This list has appeared in numerous venues, including Free Republic. Its contents are based upon the October 9, 2003, Press Conference of Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator -- The Editors.
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·
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts—exceeding the pre-war average.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, by October 1, Coalition forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than their target.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s children.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...we have restored over three-quarters of pre-war telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... there are 4,900 full-service connections. We expect 50,000 by January first.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...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.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...95 percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...the central bank is fully independent.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Iraq (has) a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...satellite dishes are legal.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for “minders” and other government spies.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... there is no Ministry of Information.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...there are more than 170 newspapers.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...a nation that had not one single element—legislative, judicial or executive-- of a representative government, does.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...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.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq’s history, run the day-to-day business of government.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...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.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of (a) strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to his zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games...murdering critics.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...Saudis will hold municipal elections.*
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.*
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.*
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... 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.*
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...he has not faltered or failed.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...Saddam is gone.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... Iraq is free.
Forbes is great, but Casper Wineberger seems a little behind..... doncha think?
Current Events
You Read It Here First
Caspar Weinberger, 12.08.03, 12:00 AM ET
One of the problems of our postwar results in Iraq is that most of the principal U.S. press outlets have been reporting, to the exclusion of almost anything else, the negative events since our military stunningly toppled Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. It's time to redress the balance and present our readers with some facts that demonstrate how well America's goals in Iraq are being achieved.
Let's begin by acknowledging that all is not perfect in Iraq. Crime rates are high, almost as high as New York City's. Our forces have had to deal with the depredation and senseless destruction loosed on the country by some 100,000 of Iraq's criminals, whom Saddam released from jail shortly before our troops went in.
What we are seeing now is the uniform disdain and ill-founded criticisms of those who opposed the war from the beginning; those who, because of next year's presidential election, oppose everything the Administration or President Bush does or says; and those countries, such as France and Germany, that are angered by any suggestion of American success anywhere and which fear their huge and improvident prewar loans to Iraq may not be repaid. Many of these countries are also motivated by equally tawdry reasons of trade.
But despite all the negative reportage there is a great deal of good news--especially for those who hope to see a free and democratically led Iraq living in peace with itself and its neighbors.
Education
Nearly all of Iraq's schools are open, and data from 10 of the primary and secondary schools showed an encouraging increase in enrollment. All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes are also open. In October universities received 1,500 computers, and South Korea is helping establish Internet centers.
Teachers now earn 12 to 25 times their former salaries. The Economist reported that before the war a Baghdad primary school teacher was paid the equivalent of $6 a month; her husband, a factory overseer, earned $13 a month. Today their combined monthly income is close to $450; for the first time they are able to buy many standard consumer goods.
Public Health
All 240 hospitals and 1,200 primary health clinics are open. Spending for public health is more than 26 times what it was during Saddam's regime, and doctors' salaries are 8 times what they were. More than 22 million vaccine doses have been given to children, and more than two-thirds of drinking water supplies have been restored.
Security
By Oct. 24 we had trained some 85,500 Iraqis: 55,000 police; 6,400 border guards; an 18,700-man Facilities Protection Corps; 700 new Iraqi Army graduates, with the goal of 27 battalions trained in a year; a 4,700-man Civil Defense Corps; and an additional 10,000 Iraqis in training for these forces. In addition, 32 countries have more than 24,000 troops on the ground in Iraq, including the Polish-led forces that are in command of the south-central part of the country.
Our training and recruiting personnel have had to deal with the fact that, in order to survive, most Iraqis had to have had some association with or given some support to Saddam and his Baathist Party regime. It is therefore slow work ensuring that those we are training are suitable for the work in the new Iraq.
Public Services
Years of neglect wreaked major damage on Iraqi water, power and sewerage systems. All are being repaired and improved. Oil production, even from oilfields urgently in need of modernization following decades of calculated neglect, averaged 1.9 million barrels a day in October and is moving closer to the prewar level of 3 million.
Power generation reached 4,518 megawatts of electricity in early October, compared with 300 megawatts, prewar. Three-fourths of the prewar level of telephone service has been restored.
The courts are in session, and some 50,000 claims against the old government have been filed with the bar association.
A new currency has been issued and the independent central bank opened two months after the war ended. It took three years for post-WWII occupied Germany to do this.
The Future
On July 13 Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator Paul Bremer appointed the all-Iraqi Governing Council. On Nov. 15 the CPA and the Council committed to a political timetable for Iraq. As the White House announced, the plan "meets a key mutual objective of the Coalition and the Iraqi people: the restoration of sovereignty to a body chosen by the citizens of Iraq and based in a legal framework. It also commits Iraq to a process for drafting a permanent, democratic constitution that protects the rights of all citizens."
On Nov. 6 President Bush signed the Iraq and Afghanistan supplemental appropriations bill into law. This will bring $87 billion to our global war on terror. It will help support our servicemen and -women with weapons, equipment and salaries; build stable democratic societies in these two countries, as well as train and equip those citizens who are fighting to defend and secure their rights; upgrade schools and hospitals; and repair infrastructure and improve services, such as water, electricity and sanitation.
It wasn't until last month that papers began reporting on the progress that's been made in Iraq. We must keep in mind that it has been only seven months since our military brought down Saddam and that it will take time for the Iraqis to build the foundation for a free, self-governing country.
Lol, I like Casper. He's been solidly behind the troops and the war effort from the beginning... as reliable and reassuring as Ollie North (imho *g*). Maybe he's repeating himself for his deaf and distracted DC neighbors...the Dems. who missed 9-11 while still obsessing over their failed election theft attempt. (^:
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