Defense Department Special Briefing (A MUST READ)

U.S. Department of Defense ^ | 10/5/05

[Marine_Uncle]

MR. WHITMAN: Welcome this afternoon, and as I indicated to you earlier today, we kind of have a rare opportunity here to have a man that I think all of you know, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who has spent the better half of the last two and a half years in Iraq, and most recently for the last 12 months as the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq, the commander of that, which, of course, is responsible for training and equipping the Iraqi security forces there. He is on his way to his new assignment at the Combined Arms Center out at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and in the midst of his packing agreed to come in and spend some time with you today. And for that we are very appreciative.

[Marine_Uncle]

I did not copy paste the whole briefing due to it's lenght. But I assure you. One should take the time to read the whole thing very carefully. If you have had any doubts, confusion as how Generals Casey,Myers, and SoD Rumsfeld had replied to the recent televised Senate hearing on the war in Iraq, after reading this, you should take on a completely renewed outlook. It is good believe me. I put it in Breaking News so it may stay around for many members to see it. Clearly it is an important read IMHO.

[bnelson44]

Actually, that is why I'm here. I was given the alternative yesterday afternoon, I could either help with the packing or face the Pentagon press corps. It was a pretty tough decision, and I think that I made the right one, but I'll let you know at the end of this session.

:)

[FairOpinion]

"The bottom line up front that I'd like to leave with you today is that there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi security forces over the course of the past 16 months in the face of a brutal insurgency, and there is considerable work still to be done."

[The Mayor]

It's a book...wow

[SubMareener]

I was going to do that, until I got to the end and read the copyright notice. You may find that a moderator edits out you posting.

[Cobra64]

I will read it again. Tomorrow.

[jmc1969]

http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/

You can watch the video here

Go to the briefing section after clicking on the video link, it is the 5 one down in that section.

[FairOpinion]

Thanks for the reminder, I asked the Mods to remove my post with the full article. I figured anything on a military site is OK to post fully, I didn't look at that copyright stuff at the end of it carefully.

[Rummyfan]

BFLR.

[hsalaw]

Great report! It answered a lot of questions I had about the Iraqi military/police capability; not their willingness - I know they're invested in this venture - but just how they've progressed. And the Gen. made clear what the difficulties are and the plans to solve them. He also made it clear that we've had a structured and successful military for 200 years, and the Iraqis have been working on this for about two years - so, yes, of course, they have a ways to go but they'll get there. And as an aside, it always amazes me that our military sounds so clear, straight-forward, and intelligent while our legislators sound like such dopes most of the time. I'm thinking Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Feinstein, Barbara Lee - and these are just some of our California legislators! Aren't we lucky.

[Marine_Uncle]

Getting late gotta get some sleep, but I just want to paste a tiny bit. Surely yea gotta love this:
"GEN. PETRAEUS: Yeah. And they want to be -- frankly, they want to be very much like the U.S. military. In fact, they'd like F-16s and, you know, Polaris submarines and aircraft carriers and a whole bunch of other things. And we want to get them the necessary things -- wheeled armored vehicles. But in practice, the challenge is not reverting to what you know. And so, the -- and that will, again, take time, it will take training, it will take education, it will take some mentoring and assistance and a little bit of general guiding. But we see that in units. There are Iraqi sergeants major out there that -- in fact, on Haifa Street. I walked Haifa Street, by the way, with an Iraqi patrol. And in that patrol was an Iraqi non-commissioned officer who proudly wore U.S. command sergeant major stripes. And they had been pinned on him by his counterpart sergeant major.

So very very sad, Americans who know how to read english could not read this briefing.
Sack time............have a good one all.

[Eastbound]

Strange that it is ok to email a copy of the article, or print a copy of the article. Check the icons on the upper right hand corner of the page. That seems in direct violation of the the published copyright notice on the bottom of the article:

"(C) COPYRIGHT 2005, FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, INC., 1000 VERMONT AVE. NW; 5TH FLOOR; WASHINGTON, DC - 20005, USA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ANY REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION CONSTITUTES A MISAPPROPRIATION UNDER APPLICABLE UNFAIR COMPETITION LAW, AND FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, INC. RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PURSUE ALL REMEDIES AVAILABLE TO IT IN RESPECT TO SUCH MISAPPROPRIATION. FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, INC. IS A PRIVATE FIRM AND IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. NO COPYRIGHT IS CLAIMED AS TO ANY PART OF THE ORIGINAL WORK PREPARED BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE AS PART OF THAT PERSON'S OFFICIAL DUTIES. FOR INFORMATION ON SUBSCRIBING TO FNS, PLEASE CALL JACK GRAEME AT 202-347-1400."

Might be worth a call to get the straight poop. Looks like a wealth of interesting information there that could be cut and pasted.

[mcgiver38]

Here are the key words, there should be no problem posting this in entirety

NO COPYRIGHT IS CLAIMED AS TO ANY PART OF THE ORIGINAL WORK PREPARED BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE AS PART OF THAT PERSON'S OFFICIAL DUTIES.

You cant copyright anything done on active duty, I tried before :)

[mcgiver38]

Here are the key words, there should be no problem posting this in entirety

NO COPYRIGHT IS CLAIMED AS TO ANY PART OF THE ORIGINAL WORK PREPARED BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE AS PART OF THAT PERSON'S OFFICIAL DUTIES.

You cant copyright anything done on active duty, I tried before :)

[Alia]

Thank you for posting this excellent article.

Q:... How do you communicate to people who, you know, some of whom are motivated to join this force by seeing such horrible things happening to members of their own family and their home communities? How do you communicate to them that a strong arm is not the way to go at these folks, that you need to respect human rights against the enemy that's not respecting it against --

Conversely, as I wondered in 2003, how do you take a people who've been horribly abused and instill in them courage.

I do know of the **tremendous** progress in Iraq and Afghanistan. It astounds me, everytime, I think of the courage and grace which is involved.

But seeing Democrats constantly hammering on about "withdrawing troops" and "quagmire" in Iraq is so obviously hypocritical of them, given their 30 years of "social help" programs here in the US. These programs always grow. And no one calls it a "quagmire", do they.

I'm glad President Bush is standing firm on staying with the Iraqi's, and until the Iraqi's are ready to stand on their own.

[Just mythoughts]

bttt

[Eastbound]

" . . . ORIGINAL WORK PREPARED BY A UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE . . . "

I don't think the article was prepared by the government, but is a re-write or production OF the original by a private corporation. They are copyrighting their work product, which is probably different from the original. But I still can't understand why they say it can't be re-produced in one breath and encourage you to make copies and email the article in another breath.

Think I'll give the guy a call Monday.

[Eastbound]

Meant to ping you.

[mcgiver38]

"But I still can't understand why they say it can't be re-produced in one breath and encourage you to make copies and email the article in another breath."

Welcome to DOD policy :) Let me know what the guy says but my take is still that it was an official DOD news briefing by an active duty officer as part of his official duty.
Now if we posted it and said "I was at the briefing the other day and here is my transcript that I prepared" we would violate the copyright. With credit given the DOD website we should be ok. Be careful how you explain it when you call.