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NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 January 13, 2004Release Number: 04-01-31 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TASK FORCE “ALL AMERICAN” CONTINUES STABILITY OPERATIONS RAMADI, Iraq - The 82nd Airborne Division and its subordinate units continued missions over the last day to bring peace and prosperity to the residents of the Al Anbar province. Task Force “All American” conducted 187 patrols, to include eight joint patrols, cleared five caches and conducted six offensive operations. There were five contacts with anti-coalition forces, in which there were no Task Force “All...

CJTF-7 Public AffairsBAGHDAD, Iraq Release #040112a First telephone fiber optic cable laid in Northern IraqMOSUL, IRAQ – A ceremony was held in the city of Mosul today in honor of the first fiber optic communications network to be laid in Northern Iraq. With the new 40 kilometers of fiber optic cable connecting Mosul to Dohuk, a city to the north, communications between people will be greatly improved. “This is a very historic day,” said Lt. Col. Welton Chase, commander, 501st Signal Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). “This is the beginning of a network that will tie into banks, universities...

<p>BAGHDAD — Attacks against coalition forces in Iraq have dropped 22% in the four weeks since Saddam Hussein's capture, military records show. U.S. military officers say the decline in attacks, after months of growing intensity, is the first proof that Saddam's capture and recent U.S. offensives have dampened, but not eliminated, resistance to the occupation.</p>

Iraqi letters and packages soon will feature updated postage stamps without the face of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. The new stamps will be issued Jan. 15, Dan Senor, senior Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman, told reporters during a Jan. 10 press conference in Baghdad. Haydar al-Abadi, the Iraqi minister of communication, and Iraqi Postmaster General Ibraheem Kuhdair announced the new stamp that day, Senor said. The new stamp will be the first Iraqi postal stamp issued since the April 9, 2003, fall of Saddam Hussein's government, the U.S. official pointed out. Five million new stamps, Senor said, will become available for...

    Who: Mosul Community Leaders What: Mosul civic forum to discuss transition to sovereignty process When: Jan 12, 2004, 11:30 Where: Mosul Details: COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY BAGHDAD, IRAQ Media Advisory: Mosul Civic Forum Contact: Maj Trey Cate, 101st Airborne hugh.cate@us.army.mil, 302.534.581.0725 What: Mosul civic forum to discuss transition to sovereignty process When: Monday, January 12, 2004, 11:30 p.m. (event begins at 12:30 p.m.) Where: Mosul (contact Maj Cate at above email or phone number) Who: A panel of national and area civic leaders and audience representing Mosul's varied groups and interests Media representatives wishing to attend the civic...

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004 7:37 p.m. ESTE-mail Traffic in Iraq Shows the Positive Making the rounds of GI e-mail traffic in Iraq these days is the follwing inspiring missive. It is reproduced below in its entirety and exactly as written: 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 (~60,000 Iraqis providing security to citizens). Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning. The Iraqi judiciary is fully independent. Power generation hit 4,518 megawatts (Oct), exceeding prewar output. All 22 Universities...

<p>LONDON (Reuters) - A thaw between Iran and Egypt could help pave the way for a breakthrough on an important issue dividing Tehran from Washington -- accusations that Iran has sheltered senior al Qaeda militants.</p> <p>A senior Iranian official said Tuesday that Tehran and Cairo had agreed to restore diplomatic ties broken 25 years ago, although Egypt said a final decision had yet to be taken.</p>

Yesterday near Mosul, Iraq, a number of senior officials of the Baath party, the former political party of the ousted Iraqi dictator, gathered at the Tall Afar American military base to condemn the attacks that had been carried out against American troops. According to Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Pease of the 101st Airborne Division, a number of former Baath party officials turned over weapons that were distributed before the US invasion in March. The handover was part of a plan introduced about three weeks ago by the 101st Airborne Division to rehabilitate Baath party leaders. According to a list published by...

Defense leaders told Pentagon reporters today that recent milestones show solid evidence the coalition is making headway in rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq and making progress in the war on terror. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Afghanistan's Loya Jirga's Jan. 4 agreement on a new, democratic constitution for the nation "represents a truly significant milestone in that country's path to a moderate, democratic society." He said the new constitution "balances power between the branches of government, extends equal status to men and women, promotes tolerance, extends protections to minority groups and paves the way for national elections this summer."...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Governing Council is close to agreeing on a federal system for Iraq and will defer until next year the explosive issue of whether to give greater autonomy to the northern Kurdish region, two council members said Monday. Dividing Iraq into federal states along ethnic and religious lines is a sensitive matter for Iraqis as well as for others in the region who fear such separations will lead to the disintegration of the country. Turkey and Iran also worry about an increasingly autonomous Kurdistan because of their own Kurdish minorities. In London, meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Jack...

