Couric to Report from Iraq

Katie Couric is ready to trade the cozy confines of the studio for a war zone.

The CBS Evening News anchor plans to travel to Iraq and Syria for the first time next week to conduct a 10-day series of reports on the war, the network announced on Tuesday.

Couric had previously expressed reservations about traveling to the region, given she's a single mom with two young daughters. However, according to CBS News' executive producer Rick Kaplan, she felt the timing was right to make the high-profile trip to get a better perspective on the conflict, before the American commander in Iraq, General David H. Petraeus, briefs Congress next month.  

"We thought that as the American public is going to start hearing what the politicians and the generals start talking about, that wouldn't it be good if we could give them some sort of grounding," Kaplan told the Los Angeles Times. 

The veteran news producer said that includes detailed reports on how Iraq's infrastructure is holding up during the conflict, how the so-called surge is going and the fragile state of the Coalition of the Willing—the ever-dwindling group of allied countries who have begun drawing down troops from the region.

"I think you'll see, in the course of four days, a rather complete and, I think, extraordinary presentation on just where the war is, where the peace is, what is lacking from this picture, what some of our biggest obstacles are," he added. 

Kaplan will accompany Couric on the expedition along with CBS' Washington bureau chief, Chris Isham. Starting Tuesday night, she'll anchor the CBS Evening News from Iraq's capital of Baghdad for two nights, followed by two nights in Damascus, Syria. During that sojourn, she'll also file 8 to 10 reports with support from the network's chief correspondent in Iraq, Lara Logan. 

Kaplan noted that he in no way pressured Couric to go, but acknowledged that having her on the ground will create opportunities for the last-place broadcaster to garner some big "gets," among them an interview with Petraeus, top U.S. and Iraqi officials as well as the seven American soldiers who penned an op-ed in the New York Times expressing their views that the surge was not working.

"You can't help but get a very detached perspective when you're not there and you're not witnessing things firsthand...I'm curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing," the 50-year-old newswoman told the Associated Press. 

The trip will also mark Couric's one-year anniversary in the top spot at CBS Evening News, since taking over the reigns from interim anchor Bob Schieffer, though it's a question mark as to whether it'll do anything to boost her sagging position in the broadcast news wars. 

Since she started the job, Couric's emphasis on a softer newscast have seen her ratings drop by as much as 8 percent. 

As of last week, the CBS Evening News averaged a paltry 6.1 million viewers a night compared to ABC World News with Charles Gibson, which nabbed 8 million viewers for first place, barely edging the 7.9 million tallied by NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

In any event, since the American-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has become a deadly place for journalists, and not just the low-level ones.   

In January 2006, while embedded with the U.S. 4th Infrantry Division, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was gravely injured after the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised explosive device. Woodruff survived and, after a long and difficult yearlong recovery, finally returned to work and made a series of follow-up reports on Iraq, as well as on the consequences of traumatic brain injuries. 

In May 2006, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier was seriously injured in a car-bomb attack in Baghdad that killed two members of her crew and an Iraqi translator. After undergoing numerous operations and months of physical therapy, she has since recovered completely. 

And just this week, CBS News announced that its main translator in Iraq, Anwar Abbas Lafta, was abducted by 8 to 10 armed men and killed.