Entertainment

KATIE FINDS IRAQ WAR

KATIE Couric flew to Iraq last night on her way to becoming the first female network news anchor to report from a war zone.

The plucky, 5’11/2″ newswoman will trade her high heels for combat boots and don 30 pounds of body armor for the assignment, which will have her anchoring “The CBS Evening News” from war-torn Baghdad next Tuesday and Wednesday, and from neighboring hotspot Damascus, Syria, next Thursday and Friday.

Couric, 50 – the single, widowed mother of two girls ages 12 and 16 – is well-aware of the risks facing journalists in the region.

“Obviously, it’s a concern,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m not being cavalier about it. I think I feel comfortable with the measures that are being taken.”

CBS News remained mum on the details surrounding the security that has been arranged for Couric, who is traveling with “Evening News” executive producer Rick Kaplan – covering his ninth war – and Washington bureau chief Chris Isham.

Among the 112 journalists who have lost their lives in Iraq since 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, were two CBS News staffers – cameraman Paul Douglas and sound man James Brolan – killed by a roadside bomb that seriously injured correspondent Kimberly Dozier in May 2006.

And just this month, an Iraqi translator working for CBS News – Anwar Abbas Lafta – was abducted and slain.

Couric’s Iraq newscasts will come just one week before Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the multinational force fighting in Iraq, presents a widely anticipated status report on the war to Congress.

The newscasts also happen to be scheduled around the one-year anniversary of Couric’s first week as anchor of “The CBS Evening News,” which is currently mired in third place behind first-place ABC and second-place NBC.

Still, this newly minted war correspondent was thinking more about journalism than ratings as she prepared to shove off for the Middle East.

“You can’t help but get a very detached perspective when you’re not there and you’re not witnessing things firsthand,” Couric said. “I’m curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing.

“I felt it would be really important for the American people to get a big picture of what is going on.”