Good things that are happening in Iraq

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2005 – The rebuilding effort continues in Iraq, and coalition military officials here today provided a summary of the past week's progress.
Children in a village of Tamim province received school supplies, clothing and toys from the Nahrain Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on providing proper nutrition, decent clothing and medical supplies to Iraqi women and children. The foundation received its supplies as part of a joint effort between American donations and a coalition forces-run program known as "Operation Provide School Supplies," which accepts donations from private citizens and corporations in the United States.
More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan province when school starts this fall. This week, renovation on the Al-Eethnar Mud School was completed, and the Al Eethar Mud School was replaced at a cost of $87,000, benefiting 500 students who attend classes there.

Eight newly built schools in Wassit and Babil provinces are receiving new furniture before the start of the school year. Each of the school projects will receive office desks and chairs, file cabinets and new student desks. Collectively, 400 three-student desks will be proportionally divided among the schools, based upon the number of students.
More reconstruction projects in Sadr City started this week, including a $13 million electrical distribution project. When the project is complete, an estimated 128,000 more people will have a reliable source of electricity. The project includes installation of power lines, 3,040 power poles, 80 transformers, 2,400 street lights, and power connections to individual homes, complete with meters.

Construction started on the $3.8 million Al Rayash Electricity Substation project in the Al Daur district of Salah Ad Din province, located between Tikrit and Bayji. The project, expected to be complete in early December, will provide reliable service to 50,000 Iraqi homes and small businesses. An electric distribution and street lighting project in Daquq was completed on Aug. 17, providing new overhead distribution lines and street lighting in the community.

About 2 million people will benefit from the Baghdad trunk sewer line, which was completed this week. Workers cleaned and repaired the Baghdad trunk sewer line and its associated manholes and pumping stations. The $17.48 million project restored principal sewage collection elements in the Adhamiya, Sadr City and Nissan districts of Baghdad, and will provide for the intended sewer flows to the Rustamiya wastewater treatment plant.

source

Very long, and intresting article. This is very good news, as I said in another post, we should really get more nations, corporations, and people involved in this! But yeah keep on reading guys! Amazing stuff are happening!

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2005 – Coalition forces in Iraq met with several successes Aug. 23, capturing a known al Qaeda member, several suspected terrorists and weapons, and destroying a terrorist hideout, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.
Acting on tips from local Iraqis, coalition forces raided a hideout near Asad and confirmed terrorists were using the location to facilitate operations.

No details were available on the capture of the al Qaeda member. But after coalition forces captured the individual, he told officials about related terrorist activity in the area, which led to the capture of two suspected terrorists. Coalition forces near Asad also captured and destroyed a car bomb and two weapons caches consisting of mortars, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.

In other news, Iraqi army soldiers captured 15 insurgents in two operations Aug. 23. Iraqi soldiers with the 4th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, captured five insurgents believed to be involved in improvised-explosive-device attacks in Dujayl. In nearby Tikrit and Balad, combined operations led to the capture of 10 insurgents suspected of mounting indirect-fire attacks and other attacks against Iraqi security forces.

Elsewhere, Iraqi army soldiers and coalition forces conducting a joint dismounted search of residences in the Hit area Aug. 23 captured suspected five insurgents and improvised explosive device-making materials and equipment.
source




Wow good things just keep on happening! And soon the constitution will be finished. wow things are moving pretty fast! The way I see it the less weapons the insurgents have to use the less causalties there be. Also their capturing a lot of insurgents more good news.

Originally posted by American Mad Man It is sick that so many people honestly WANT us to fail.

The left would like to see a repeat of what they accomplished in Vietnam.

A retreat and failure.......

Cant see their hands infront of their face sometimes.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2005 – The Iraqi Police Service graduated 282 police officers from advanced and specialty courses Aug. 25 at Iraq's Adnan Training Facility.
The training is part of the Iraqi government's ongoing effort to train its security forces, according to an official with Civilian Police Assistance Training Team with Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq.

Fifty-four Iraqis graduated from the basic criminal investigations course, 22 from the advanced criminal investigations course, 25 from the interview and interrogations course, 15 from the violent crime investigation course, 26 from the critical incident management course, and 24 from the criminal intelligence course.

