1. Michael Ware was born on 25 March 1969 and is an Australian journalist formerly working in CNN and was for several years based in their Baghdad bureau.
13 Facts About Michael Ware
1. 2.
Michael Ware joined CNN in May 2006, after five years with sister publication, Time.
3.
Michael Ware was one of the few mainstream reporters to live in Iraq near-continuously, since before the American invasion and gained early acclaim due to him establishing contacts with the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi insurgency.
4.
Michael Ware holds a Bachelor of Laws and a degree in political science from the University of Queensland.
5.
In September 2004, while investigating reports that Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi's nascent "al-Qaeda in Iraq" group was openly claiming control of the Haifa Street area of Baghdad, Michael Ware was briefly held at gunpoint by fighters loyal to Zarqawi who had pulled pins from live grenades and forced his car to stop.
6.
Michael Ware has stated that, had this happened only a few months later, when Zarqawi's group had grown stronger, he would have been killed.
7.
Michael Ware was embedded for the September 2005 assault on Tal Afar, and his harrowing video of the battle has been included in a Frontline documentary and a 60 Minutes report.
8.
In February 2011, Michael Ware confirmed that he would not be returning to CNN.
9.
Michael Ware later told an Australian newspaper that he has formed a film company, Penance Films, and has recently finished a documentary about his time in Iraq called Only the Dead, released in 2015.
10.
Michael Ware's film was featured at the Sydney Writers' Festival, where it won the Documentary Australia Foundation Award.
11.
On 18 October 2006, CNN aired a small portion of a videotape sent to Michael Ware that showed snipers shooting at, and apparently killing, American troops.
12.
The video was a tape sent to CNN with Michael Ware adding narration for the edited broadcast that showed American soldiers being stalked and eventually brought under fire by the shooters.
13.
Michael Ware told the story to illustrate how dehumanising war is for military personnel as well as reporters.