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What you don't hear on the news about Iraq

 

Forwarded from Lt. Col. Jackie Smith

 

> From:     Carpita, Christopher D. CPT 
> Sent:    Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:16 AM
> Subject:    What You don't Hear on the News about Iraq
>
>
>
>
> The good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV:
>
> Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...
>
> ... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on
> active duty.
>
> ... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
>
> ... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
>
> ... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
>
> ... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518
> megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
>
> ... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are
> open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
>
> ... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools -
> 500 more than scheduled.
>
> ... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
>
> ... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
>
> ... doctors  salaries are at least eight times what they were under
> Saddam.
>
> ... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to
> 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
>
> ... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination
> doses to Iraq's children.
>
> ... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's
> 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of
> thousands of farms.  This project has created jobs for more than
> 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
>
> ... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services
> and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
>
> ... there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections.  We expect
> 50,000 by year-end.
>
> ... the wheels of commerce are turning.  From bicycles to satellite
> dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major
> cities and towns.
>
> ... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and
> first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
>
> ... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
>
> ... the central bank is fully independent.
>
> ... Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and
> banking laws.
>
> ... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15
> years.
>
> ... satellite TV dishes are legal.
>
> ... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and
> extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for minders and other
> government spies.
>
> ... there is no Ministry of Information.
>
> ... there are more than 170 newspapers.
>
> ... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street
> corner.
>
> ... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
>
> ... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial
> or executive - of a representative government, now does.
>
> ... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.
> Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when
> the city council elected its new chairman.
>
> ... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and
> professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the
> country.
>
> ... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body
> in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
>
> ... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international
> events.  Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over
> two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General
> Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the
> Islamic Conference Summit.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today
> announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the
> world.
>
> ... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
>
> ... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites
> celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
>
> ... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects,
> large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of
> Iraq.
>
> ... Uday and Quasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to
> the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force
> cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or
> murdering critics.
>
> ... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree
> with the government.
>
> ... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed,
> or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
>
> ... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual
> terror.
>
> ... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
>
> ... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
>
> ... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
>
> ... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an
> Iranian, a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights,
> for democracy and for peace.
>
> ... Saddam is gone.
>
> ... Iraq is free.
>
> ... President Bush has not faltered or failed.
>
> ... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the
> Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's
> important.
>
> Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany
> did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII.
> Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the
> thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was
> declared.
>
> It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris,
> let alone attempt to build something else in its place.
>
> Now, take into account that almost every Democrat leader in the House
> and Senate has fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling
> of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they
> continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict
> has been a failure.
>
> Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our
> sons and daughters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the
> world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the
> Bush administration in so short a period of time?