Bob Woodruff

CBS is still searching for its replacement for Dan Rather, who left in March 2005. The bodies of some unnamed hostages, believed to be Iraqi, were allegedly found hanging from the walls. ABC's "World News Tonight" is ranked second in the Nielsen Media Research rankings, and has been fading a bit lately to NBC's first-place "Nightly News," anchored by Brian Williams. military stated that, in 20 houses, it found paraphernalia associated with hostage-holding and torture, including shackles, blood-stained walls, and a torture chamber. Woodruff and his wife Lee were close to David Bloom, an NBC journalist who died of a blood clot during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Bloom's wife Melanie accompanied Lee Woodruff to Germany and back. The U.S. ^[7]. military invade the town in an effort to quell an insurgency, and it was during this operation that Bigley's cage was discovered.

Vogt is awake, mobile, and recovering. [3] The November 2004 "Battle of Fallujah" [4] saw the U.S. Although a portion of his skull was removed, his friend and colleague Martha Raddatz reported that he is not believed to have suffered major disfigurement.^[6] As of February 4, 2006, Woodruff is being kept in a medically-induced coma to assist his recovery, and ABC News has temporarily assigned Good Morning America anchors Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer to alternate duties on the evening newscast as co-anchor with Vargas. military to be a Sunni Muslim stronghold. Doctors are slowly bringing him out of induced coma and he is reported to have moved his arms and legs. The chicken-wire cage Bigley was filmed in was later reported to have been found in a house in the Iraqi town of Fallujah, a town said by the U.S. Woodruff is currently being treated at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The sometimes controversial columnist Mark Steyn had his column pulled from the British Daily Telegraph on October 11, 2004 when in it he stated that Bigley's last words "Tony Blair has not done enough for me" would not be high up on his list of final utterances.

According to published reports, Woodruff and Vogt have been evacuated to the United States Army Medical Command hospital at Landstuhl, Germany overnight on Sunday, January 29.^[5] On ABC World News Tonight that evening, anchor Elizabeth Vargas talked about the dangers of reporting in a combat zone and wished Woodruff and Vogt well in recovery. The same high-coverage news strategy was notably absent in the case of Margaret Hassan, the Irish-born aid worker, who held Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship, who was kidnapped on October 19, 2004 and killed two weeks later. ^[3] Tom Brokaw reported on the Today show that Woodruff had also undergone surgery to reduce brain swelling.^[4]. After his death, the British media were criticized for the amount of news coverage his situation had been given. military hospital in Balad and are recovering in stable condition. The captors attempted to drive Bigley, who was carrying a gun and was disguised, out of town, the reports said, but he was spotted and recaptured at an insurgent checkpoint. Both men underwent surgery for head injuries at a U.S. News reports [2] published after Bigley's death suggested he had briefly managed to escape from the kidnappers with the help of two MI6 agents of Syrian and Iraqi origin, who paid two of his captors to help him.

Woodruff sustained shrapnel wounds; Vogt was struck by shrapnel in the head and suffered a broken shoulder. According to some of those who have watched it, there appear to be continuity gaps, and the final scene shows what some have interpreted as a bullet wound to Bigley's head. Both men were wearing body armor and protective helmets at the time. However, as with the Nick Berg video, the events may not be in real time. Woodruff and Vogt were standing with their heads above a hatch, apparently filming a stand-up. According to reporters who watched the film, Bigley was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and read out a statement, before one of the kidnappers stepped forward and cut off his head with a knife. 4th Infantry Division, travelling in an Iraqi armored personnel carrier. The kidnappers made a film apparently showing Bigley's killing, and the tape was subsequently posted on Islamist websites and on one "shock" site.

At the time of the attack, they were embedded with the U.S. As of December 2005, his body has not been recovered. ^[2]. A multi-faith memorial service, attended by Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, was held for him in Liverpool on November 13. ^[1] Woodruff had traveled with an ABC News team to Israel to report on the aftermath of the 2006 Palestinian elections, and then via Amman to Baghdad, so he could meet with troops before the State of the Union Address by President Bush. He was only weeks away from retirement and the birth of his first grandchild. On January 29, 2006, Woodruff and Canadian cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured in an explosion from an improvised explosive device (IED) near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. His death was first reported on Abu Dhabi television the following day.

He is not related to fellow television journalist Judy Woodruff. Despite the efforts to save him, Bigley was beheaded on October 7, 2004. Before moving to New York in 2002, Woodruff worked at the ABC News London Bureau. On October 1, another 100,000 leaflets asking for information about Bigley were distributed by the British Foreign Office in Baghdad. During the initial invasion Woodruff reported from the front lines as an embedded journalist with the First Marine Division, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. I'm just one person.". He has also reported extensively on the continuing unrest in Iraq. He doesn't care about me.

Woodruff served as the anchor of World News Tonight Saturday and as one of ABC's top correspondents contributing reports to Nightline and other ABC News broadcasts. In the video, Bigley again begged for his life, saying, "Tony Blair is lying. duPont-Columbia University Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, two of the highest honors in broadcast journalism. facility in Guantanamo Bay. His international reporting on the fallout from 9/11/01 was part of ABC's coverage which was recognized with the Alfred I. A third video was released on September 29 showing Bigley chained inside a small chicken-wire cage, wearing an orange boiler suit apparently intended to be reminiscent of those worn by inmates at the U.S. Since then, he has reported extensively on Europe and the Middle East. Bigley's family, particularly his brother Paul, was successful, with the help of the Irish government, in eliciting support for Bigley's release from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan, and Colonel Gadaffi of Libya, who made public statements.

