "I was afraid all my life. I will not go back to living in fear."Posted by marybeth at April 30, 2004 09:40 AM News