Martha Raddatz Recounts the Battle for Sadr City {Updated}

Martha Raddatz has spent extensive time covering Iraq. Her new book, The Long Road Home, examines a battle at Sadr City in April 2004.


Fresh Air from WHYY, March 1, 2007 ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz has been to Iraq 12 times since the American invasion. She has a new book about a battle that was a turning point in the war, an April 2004 fight in Baghdad's Sadr City. Raddatz says it was then that American troops realized they were facing an insurgency.

The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family is about the soldiers who fought that battle, and their families. One of the soldiers in the battle was Casey Sheehan, the son of antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan.

You can Listen To Interview Here

Journalist Examines Iraq Battle In-Depth
Morning Edition, March 2, 2007 · The First Cavalry Division was caught largely unawares in Baghdad's Sadr City in April 2004. Soldiers who thought they were on a peacekeeping mission faced intense gunfire instead. Many had just arrived in Iraq. For some, it was their first battle.
"Everything they had been told about where they were going, Sadr City, was that it was pretty peaceful, that it would probably be a babysitting mission. And they end up in Iraq pretty much thinking they're going to be passing out candy," says ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz.
Listen To This Intervew

'The Long Road Home'
In one scene in her book, Raddatz recounts a moment when a patrol of armored Humvees led by a U.S. lieutenant noticed that the streets of Sadr City were ominously empty.
Read an excerpt from 'The Long Road Home.'