In 1999, he reported from Belgrade and Kosovo during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The Muslim Council of Britain condemned the kidnapping, saying it was contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an and sent a senior two-man delegation to Iraq to negotiate on Bigley's behalf. As ABC's Justice Department correspondent in Washington in the late 1990s, Woodruff covered the office of Attorney General Janet Reno, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. In his home city of Liverpool, Christian and Muslim religious and civic leaders held joint prayer sessions for his safe return. [1]. On September 24, 50,000 leaflets prepared by the British Foreign Office, asking for information about Bigley's whereabouts, were distributed in al-Mansour, the wealthy district of Baghdad Bigley had been living in. He went on to work at television stations in Redding, California, Richmond, Virginia, and Phoenix, Arizona before ABC hired him in Chicago, Illinois in 1996. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams made two appeals, one on September 30 and a second on October 7.

In 1989, while teaching law in Beijing, he was hired by CBS News to work as a translator for Dan Rather during the Tiananmen Square uprising; a short time later he changed careers. Higgins made an appeal on al-Jazeera. Before joining ABC, Woodruff was an attorney. Irish Labour Party spokesman on foreign affairs Micheal D. from Colgate University in 1983 and a law degree from the University of Michigan. It was hoped this status would aid his release, as Ireland did not participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Irish Government issued Bigley an Irish passport in absentia, which was shown on al-Jazeera television. He earned a B.A. Around this time it emerged Bigley's mother, Lil, 86 years old at the time of his abduction, had been born in Dublin and was therefore an Irish citizen; this meant Bigley himself was also an Irish citizen from birth.

Bob Woodruff grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he graduated from the private Cranbrook Kingswood school in 1979. Clearly exhausted and highly emotional, Bigley spoke directly to Tony Blair: "I need you to help me now, Mr Blair, because you are the only person on God's earth who can help me." The video was posted on Islamist websites and shown on al Jazeera television. . A second video was released on September 22 by Bigley's captors, this time showing Bigley pleading for his life and begging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to save him. On January 29, 2006, Woodruff and a cameraman were injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb while on assignment; Woodruff is the first American news anchor to be hurt in a war zone. government was quick to deny the releases were imminent, putting a further strain on America's claims that it was not an occupying power. On January 3, 2006, Woodruff became co-anchor of World News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargas, replacing the late Peter Jennings. However, the U.S.

Bob Woodruff (born 1961) is a television journalist. Ammash could be released immediately, stressing that this was about to happen anyway, as no charges had been brought against the women. 2006 Palestinian elections. Taha and Dr. Hurricane Katrina. The Iraqi provisional government stated that Dr. Operation Iraqi Freedom. [1].

Death of Pope John Paul II. custody, but it is not known to what extent these reports were out-of-date by the time of Bigley's kidnap. Senator John Edwards campaign for 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. News reports had earlier suggested that other Iraqi women were indeed being held in U.S. Both women participated in Iraq's biological-weapons program, according to the United Nations weapons inspectorate. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash.

Rihab Taha and U.S.-educated Dr. custody were two so-called high-profile Iraqi scientists, British-educated Dr. The British government issued a statement saying it held no Iraqi women prisoners, and that the only two women known to be in U.S. It was also reported that a Special Air Service (SAS) team had been placed on standby in Iraq in the event that a rescue mission might become possible.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Prime Minister Tony Blair personally contacted the Bigley family several times to assure them that everything possible was being done, short of direct negotiation with the kidnappers. After Armstrong and Hensley were killed, the British government and media responded by turning Bigley's fate into Britain's major political issue during this period, leading to subsequent claims that the government had become a hostage to the situation, as President Jimmy Carter had arguably done during the 444-day Iran hostage crisis in 1979-81. . After Bigley's death, it emerged that the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) had launched a rescue operation that had allowed Bigley to escape for a brief period, but he was recaptured at a roadblock, taken back to the Tawhid and Jihad safehouse, and beheaded shortly afterwards.

Using voice-recognition technology, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has claimed that al-Zarqawi personally carried out the beheadings. Videos of the killings were posted on Islamist websites and on at least one U.S.-based "shock" site specializing in violence and pornography. Armstrong was beheaded on September 20 when the deadline expired, Hensley 24 hours later, and Bigley over two weeks later, despite the intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain and the indirect intervention of the British government. The kidnappers said they would kill the men within 48 hours if their demands for the release of Iraqi women prisoners held by coalition forces were not met.

On September 18, the Tawhid and Jihad ("Oneness of God and Holy War") Islamist group, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, released a video of the three men kneeling in front of a Tawhid and Jihad banner. All were subsequently beheaded. The three men were civil engineers working for Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, a company working on reconstruction projects in Iraq. citizens.

Kenneth John Bigley (1942 – October 7, 2004), was a civil engineer from Liverpool, England, who was kidnapped in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad, Iraq on September 16, 2004, along with Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, both U.S.