NIGHTLINE: Echoes of the Missile Attack (11/3/03)

[huckleberry]

FYI - tonight's Nightline show --

Nightline Daily E-Mail
November 3, 2003

TONIGHT'S FOCUS: It's something that the military had been worried about for a long time, and now it happened, a helicopter full of American soldiers shot down in Iraq, apparently by a shoulder-fired missile. It's a new tactic, and a dangerous escalation in the ongoing war.

It's almost impossible to imagine the fear and the chaos in that helicopter once it was hit, the pilots trying to regain control, the soldiers in the back not knowing what was happening. It's amazing that anyone survived at all. And it's made worse by the fact that these soldiers were going home, at least some of them. They were scheduled to be part of the R and R program; they were going to head back for a couple of weeks with their families. Yesterday was among the bloodiest days for the U.S. since the invasion of Iraq.

People have been worried about this kind of missile attack for a while. Certainly the authorities here in the U.S. have been worried that such a missile would be used against a commercial airliner. But they are not that easy to use. Until now. Was yesterday's attack a lucky shot? Or have the Iraqis, or foreign fighters, learned how to use them effectively? If that's the case, then things are going to get a lot worse, because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of those missiles out there. One of the advantages the U.S. has is its control of the air. The American military uses helicopters for just about everything. If the sky is no longer safe, then we are in for a long difficult time.

And yesterday's attack will have repercussions here at home too. With public support for the administration's Iraq policy wavering, the images of the wreckage from yesterday will surely have an impact. War is by nature chaotic and unpredictable. I don't know who said it first, but one of the truisms of war is that any plan is valid until the first shot is fired. There has been a lot of talk about the planning, or the lack of it, for post-war Iraq. But whatever you think of the level of planning, yesterday's shot, that one missile that hit the chopper, and the other one that missed a second chopper, change everything.

We'll try to make some sense of all this tonight. David Wright will report from Baghdad, and John Donvan will report on the reaction and impact here at home. Chris Bury will anchor tonight. I hope you'll join us.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
ABCNEWS Washington bureau