How Brian Williams' Iraq story changed
March 23, 2003: Williams is embedded with a U.S. military unit at the start of the Iraq War. A Chinook helicopter is hit by an RPG. Williams is traveling in a different Chinook. It is unclear whether the two helicopters were part of the same formation.
(Stars and Stripes reported on Wednesday that "the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire." The report cited interviews with "crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment's Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire." It said "Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing.")
March 26, 2003: In a report on NBC, Williams recounts what happened in the Iraqi desert two days before. "On the ground, we learn the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky," he says. He doesn't say that he witnessed the RPG attack, only that he learned about it once his helicopter had landed.
September 2003: NBC publishes a book, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" that details the helicopter incident. The account is vague. An NBC producer credits "one of the chopper crews ahead of us," for spotting attackers on the ground. The reader is told that the "grenade entered the helicopter's open tail," but the passage doesn't specify which helicopter was attacked, or Williams' location.
March 2005: During an interview on Tim Russert's CNBC show, Williams says of that day in 2003, "the helicopter in front of us was hit. A pickup truck stopped on the road, pulled a tarp back; a guy got up, fired an RPG, rocket-propelled grenade. These were farmers, or so they seemed. And it beautifully pierced the tail rotor of the Chinook in front of us." This description suggests that Williams witnessed the attack.
March 2007: Williams becomes the first network news anchor to go back to Iraq after ABC's Bob Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb. The Associated Press reports on the trip, and writes this: "He's traveling with retired U.S. Army Gen. Wayne Downing, who was with him on a previous visit when Williams' helicopter was forced down by insurgent fire." The story does not quote Williams directly about the incident.
July 2007: In a blog post after Gen. Downing died, Williams refers to the RPG attack hitting "the chopper flying in front of ours. There was small arms fire. A chopper pilot took a bullet through the earlobe. All four choppers dropped their heavy loads and landed quickly and hard on the desert floor."
July 2007: In a television segment after Gen. Downing died, Williams suggests that all the choppers, including his, were fired upon: he says "when the Chinook helicopters we were traveling in at the start of the Iraq War were fired on and forced down for three days in a stretch of hostile desert in a sandstorm, we were comforted only by the fact that we were flying with the general."
September 2007: With the U.S. still mired in Iraq, Williams landed an extended interview with with the four-star general who was presiding over the war at the time. Gen. David Petraeus was discussing the lack of unification among Iraq's insurgents, and Williams brought up his supposed close-call from the war's early days. "I guess what I'm trying to understand is there -- at the start of the war, when I was flying in a Chinook with General Downing, that helicopter was shot at by a farmer," Williams told Petraeus. "He wasn't even yet known as an insurgent. We didn't know we had insurgents yet. It was too early in the invasion."
April 2008: In another blog post, Williams again recalls the 2003 attack and says "we came under fire" -- explicitly linking his aircraft to the attack. He continues, "The Chinook helicopter flying in front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire. We were forced down and stayed down."
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How Brian Williams' Iraq story changed