Sandstorm Slows Woodruff's Return to Iraq
Correspondent "really sad," says country has changed since near-fatal injury.
July 14, 2009 — -- For ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, his return to Iraq Monday was supposed to be an emotional reunion with a country and a war that nearly took, and then saved, his life three years ago. But as a massive sandstorm blew in just after Woodruff landed in-country with the U.S. military, it became clear his reunion would be postponed, even if the sentiment could not be.
"Part of me is really sad by it," Woodruff told "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo from aboard a military plane to Afghanistan. "I really wish this had not happened, that the sandstorm had not stopped us."
Woodruff and a cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive devise near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff said he wanted to see just how the country had changed since then.
"We're not able to see much of anything, but we know that the violence is way down," he said. "There's a lot more hope that this country will return ... but the country has hugely changed since that day, January 29, 2006, when the insurgents nailed us."
Click here to read Woodruff's latest full blog post.
What was blocking that vision, literally, was a wall of sand.
"We were stopped in Kirkuk, a northern part of Iraq. Just as we landed, the huge sandstorm just broke out. The whole area was filled with sand; we could barely see," he said.
Woodruff is on a reporting trip with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the group was forced to wait in Kirkuk not for the few hours it had planned but overnight while the sandstorm raged.
The layover meant the cancellation of the rest of the Iraq itinerary, which would have included a visit to Baghdad and to the U.S. military hospital in Balad, where a medical team saved Woodruff's life.
"Certainly, it's a very emotional time, but you know, I think that the hope is, the dream is, that I will go back there," Woodruff said.
Woodruff's next stop is Afghanistan, where he intends to go after "a whole other set of stories."
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