Encouraging news from Fallujah

Associated Press

[saquin]

A crowd of Iraqis gather around a US trooper as he sits on his humvee while guarding a street in Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, Tuesday, June 10, 2003. The Iraqi city viewed as the hub of American hatred has become a success story of sorts. The occupiers and the occupied have parlayed their way to a relatively peaceful coexistence. (AP Photo Ali Haider)

A US soldier is offered a glass of tea by Iraqi residents as he guards a street in Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites), 50 kilometers west of Baghdad Tuesday June 10, 2003. The Iraqi city viewed as the hub of American hatred has become a success story of sorts. The occupiers and the occupied have parlayed their way to a relatively peaceful coexistence. (AP Photo/Ali Haider)

[OREALLY]

Thank you...we sure need to hear good news...God bless and protect our troops...

[Radix]

I appreciate this thread.

The 3 ID is way overdue for some R&R!

[Oatka]

Stuff you won't see in print or on TV. Note the humanitarian aid. A note from one of CENTCOM's officers says they send these releases out to all the media ". . . but they don't seem to report it."

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20030673.txt

"June 21, 2003
Release Number: 03-06-73

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TEMPO DOWN AS DESERT SCORPION CONTINUES

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The high level of activity of recent days reduced as Coalition forces continue Operation Desert Scorpion.

Scorpion Combat Operations are:

The 1st Armored Division executed offensive actions in Baghdad conducting six raids and detaining 22 individuals. The unit seized nine rifles, eight pistols, three knives, two boxes of grenades, one bomb and three 127mm rounds.

The 4th Infantry Division operating in an area ranging from Kirkuk in the north to Taji in the south conducted three raids and detained three individuals. The unit seized three AK-47s, one mortar site and one Dragonov night site.

Among humanitarian assistance delivered June 20 was:

The 101st Airborne Division continue work rebuilding drainage ditches and renovating the Mayor’s office in Makhmur, along with rebuilding at kindergarten schools.

The 4th Infantry Division placed a contract for playground equipment and a retaining wall for a school in their area, assisted a general hospital with $1,000 drug and supply purchase and purchased an ambulance.

The 3rd Infantry Division coordinated a trash collection service and removed 64 loads of trash from Fallujah. They continue to work with the municipality to re-establish a waste collection system.

The 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment passed out school supplies to the local schools in the eastern part of Iraq.

Operation Desert Scorpion was created to neutralize non-compliant influences in order to create a secure environment and concurrently provide support to the local government and assist with the economic growth."

[saquin]

Some more details:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030621/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_managing_fallujah_2


Iraqi Town Feels Misrepresented in Media
By MARK FRITZ, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - When Maher Sahdoun checks out the news about his purportedly dangerous city, he envisions a viper's nest of gunmen bent on avenging the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

But when this cattle farmer sees the city in which he awakens each day, he thinks outsiders mistakenly think Sunni Muslims are somehow synonomous with Saddam insurgents and hysterically use Fallujah as the capital of the unruly remnants of a crushed regime.

Yet in a matter of weeks, the Iraqi city viewed as the hub of American hatred has become something of a strange success story. The occupiers and the occupied have parleyed their way to a relatively peaceful coexistence.

"The media is making a much bigger story out of Fallujah than it is," Sahdoun says as he strolls his land on the banks of the lazy, reed-lined Euphrates River.

Sadhoun isn't alone. U.S. service personnel are continually perplexed by the distraught letters and emails from their families, who read or hear about a veritable hunting season on U.S. troops when the casualties ? considering the magnitude of invading, pacifying and rebuilding a California-sized country ? pale in comparison to any other American war of such magnitude.

Far away in southern Iraq, where Islamic Shiites supposedly want to take over the country, Specialist William Ruiz of the New York National Guard sits in relative safety in the most crime-ridden town in the country, the traditional smuggler's paradise of Samarah.

"She told me that there is hardly any news about Iraq anymore, except that everything she hears is not good," the Manhattan resident said of his wife. "It's always soldiers getting shot at."

Fallujah is perhaps the most extreme example of hyperbole run amok. This city of 300,000, about a 30-minute drive west of Baghdad, is one of the corners of the so-called "Sunni triangle," a sector that has seen sporadic attacks that have killed four of the 50 Americans killed since major combat ended in April.

Saddam is a Sunni Muslim, and it's easy to see other Sunnis as fighting a last-ditch battle to prevent the Americans from allowing the majority Shiites to overrun them. But in fact, many tribes of Sunnis, particularly the more devout, have long opposed Saddam's socialist, secular Baath party.

Fallujah gained notoriety when troops from the 82nd Airborne Division fired on protesters on April 28 and April 30. Twenty Iraqis were killed.

The shootings triggered a backlash, and a variety of gunmen took regular shots at military patrols in Fallujah in the ensuing weeks. The incidents and the Fallujah's notoriety seemed to soar in tandem.

"It (the crowd shootings) drew a lot of fighters from other towns to Fallujah, because of the big media presence" in nearby Baghdad, says Capt. John Ives, the 3rd Infantry Division's liaison to Iraqi community.

Fallujah became a symbol for a mission unraveling, and Islamic foreign mercenaries, Baathists and common thieves flooded the region, said Taha Bodaini Hameed, 55, the mayor.

