Brian Williams will be reporting from Iraq this week, having arrived in Baghdad yesterday and becoming the first network news anchor to visit the country since ABC's Bob Woodruff. And we all know how that ended.

So why is Williams risking his life to report from inside the civil war?

The timing, he said, related to the Bush administration’s deciding to send in more American troops. “The recent change in the tempo of the violence and the decision to send more U.S. troops were both major factors in my decision,” Mr. Williams wrote in his blog.

Or maybe it has to do with a little something else. Like, say, ratings?

It's no secret that ABC's Charlie Gibson is not just creeping up on NBC Nightly News, but overtaking it. So much so that Williams' exec producer John Reiss was just "reassigned" last week.

But noooooo! Williams in Iraq has zip zero to do with NBC's waning viewership.

But Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview that the first conversations about this trip took place late last year. Mr. Williams and Mr. Capus said that the move required months of planning and many logistical arrangements for Mr. Williams and the crew that will accompany him.

Allison Gollust, the spokeswoman for NBC News, said the news division was especially sensitive to any suggestion that it would use a trip like this for ratings purposes, saying, “it’s utter nonsense and beyond offensive for anyone to think we would put people in harm’s way for the sake of ratings.”

So there! It's just disgusting that someone would even consider a media conglomerate with hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue on the line would make a well-calculated effort to boost its numbers by sending its star into harms way. That's just crazy talk.