PRESS RELEASE                                                                             January 3, 2004CONTACTAd-Diwaniyah - Richard Nielsen  aucbiz@yahoo.com         SC Region - Hilary F. Whitehilary.white@CPA-IQ.ORG  INAUGUATION OF THE FREEDOM SOCCER LEAGUE IN AD-DIWANIYAHAd-Diwaniyah, Qadisiyah Province.  Blue skies over a long street beside the Al Diwaniyah River set the scene on Friday as 2,160 young men ranging in age from 8 to 25 marched to inaugurate the beginning of the new Youth and Sports Freedom Soccer League.  Boys carrying the flag of a free Iraq led the march as each of the 108 teams representing 36 different neighborhood communities were preceded by a name banner in Olympic...

Tribal chiefs in Tikrit, Iraq - birthplace of captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and a focal point for resistance to the U.S. occupation by remnants of Hussein's regime - are calling for an end to attacks on U.S. forces. Saddam's hometown leaders are urging that a "reconciliation committee" be established "to convince the resistance movements to cease operations against American forces," reports the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram - according to a translation published Monday by the Middle East Media Research Institute. Since Saddam's capture on Dec. 14, attacks on U.S. forces have dropped dramatically from levels the month before, though GI's...

January 2, 2004: With over a hundred thousand Iraqis armed and performing security duties, the crime rate had rapidly come down, and most American troops are now concentrating on operations against terrorist and pro-Saddam Iraqis who are still fighting. A data collection system for crimes has also been installed, and it showed that Baghdad's murder rate in October was lower than New York City's (which has the lowest rate of any major city in the United States). Baghdad had six murders per 100,000 population, while New York had seven. This, however, does not count the deaths from American military operations,...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJanuary 3, 2004 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Two years ago this month, I signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act, the most important reform of public education in a generation. In that landmark law, we made our expectations clear: every child in America will learn to read, write, add and subtract at grade level. Schools are now required to test children regularly to make sure students are learning and that schools are teaching well. And when schools do not show progress toward high standards, we're giving parents better...

MOSUL, Iraq - A dozen former leaders of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party have handed in weapons caches in northern Iraq to curry favor with the U.S. military and claim a role in a new Iraqi leadership, the commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division said.   "They're coming to us, saying they want to be part of the new Iraq," Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "It has slowly sunk in that Saddam isn't coming back." Separately, the 101st Airborne has paid more than $20,000 in rewards in recent weeks to a...

US troops arrested an Iraqi who was believed to be smuggling foreign fighters into Iraq from Syria, and also captured 10 Muslim fundamentalists northeast of Baghdad, the military said. In the western town of Ar-Rutbah, soldiers from the Third Armoured Cavalry Regiment on Thursday caught a man they suspected of managing the movement of foreign fighters inside Iraq from Syria. They billed him as a "high-value target" for the coalition's military command, but did not rank where he stood on the US military's most wanted list. "This afternoon at 12:35 am (0935 GMT), elements of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment...

This is a study about the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, which is a work in progress. There are many imponderables that could enter the final calculus, and it would be premature to suggest that the process under way will lead to the final edifice visualized by its architects, who seek to complete it in a timely and orderly fashion. The recent capture of Saddam Hussein introduces even more imponderables, whose ultimate impact remains uncertain. The following is a review and analysis of the main components in the process of restoring Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqis: I. The 'November 15...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - When Baghdad fell to invading U.S. forces, some Iraqi drivers managed to protect their double-decker buses from shelling and looters. Now they're doing a booming business, running the routes of their choosing. In the early days after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, the remains of double-deckers were strewn on highways. Some were gutted by fire and others were stripped of seats, mirrors, windows and engines. Drivers of the National Bus Company say only 80 double-deck buses were salvaged from the original fleet of 300 that the former regime purchased from China at the...

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 December 31, 2003Release Number: 03-12-82 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 352ND CIVIL AFFAIRS COMMAND COORDINATES JOB FAIR IN BAGHDAD BAGHDAD, Iraq – The soldiers of Task Force 1st Armored Division’s 352nd Civil Affairs Command and the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade, both from Riverdale, Md., coordinated a job fair recently at the Baghdad Convention Center. As managers of the Iraqi Assistance Center, the civil affairs soldiers aid Iraqis with medical issues, help them search for family members who might be detainees, and offer...

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 December 30, 2003Release Number: 03-12-76 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE HIGH-LEVEL BA’ATHISTS SUPPORT COALITION SECURITY EFFORTS MOSUL, Iraq – Two second-tier Ba’ath Party leaders in northwest Iraq handed over weapons Dec. 29 to Coalition Forces with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). The two Farahs, once answerable to the close circle of senior Ba’athists around Saddam Hussein, turned in 48 AK-47 rifles, 59 magazines, and a bag of loose 7.62-millimeter ammunition to Tallafar police. Also continuing to turn over weapons were fourth-tier...