Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 5:59 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION Dec. 6 - 7, 2003
Two segments of a recent telecast of the evening news haunt me.
First, there was President Bush receiving a royal welcome at sumptuous Buckingham Palace. Several hundred of our Secret Service agents had been flown over to help thousands of British police protect the president from terrorists.
The scene shifted to war-torn Iraq. A city block had been reduced to rubble by one of our 500-pound bombs. Two badly damaged houses stood on the periphery of the rubble. In front of one house stood a lone woman, dazed, bleeding, crying. She likely lost everything dear to her.
My heart went out to her. I wished we could have had someone there to comfort her, and explain that we had to drop the bomb to liberate her from Saddam.
ERNEST ELMS
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