There were six graduates of the first-line supervision course, 17 graduates of the mid-level management course, 27 from the executive leadership development course, and 66 graduates of the election security course.

source

Looks like Iraq is going to have a real organized crime fighing organisation! Good news, read the rest of the link.

I guess that overpowers the 100,000 Iraqi's protesting the charter and waving Sadaam banners today.

Originally posted by grad_student

Originally posted by PsychevolvedApe

I know you are trying to look on the bright side, but it is hard to stay cheery when you're leaders are invading innocent cultures.

People seem to think that US support of dethroning evil dictators is like a new thing or something. Wake up and read your international history books! We've been supporting democratic movements for years. The only thing that could have been done better is to support a democratic movement 30 or 40 years ago in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, would have saved alot of lives. It's better that we act now rather than waiting until WWIII happens.

Saddam Hussein's regime was ANYTHING but innocent ...

i'd like to believe that but the US also put in place some dictators in South America

Check this site out, updated daily with all the progress that goes on in Iraq each day:



www.centcom.mil...

CNN dot com reports in the video news feeds a heartwarming story of Dick's Sporting goods (western NY state) donating a huge amount of soccer equipment and helping to form a national soccer league for Iraqi children.

This the sort of story that we all want to hear, and it certainly gives the children something positive to look forward to.

Too bad it could all come to naught if this continuing deadlock in drafting the Iraqi Constitution continues. The Sunni's aren't playing ball with the Kurds and Shiites, any schism there could plunge the country into a bloody civil war. Reality sucks doesn't it.

Originally posted by edsinger
The left would like to see a repeat of what they accomplished in Vietnam.

A retreat and failure.......

Cant see their hands infront of their face sometimes.

With respect, I am "the left" too and I think this thread is good, hell iraq has quite nice things happening in it, ever read "rules of engagement" by time collins?
Great book, not finished it yet but the stories in it so far are fantastic.
No bit machine gun glory or running tear assing around iraq, proper soldiering and showing how good all the forces are in iraq, from an irish perspective of course.

There are those who think Iraq is going to survive
and not as a sterile society such as the jihadists
endorsed in Afghanistan. These Iraqis think that
capitalism is going to be a factor.


us.rd.yahoo.com...*biz.yahoo.com...



[edit on 26-8-2005 by MajorCee]

This entire thread reminds me of the absurdity of Leslie Neilson in THE NAKED GUN, standing in front of the exploding fireworks factory, waving off the spectators...

"THERE'S NOTHING SEE! NOTHING GOING ON HERE!"

Seriously, 35 people were murdered on Wednesday, and I'm supposed to care about SOCCER EQUIPMENT? Who gives a &%$^% abourt soccer equipment? It's literally the most asinine and ludicrous thing I've ever heard of in my entire life.

Like the guy who falls out of the building, every floor people ask him, "how's it going" and he replies, "So far so good".

There is a gulf of difference between being thinking positive, having hope, and being completely obtuse and detached from the real world. I'm all for the original author to post tons of positive stories out of Iraq. I love to read about paving roads and building schools. Somebody call FOX with some breaking news, we just had a bake sale.

Go team.

I'm not savagely stupid, but somebody, somewhere is gonna have to explain to me why the story about Young Johnny Pele at the newly built John F. Kennedy Middle School in downtown Baghdad is someow a more pressing newstory, than the murderous army of cuthroats and homicical miscreants rampaging across the country side, raping and pillaging like the Saxon bloody invaders.

We're fighting a special kind of idiot, the kind who blows himself up to take us with him. And, I'm supposed to care about a shipment of school supplies? I got news for you, I don't care about a shipment of soccer equipment in my own town, so don't be surprised when I'm not exactly marveled when they touch down in the middle of the "dark ages".

Ten bombs go off in Baghdad every single day, and I'm supposed to think positive? When you get the Saxons to take a day off, like Thursday is "Not blow stuff up day", then you can ring up a home run for the positve. Until then, I'll retain my critical thinking skills and consider Iraq to be what it really is...the tenth level of hell.

