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| Iraq |
| 101ST DONATES COMPUTERS TO MOSUL |
| 2003-12-11 |
| MOSUL, Iraq â A 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) program to provide computers to the employees of Mosul City Hall made its final contribution Thursday, bringing the total number of computers donated to more than 230. The project has been in effect since September, and the last of the 233 computers were installed Thursday by Chief Warrant Officer Carrie McLeish and Master Sgt. Paul Franks, automation technicians for the divisionâs G-6 office. The team has been in charge of installing new computers and the Internet in several buildings in Northern Iraq, including the University of Mosul and the Oil Ministry of Nineveh Province. Coalition Forces have spent more than $150,000 on the project. Every computer in Mosul City Hall donated by the 101st was also hooked to the Internet, offering better global communication than the workforce there has ever had access to. The project consequently will also allow Coalition Forces, as well as leaders from smaller cities and villages outside Mosul, to communicate with the governor of Nineveh Province, Ghanim al-Basso, whose office is in the city headquarters. âThis will allow Coalition Forces to communicate with the governor of Nineveh and it also allows the governor to communicate with citizens outside Mosul,â McLeish said. Soldiers also installed Microsoft XP and Office XP to each computer. âMicrosoft XP is a lot better than [Microsoft 2000] in its Arabic translation,â McLeish said, âSo itâs pretty useful to a lot of the workers here.â Concurrent with the donation of computers and software, soldiers have also been training a group of Iraqi citizens to maintain the computer system after the division redeploys. McLeish said the three main targets for training are web page upkeep, basic computer skills and networking proficiency. âWe want to educate people on what Coalition Forces are doing here in Iraq,â McLeish said. âWe want to stop misinformation about what our goals are here and provide Iraqis with a bigger picture. This is a big step.â |
| Posted by:Chuck |