ABC News co-anchor Woodruff injured in Iraq

NEW YORK -- ABC "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device.\nBoth journalists suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also has broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and due to be evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, probably overnight, said ABC News President David Westin.\n"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," Westin said.\nWoodruff and Doug Vogt, an award-winning cameraman, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.\nThey were wearing body armor and helmets but were standing up in the hatch of the mechanized vehicle when the device exploded, exposing them to shrapnel. An Iraqi solder was also hurt in the \nexplosion.\nABC said the men were in the Iraqi vehicle -- considered less secure than U.S. military equipment -- to get the perspective of the Iraqi military. They were aware the Iraqi forces are the frequent targets of insurgent attacks, the network said.\n"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military, you have to go with them, you have to see how they live," said ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz, reporting on the attack on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.\nThe U.S. military confirmed that Woodruff and Vogt were injured in the midday attack and said an investigation is \nunder way.\nLara Logan, a CBS News correspondent who has covered Iraq, said the Taji area is considered particularly dangerous because it was the site of one of Saddam Hussein's munitions dumps. Many of the explosives are believed to have gotten into the hands of insurgents, she said.\n"I admire Bob for going with the Iraqis," said Logan, who was blown 12 feet in the air by an explosion while with the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2003. "It's important to hear their story and to experience it from their point of view. He did the right thing."\nSetting the broadcast aside from its network rivals, ABC usually stations one of the anchors in a New York studio while the other is doing reports from the field. Woodruff spent three days in Israel last week reporting on the Palestinian elections, and was to have been in Iraq through the State of the Union address on Tuesday, according to ABC.\nWoodruff, a father of four, has been at ABC News since 1996. He grew up in Michigan and became a corporate lawyer in New York, but changed fields soon after a stint teaching law in Beijing in 1989 and helping CBS News during the Tiananmen Square uprising.\nVogt, 46, is a three-time Emmy award winning cameraman from Canada who has spent the last 20 years based in Europe covering global events for CBC, BBC and now exclusively for ABC News. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.