Pretty sure the poster of this thread stipulated that this thread was going to be for posting POSITIVE INFORMATION/STORIES about Iraq.

Its NO surprise some people simply cannot respect that...cannot carry out their agenda and have their arguments or make their loaded remarks on the DOZENS upon DOZENS of other threads in this section.

If you wanna bitch about it, take it to another thread...

Originally posted by alien
Pretty sure the poster of this thread stipulated that this thread was going to be for posting POSITIVE INFORMATION/STORIES about Iraq.

If you wanna bitch about it, take it to another thread...

Thank you




Now here is something to think about, the stories of how trigger happy the US soldiers are, well here is one that I do not think I would have been able to handle. These guys are doing a remarkable job considering the obstacles they face both in Iraq and back home (see above)


Five soldiers from Recon—Holt, Ferguson, Yates, Welch and Ross—were moving through moon-cast shadows when an Iraqi man came out from a farmhouse, his AK-47 rifle hanging by his side. Suddenly encircled by the rifles, lights and lasers of four soldiers, the man was quickly disarmed. A fifth soldier radioed for the interpreter and together they sorted out that he was a farmer who thought the soldiers were thieves skulking around his property. Recon returned the man his rifle, and started making their way back, umbral and silent across the ploughed fields.

During a halt in some trees at the edge of the field, I overheard the voice of LTC Kurilla, the commander of the Deuce Four battalion, quietly praising one of the soldiers for showing discipline in not shooting the farmer. After loading the other suspects onto Strykers, we returned to base, where I fell, exhausted, at about 3AM Friday morning.

Ah, the discipline of these guys is remarkable.




Michael Yon : Online Magazine

Needs to dump that PASGT and get a MICH.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 2, 2005 – The Iraqi Police Service graduated 175 police officers Sept. 1 from advanced and specialty courses at the Adnan Training Facility as part of the Iraqi government's ongoing effort to train its security forces, Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq officials reported today.
The courses comprise Basic Criminal Investigations with 42 graduates, Interviews and Interrogations with 15 graduates, Violent Crime Investigation with 29 graduates, Criminal Intelligence with 27 graduates, and Election Security with 62 graduates.
source

Wow good things just keep on happening, although I admit its a shame that 1000 Iraqi's died mostly by getting trapled.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2005 – Iraqi security forces will provide the primary security for the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and the December elections, a U.S. commander in Baghdad, Iraq, said today.
In a news briefing, Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, said that because Iraqis will be mainly responsible for security, U.S. forces in the area will be increased only by about 2,000 troops for the referendum and elections.

Vines said he expects insurgents to increase attacks as the referendum approaches, but coalition and Iraqi forces will be prepared to defend the Iraqis' democratic process.

"Unfortunately, there are those who want to deprive them of the opportunity to determine their own destiny, and they'll use violence to do it," he said. "We'll do everything we can to create the conditions so Iraqis have the opportunity to be heard and make their own decisions."
source


Good stuff, their starting to get more responsibilites! If it keeps on going this way I think this war will end in two to three years.

Who gives a crap about Iraq anymore, apperently we can't even take care of our own people in New Orleans. Thank shrub!

Originally posted by brimstone735
Seriously, 35 people were murdered on Wednesday, and I'm supposed to care about SOCCER EQUIPMENT? Who gives a &%$^% abourt soccer equipment? It's literally the most asinine and ludicrous thing I've ever heard of in my entire life.

The point of this thread OBVIOUSLY is to post GOOD news rather than bad.

Why don't you take your asinine and ludricrous comments and shove them up your.

Originally posted by grad_student
The point of this thread OBVIOUSLY is to post GOOD news rather than bad.

Why don't you take your asinine and ludricrous comments and shove them up your.

Up my what?

Personally, I'm thankful for this here thread on the good news coming out of Iraq. I think the introduction of intermural sports will certainly defer suicide bombers from wanting to kill us more. God knows, all this good news just POURING out of a Iraq makes me wanna do carthweels down the street, like some Bollywood musical number.

I'm OD'ing on all the love that we're getting from the Iraqi people.



P.S. Sorry Alien, tried to stay away.