It is most likely that the attack on Mr. Woodruff was not some random event. It follows that Mr. Woodruff was a target. This means that someone told the insurgents where Mr. Woodruff would be.
Mr. Woodruff's injury illustrates the nature of counterinsurgency conflict and the almost impossible challenge that infiltration by the enemy poses an external force like the US in building a loyal indigenous force to win the counterinsurgency struggle. It also raises the question of why, knowing that the Iraqi Army is compromised, did the US military allow Mr. Woodruff to be embedded with them.
Iraq is now a major counterinsurgency operation.
The US is quickly trying to train an Iragi Army so that it can reduce the size of the force it has in Iraq.
Bob Woodruff was injured while riding in an Iraqi Army vehicle:
The two were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, when the bomb went off. Woodruff and Vogt were standing in the open hatch of an Iraqi military vehicle at the time as they attempted to report on the war from an Iraqi soldier's perspective.
We can suspect that Mr. Woodruff's location was known to his attackers and that somehow this information was learned as a result of infiltration of the Iragi Army by the insurgents.
Stratfor has written some excellent pieces over the last few years on counterinsurgency tactics and the problems with winning a counterinsurgency.
In Stratfor Report: Military Doctrine, Guerrilla Warfare and Counter-Insurgency Summary they note that:
[In Vietnam the] number of trained counter-insurgency troops available was insufficient. The measure to be used for sufficiency is not the number of guerrillas operating. Rather, the question is the size of the population -- regardless of political inclination -- that must be sorted through and managed to get through to the guerrillas. This means there is a massive imbalance between the guerrilla force and the counter-insurgency force that is intensified by the need for security. Guerrillas operate in a target-rich environment.
.....
[Therefore], the huge commitment of forces needed to begin the suppression of a guerrilla force cannot be managed by an external power. Unless the target country is extremely small both in terms of population and geography, the logistical costs of force projection for a purely external force is prohibitive. That means that a successful force must recruit and utilize an indigenous force that serves two purposes. First, they serve as the backbone of the main infantry force, both defending key targets and serving as follow-on forces in major engagements.
Secondly, since the counter-insurgency force normally needs intense cultural and political guidance to separate guerrillas from the population, these forces provide essential support -- from interpreters to intelligence -- for the counter-insurgency team.
As we can see, this is the prescription that the US is following in Iraq. As Bush says, they stand up so the US military can stand down. But, obviously it is not that simple. Infiltration of the indigenous force population by the insurgency is a very vexing problem. Such infiltration can not only result in danger to the security of the fledgling force members, it can also compromise the security and operations of the US military.
As Stratfor continues:
The guerrillas can easily penetrate an indigenous force, particularly if that force is being established after the guerrilla operation has commenced. Recruiting a police and military force after the guerrillas are established guarantees that guerrilla agents will be well represented among the ranks. Since it is impossible to distinguish between political views using technical means of intelligence, there is no effective way to screen these out -- particularly if the first round of recruitment and organization is being carried out by the external power.
This means that from the beginning of operations, the guerrillas have a built-in advantage. Having penetrated the indigenous military force, the guerrillas will have a great deal of information on the tactical and operational level. At that point, the very sparseness of the guerrilla movement starts to work to its advantage. Hidden in terrain or population, armed with information on operations, guerrillas can either decline combat and disperse, or seize the element of surprise.
This is why the US doesn't trust the Iraqi Army with very advanced weapons or very much operational intelligence. The US is very aware that most anything they give the Iraqi Army or tell the Iraqi Army will find its way into the possession of the insurgency.
As oofer, a Vietnam vet who worked with the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army wrote in a post on this subject this morning.
I spent 14 months in Vietnam, 70-71, at the beginning of the US draw down. Supposedly, the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army, was 'being trained' by US forces.
The system MACV, Military Assistance Command Vietnam, erected for training and deploying the ARVN was penetrated immediately by the VC and the NVA. I was an NCO attached to the 101st, working through 8th Radio Reaserch. Hell, even in Phu Bai, where our HQ was, we had a separate secured perimeter. No ARVN were ever even allowed inside to my knowledge.
NO ONE under my command was permitted to to allow themselves or their unit to be 'escorted' or billeted by ARVN. It was way too dangerous. ARVN were unreliable, conflicted units. There were some good ones, but most were useless as war fighters. Moral was low, and security impossible.
And so, it is with Bob Woodruff's ride. US military planners probably knew very well that Mr. Woodruff's activites with the Iraqi Army could not be kept secret from the insurgency and that therefore his security could be compromised. Certainly it is correct to say that covering the war is a dangerous business and that Woodruff knew the risks he was taking. However, someone made the call to allow Mr. Woodruff to ride shotgun in an Iraqi Army vehicle. The only motive possible is to create a PR event demonstrating the progress of the Iraqi Army. Someone made the calculation that the potential PR value of Woodruff's ride was worth the risk.
It turns out to have become a much bigger PR event demonstrating the magnitude of the difficulty in waging a counterinsurgency, and the degreee to which the Iraqi Army force is compromised by infiltration by the insurgents.