Hameed acknowledged that many Saddam loyalists had fled to Fallujah during the fall of Baghdad to blend into Sunni society, and people began blaming them for all of Fallujah's random crime, including the looting and torching of a police station a week ago.

Ives said regular meetings with local sheiks and clerics resulted in the appointment of Hameed as mayor and an agreement to keep heavy armor off the streets, creating a less aggressive presence.

"After the shooting, we sat down with the local leaders and said, 'Just tell us what you want,'" Ives said.

In return, they have helped single out people who were hoarding weapons, attacking soldiers and looting, he said. But Ives said a witch hunt of sorts has also emerged, targeting alleged Baath members.

As far back as April, even as Baghdad was falling, clerics and tribal leaders from Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi met U.S. special operatives to negotiate a peaceful American takeover. The result was two major cities in the Sunni triangle taken without a shot being fired.

"Right from the beginning there was an agreement," said the mayor.

Fallujah today has none of the anti-American graffiti found in southern cities dominated by fundamentalist Shiites. Produce and meat markets are open well into the night, and some shops are filled with tires and plastic chairs already being imported from China.

"The Americans are keeping their promises," said Sheik Hasna al Bouaifan, leader of one of the top tribes in the region. "They are patrolling the town to keep peace. One of the clerics who met with them said: 'They must secure themselves before they can secure us.'"

Unlike in the south, few complaints are heard about lack of drinking water, and few calls for the Americans to leave.

U.S. troops have seized weapons for weeks countrywide, including in Fallujah. But last week, the military took the media along, and suddenly Fallujah was again portrayed as the supposed epicenter of anti-American resistance.

"We hit specific targets and specific individuals. That wasn't a sweep. That was just a little operation," Ives said. "What made it such a big deal was that it was the first time we took the media on one of these" in Fallujah.

Coincidentally or not, somebody fired a few after-hour gunshots into the mayor's office and the courthouse later Monday, after most journalists had filed their stories on tensions in Fallujah. Days later, a grenade explosion injured two soldiers at a Fallujah power plant.

Yet most people on the crowded main drag seem inured to the low-intensity war around the country.

"We don't know what all the fuss is about," Alaa Hussein Hummadi, 21, tending his uncle's tire shop, gestured as Humvees rolled down the street, he said.

[maxwellp]

I sure wish we could e-mail our troops in Iraq. A week or so ago I received e-mail from two Marines who I thought were actually in Iraq. e-mailed them back and told them I was finally glad to hear from Iraq. They corrected me and said they were on the Nimitz on their way home, but had read our letters of support when they boarded the Nimitz, which were e-mailed months ago. One Marine said he was down in dumps, until he boarded the Nimitz and when he read all our e-mails he perked up and was delighted, But they did say the Iraqi people were great to them while they were in Iraq.

[Mr.Clark]

These pictures are obviously forged. QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE!

[BagCamAddict]

Great article bump. Everyone should read this one.

[Destro]

Yea, kind of reminds me of those smiling Vietnamese shoe shine boys in Saigon.......

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

A good friend of ours just returned from Baghdad. He was part of the restoration effort. The first thing I wanted to know was if the Iraqis were still happy to have us there and he said, "Absolutely!" He said that he couldn't even listen to or watch the news because it disturbed him so much. He said that he just loves the Iraqis and that they love us. Every time he went out on the street, Iraqis greeted him warmly.

[M. Peach]

If I were the soldier - I'd be awfully concerned about what was in the tea.... I really feel badly for the soldiers, because they are in a terrible position.

I greatly respect and admire their great sacrifice for America.

[sakic]

Guess this means that our soldiers won't be needing any guns any more.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Whoa whoa whoa...this doesn't fit the quagmire/frustration/anger/resentment template demanded by the New York Times.

Don't you dare bring this up again, you hear me???!!??

[Donna Lee Nardo]

I wouldn't drink that tea.

[CyberAnt]

Didn't the mayor of the city come out and walk the streets with the soldiers ...?? That may have made a big difference.

[McGavin999]

The tea was undoubtedly given by someone the soldier trusts. Remember, some of these people were on board even before Baghdad fell.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Did you see FN's Jim Pinkerton live from Iraq yesterday? He was awesome - said just what we've been saying for weeks - that Iraq is very large and that the press keeps reporting from the few isolated hot zones when most of Iraq is very glad we're there.

Even Fallujah, a former Saddam stronghold, is protesting the press's account of their city.

Please check out post #5 and #10, as well.

[mystery-ak]

I get the same response from my hubby everytime he calls....he asks what the latest in the news is and I tell him...he just can't believe what they are reporting here.....they report all the negatives....

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

m-a, the internet is making a difference. Jim Pinkerton's report was so good I cheered out loud. The "Mediawatch" crew back in NY acted piqued - esp. Neil Gabler and Jane Hall. Tough. The Dems. are going to hear the truth and they're going to take it whether they want to or not. We love our troops and we're tired of the lies. 9-11 changed the world. They're still pushing us in the same destructive direction they've been pushing this nation for years (see tag line).

[mystery-ak]

I hope you are right...all of these negative stories are affecting troop morale...Mike(hubby) asked me last week *is anyone in the US happy Saddam is gone*...I couldn't believe he even had to ask that question...but all he hears is it's a quagmire, where's Saddam, where's the WMD.....all he knows is what's happening to him and his men and it's not being reported...pats on the back and handshakes from Iraqis, thanking them and the US.