Posted on 12/07/2005 9:49:36 PM PST by sruleoflaw
Author's note: This column is about 300 words longer than the version that appears in today's Tracy Press.
By Steve Wampler
Can anything good happen in Iraq?
Apparently not, in the view of many reporters and editors at most major American newspapers, wire services and television networks.
Every day, Americans get their dose of bad news from Iraq -- terrorist attacks, casualty figures, imminent civil war, the military failing to meet enlistment goals, what Cindy Sheehan thinks, or what Lynndie England did.
Where are the stories about the heroism of America's soldiers, about the accomplishments of the military, about soldiers injured in battle rehabilitating themselves to get back into combat, or about the gratitude of the Iraqi people for being liberated from a tyrant who used weapons of mass destruction on his own people?
As newspapers, like the San Jose Mercury News, bang their drums in editorials calling for withdrawal and Democrat leaders like John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold and others urge America to hit the exits, it might be wise to listen to people who have a real stake in Iraq -- the Iraqi people and the liberating American soldiers.
In an October survey taken by the U.S.-based International Republican Institute, 47 percent of Iraqis polled said their nation is headed in the right direction, as against 37 percent who said they believe that it is going in the wrong direction. And while 56 percent expect things to be better in six months, only 16 percent think conditions will worsen.
Additionally, the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations have released a survey that found that 64 percent of military officers are confident the U.S. will succeed in establishing a stable democracy in Iraq. Interestingly, the people who live in Iraq see things differently than many newspaper editors and Democrat political leaders.
In May, retired Army Colonel Jack Jacobs -- who won the Medal of Honor in 1969 in Vietnam -- returned from a fact-finding trip to the Sunni Triangle. "When I was in Vietnam if you asked anybody what he wanted more than anything else in the world, he'd say to go home. We asked...hundreds of soldiers, low-ranking soldiers, in both Afghanistan and Iraq...the same question. And the response, to a man and a woman, was, 'To kill bad guys.'...The morale is just over the top -- just really enthused about what they're doing. And I think the reason is they perceive that they're making progress. Success will do a lot to morale."
Geoff Davis, a former Army officer and a congressman from Kentucky, sees even more progress. "I've talked with hundreds of soldiers and Marines, ranging from junior enlisted soldiers to my West Point classmates who I've known for nearly 30 years and served with in the Middle East myself as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, and they believe in the mission. They see the success. And they ask me, Why is politics consuming this mission that we are clearly winning?"
That's strange, how could America be "clearly winning" when the media tells us every day that we're losing?
The good news includes Army reenlistments. As of August, every one of the Army's 10 divisions had exceeded its reenlistment goals for the year to date. Those with the most experience in Iraq have the best rates. The 1st Cavalry Division is at 136 percent of its goal, the 3rd Infantry Division at 117 percent.
"This is unprecedented in wartime," said retired Army officer Ralph Peters. Even in World War II, we needed the draft. Where are the headlines?...The ugly truth is that much of the media only cares about our soldiers when they're dead or crippled. That's a story."
The Iraqi economy is humming along and, yes, even booming. Iraqis are better off financially they have been for two decades. Per capita income has doubled since the United States ended Saddam's regime, according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. There are now more than 3.5 million cellular phone subscribers in Iraq, up from zero in Saddam's day. Electricity output now exceeds pre-war levels, and the September oil revenues were the highest in Iraqi history.
Largely spurred by the increase in oil prices, the Iraqi economy is anticipated to grow at an eye-popping 16.8 percent in 2006. According to the Brookings Institution's Iraq index, there are five times more cars on the streets than in Saddam's time, five times more telephone subscribers and a 32-fold jump in Internet users.
As of September, there were 40 buildings nine stories or higher under construction in the Kurdish city of Sulaymani; as of five years ago there were none.
In one of the most important areas, security, there has been steady if uneven progress. For example, terrorists were only able to launch 19 attacks on polling places during the October referendum, a significant drop from the 108 attacks during the January election.
