Interview with Joe Galloway

No one can accuse Joe Galloway of being anti-military, "French," or unpatriotic (although some may try). Few reporters speak more convincingly of loving the men and women in uniform. Now a special correspondent and columnist for Knight Ridder, he served four journalistic tours in Vietnam and was the only civilian awarded the Bronze Star during that war, for rescuing wounded American soldiers. He's covered numerous conflicts since, including the Gulf War and, as an embed, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also co-authored the acclaimed book We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young.

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"When I go to Walter Reed Hospital," he explains, "where some of the 10,000 wounded from Iraq end up, I go ward to ward and bed to bed, and reach out to shake a hand, and someone puts a stump in it. These are the best kids we've ever had in the military and this is the best Army and Marine Corps I've seen in my 40 years of marching with them. And I tell you, this war is not worth one of their lives, let alone 1,400 of them."

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A stern critic of how the war was fought from the beginning, Galloway last year called for the dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Those who reject withdrawal, he warns, continue to embrace the Vietnam syndrome — maybe the war was a mistake, but now we're there and we have to make the best of it.

"I say, bullshit, we can start to leave now," Galloway declares. "We can argue we overthrew Saddam and freed Iraq. This would give us a fig leaf to cover our nakedness as we get out." He points out that Robert McNamara recognized our cause in Vietnam was futile in 1965 but told President Johnson we could not cut and run. "We only had 1,100 dead in Vietnam then, less than we have now in Iraq," Galloway says, bitterly. "That's just one panel on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial. Instead, we 'stayed the course' and now there are 58,000 names on that wall."

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"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there may be only one good way out of the deepening disaster that is Iraq: Hold the elections on Jan. 30, declare victory and begin leaving."

  Editor and Publisher article