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| Iraq |
| DoD Operational Update Briefing 12-9-2003 |
| 2003-12-10 |
| Snippets of note In Kirkuk, General Odierno reports that today nearly all crime is now dealt with by the 2,200 coalition-trained Iraqi security police. Joint patrols have largely ended, and Iraqis have stepped forward in that particular area to patrol on their own. I should underline that each portion of the country is different, and that’s not the pattern everywhere, to be sure. But it is the pattern there. There’s a city jail, a functioning Iraqi court system. So Iraqis now can begin to handle crime, from arrest to trial to sentencing. As Iraqis take on more responsibility, the U.S. presence in the Assini has gone down from three battalions to a couple of hundred soldiers, with our forces assisting in various types of reconstruction. We have 1.4 million men and women in uniform, and we have another 700,000 to 800,000 in the Guard and Reserve. That comes to 2.15 million. And we have 123,000 in Iraq, and they’ll be coming home, a large fraction, in the early part of next year -- January through May, and they will be replaced by roughly the same number. That is 250,000 out of 2.2 million men and women in uniform. But if we could beam down any soldier from any part of Iraq -- Baghdad, Fallujah, from the 82nd, 101st, the 4th ID, any soldier, you pick ’em, random, stand here and say, "Are we winning?" we’d get by far the majority, probably 99 percent, would say, "Absolutely." A 21-year-old I met at Walter Reed, he said, "I felt like a rock star over there. Everywhere I went, the children and the adults wanted to take their pictures with me. I’m an artilleryman." I said, "Well, what were you doing?" "I’m an artilleryman, but I was helping with the town council in Kirkuk." And he said, "When I got injured and they said I had to go back to the States to be healed," he said, "I didn’t want to leave, because where could a 21-year old have this impact on a country and have it appreciated?" |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #2 Everywhere I went, the children and the adults wanted to take their pictures with me. I’m an artilleryman Of course! The rain 0'steel men get all the good press. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-10 12:37:30 PM |
| #1 But...But...but.... Hillary said it was all a failure! |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-12-10 11:59:28 AM |