Another indicator is the vastly improved safety of what U.S. soldiers call "Route Irish," the four-lane six-mile stretch of highway from central Baghdad to the airport. Once one of the most dangerous roads in the world, the highway has been transformed into one of the most secure routes in all of Iraq. While 13 people were killed and 24 injured in ambushes on the airport road during April, only one person was injured in October, according to U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.
The difference is that an Iraqi police mechanized brigade now patrols Route Irish 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Additionally, Iraqi security forces man checkpoints at nearly every entrance to the airport road and open areas between the highway and side roads have been blocked with razor wire.
Iraqis are now also taking over more responsibility for their own security. Though I couldn't find it reported anywhere in America, security for the seven provinces in southern Iraq was handed over to the Iraqis in August of this year. In September, Iraqis assumed sole control of security in the city of Najaf and since then, the crime rate has dropped 90 percent. In north-central Iraq, half of all security operations are conducted by Iraqi forces and in Baghdad Iraqis now control and police more than one-third of the city.
During a Sept. 30 press briefing at the Pentagon, Gen. George Casey, the U.S. ground-forces commander in Iraq, emphasized that the number of U.S.-Iraqi independent Iraqi operations of company-size or larger had increased from about 160 in May to more than 1,300 in September, and that U.S.-Iraqi or independent Iraqi operations now comprised about 80 percent of all military operations in Iraq.
The media template for covering Iraq is not only focused on bad news and the past; it also doesn't have space for Iraqi gratitude. In September, Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, visited President Bush at the White House and also met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Talabani thanked "all the brave American Army" for its sacrifices and losses in liberating Iraq and said his nation mourns the loss of American lives in exchange for Iraq's freedom.
"We owe to those American heroes who came to liberate us from the worst kind of dictatorship," Talabani said. "Thanks to your brave Army, now Iraqi people (are free)."
Talabini also shared his thoughts on the media coverage of the Iraq liberation. "The situation is not only black or negative," he said. "I am sorry to say that media was reluctant to reflect the real picture of Iraq."
During a November visit to Tokyo, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari also expressed his appreciation to America. "The Iraqi people are grateful to the United States for their sacrifice to liberate us after years of dictatorship, cruelty which was the worst in the world. The whole area and for that mattter the world is better off to have this dictatorship gone...The multinational forces are not occupiers! That sentiment is felt by the vast majority of the Iraqi people."
Many members of the media and Democrat leaders continually attack the U.S. effort in Iraq and claim the Iraqi people want America to leave right away. These people think they know Iraq better than Iraq's leaders, most of the Iraqi people and America's soldiers on the ground. They don't. And, by the way, what's in it for them to see the U.S. defeated in Iraq?
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Steve Wampler, a Tracy resident, is a former radio talk show host. He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. His website is www.stevewampler.com
Bump to get the column circulating.
Way to go, Steve.
Thanks much for your post. I still remember having you on my radio show a few years ago. I always watch for your posts and musical contributions on FR. Keep up the great work!
Right on, dude!!
You're right. We need to do that (talk about the schools, too)? I only had 1,000 words to play with (my article took up a full page with a picture in the paper's print edition). Maybe some others could write some letters to the editor with that information.
Heh! Nice comeback! You totally demolished the substance of the article with your sarcastic schools remark!
I don't get your comment. My words were not meant to be sarcastic in any way, shape or form. I see the Iraq war issue in the U.S. as a political dogfight. Our troops are doing a fantastic job in the field -- and unlike Vietnam (where we also won in the field), we absolutely have to win in the public arena. I write letters to the editor and try to make our case -- that the Iraq war is going better than the media reports. Sorry for any offense; none was meant.
No, but Walnuts's were. (Read his post again.) And that's who my post was addressed to.
I liked your article, FWIW.
Thanks for looking out for me. You're right. I've been busy posting the column, sending it to folks on my e-mail list and trying to get it published in other places. All the best.
The MSM has decided there is no good news in Iraq. I don't know why anybody takes them seriously as a source of information. They seem to distort more then they inform.
Excellent. Thanks for posting it.
Bump. We should get this information into letters to the editor.
Good news bump.
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