The REAL STORY From Iraq

External Since: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 1469

Yep...

This is certainly NOT what the totally disreputable Mainstream Media,
such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and CNN are telling
us.

DSH

"Jack Love" <jackxxloveyy.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:haej31lmo42gnkfk5o4bml4lq07ljnqsrd@4ax.com...

| I went to an AUSA dinner last night at the Ft. Hood Officers' Club
| to hear a speech by MG Pete Chiarelli, CG of the 1st Cav Div. He and
| most of the Div. have just returned from Iraq. Very informative and,
| surprise, the Mainstream Media (MSM) isn't telling the story. I was
| not there as a reporter, didn't take notes but I'll make some the
| points I remember that were interesting, surprising or generally stuff
| I had not heard before.
|
| It was not a speech per se. He just walked and talked, showed some
| slides and answered questions. Very impressive guy.
|
| 1. While units of the Cav served all over Iraq, he spoke mostly of
| Baghdad and more specifically Sadr City, the big slum on the eastern
| side of the Tigris River. He pointed out that Baghdad is, in
| geography, is about the size of Austin. Austin has 600,000 to 700,000
| people. Baghdad has 6 to7 million people.
|
| 2. The Cav lost 28 main battle tanks. He said one of the big
| lessons learned is that, contrary to doctrine going in, M1-A2s and
| Bradleys are needed, preferred and devastating in urban combat and he
| is going to make that point to the JCS next week while they are
| considering downsizing armor.
|
| 3. He showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last
| Aug-Sep they were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last
| three months, the graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.
|
| 4. His big point was not that they were "winning battles" to do
| this but that cleaning the place up, electricity, sewage, water were
| the key factors. He said yes they fought but after they started
| delivering services that the Iraqis in Sadr City had never had, the
| terrorist recruiting of 15 and 16 year olds came up empty.
|
| 5. The electrical "grid" is a bad, deadly joke. Said that driving
| down the street in a Hummv with an antenna would short out a whole
| block of apt. buildings. People do their own wiring and it was not
| uncommon for early morning patrols would find one or two people lying
| dead in the street, having been electrocuted trying to re-wire their
| own homes.
|
| 6. Said that not tending to a dead body in the Muslum culture
| never happens. On election day, after suicide bombers blew themselves
| up trying to take out polling places, voters would step up to the body
| lying there, spit on it, and move up in the line to vote.
|
| 7. Pointed out that we all heard from the media about the 100
| Iraqis killed as they were lined up to enlist in the police and
| security service. What the media didn't point out was that the next
| day there 300 lined up in the same place.
|
| 8. Said bin Laden and Zarqawi made a HUGE mistake when bin laden
| went public with naming Zarqawi the "prince" of al Quaeda in Iraq.
| Said that what the Iraqis saw and heard was a Saudi telling a
| Jordainan that his job was to kill Iraqis. HUGE mistake. It was one of
| the biggest factors in getting Iraqis who were on the "fence" to jump
| off on the side of the coalition and the new gov't.
|
| 9. Said the MSM was making a big, and wrong, deal out of the
| religious sects. Said Iraqis are incredibly nationalistic. They are
| Iraqis first and then say they are Muslum but the Shi'a - Sunni thing
| is just not that big a deal to them.
|
| 10. After the election the Mayor of Baghdad told him that the
| people of the region (Middle East) are joyous and the governments are
| nervous.
|
| 11. Said that he did not lose a single tanker truck carrying oil
| and gas over the roads of Iraq. Think about that. All the attacks we
| saw on TV with IEDs hitting trucks but he didn't lose one. Why? Army
| Aviation. Praised his air units and said they made the decision early
| on that every convoy would have helicopter air cover. Said aviators in
| that unit were hitting the 1,000 hour mark (sound familiar?). Said a
| convoy was supposed to head out but stopped at the gates of a compound
| on the command of an E6. He asked the SSG what the hold up was. E6
| said, "Air , sir." He wondered what was wrong with the air, not
| realizing what the kid was talking about. Then the AH-64s showed up
| and the E6 said, "That air sir." And then moved out.
|
| 12. Said one of the biggest problems was money and regs. There was
| a $77 million gap between the supplemental budget and what he needed
| in cash on the ground to get projects started. Said he spent most of
| his time trying to get money. Said he didn't do much as a "combat
| commander" because the the war he was fighting was a war at the squad
| and platoon level. Said that his NCOs were winning the war and it was
| a sight to behold.
|
| 13. Said that of all the money appropriated for Iraq, not a cent
| was earmarked for agriculture. Said that Iraq could feed itself
| completely and still have food for export but no one thought about it.
| Said the Cav started working with Texas A&M on ag projects and had
| special hybrid seeds sent to them through Jordan. TAM analyzed soil
| samples and worked out how and what to plant. Said he had an E7 from
| Belton, TX (just down the road from Ft. Hood) who was almost
| single-handedly rebuilding the ag industry in the Baghdad area.
|
| 14. Said he could hire hundreds of Iraqis daily for $7 to $10 a
| day to work on sewer, electric, water projects, etc. but that the
| contracting rules from CONUS applied so he had to have $500,000
| insurance policies in place in case the workers got hurt. Not kidding.
| The CONUS peacetime regs slowed everything down, even if they could
| eventually get waivers for the regs.
|
| There was more, lots more, but the idea is that you haven't heard
| any of this from anyone, at least I hadn't and I pay more attention
| than most.
|
| Great stuff. We should be proud. Said the Cav troops said it was
| ALL worth it on Jan. 30 when they saw how the Iraqis handled election
| day. Made them very proud of their service and what they had
| accomplished.
|
| It is great stuff.

External Since: Mar 21, 2005 Posts: 1

Mr. Hines,

Thank you for that post. Wish I could have seen the general speak.

<Said that his NCOs were winning the war and it was a sight to behold.>

Gee, imagine my surprise.

SMS USAF Ret