NOT DOING NOTHING

Baghdad - Iraq's Governing Council has decided to establish a total of 25 ministries, six more than under the previous regime of Saddam Hussen, a spokesperson for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said on Wednesday.

"The council proposed the creation of 25 ministries. We started to discuss it on Tuesday and we will continue today in a detailed manner," KDP's Hoshyar Zebari said.

"Nominations of ministers will take time, because we have to choose qualified persons for each post," he added...

To date, the council has yet to propose any names for new ministers.

"But the general trend is to choose experts or technocrats because the situation needs actions and not words," said Yawar.

SPIN WATCH

Due to its improbability and its exceedingly negative tone (both red flags these days for me) I did not link to this Washington Times article on Saturday. But to make a point, I will now.

War casualties overflow Walter Reed hospital

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are referring some outpatients to nearby hotels because casualties from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have overloaded the hospital's convalescence facility.

"We have an informal agreement with any number of hotels in the area. If we come to this point, they will take [patients] for us," said Walter Reed spokesman Jim Stueve. "They're very supportive and cooperative when we need that assistance."

The Army hospital and its convalescence facility, Mologne House, are at maximum occupancy capacity, with 96 percent of their outpatient beds filled with war wounded.

Walter Reed has been at maximum capacity since Operation Enduring Freedom began in Afghanistan in 2001, Mr. Stueve said, adding that the hospital's 3,900 staffers have "put in a substantial amount of overtime."

Before Enduring Freedom, the hospital's occupancy rate had held steady at 83 percent for five years.

"We haven't been average here for well over a year. We've been really busy. They've been rolling in here real regular," Mr. Stueve said.

The Mologne House is a 280-bed facility for outpatients who need continued care or rehabilitation, as well as their families.

Now for the SPIN WATCH.

Turns out, the Mologne House is not a convalesence facility. It is a hotel (or "Lodging" in Army Speak). And it books rooms, first come, first served, as they all do. See it here.


A clear case of embellishment worthy of the New York Times was the article by Jon Ward, "War casualties overflow Walter Reed hospital" (Page 1, Monday).

I have stayed in the Mologne House. This is not an outpatient facility.

The Mologne House is an on-post hotel, period.

Heh.

DESPICABLE, IF TRUE

Fort Carson officials on Tuesday warned about con artists who may be falsely informing families that their loved ones were injured overseas.

In June, two spouses of Fort Carson soldiers deployed in Iraq said they were approached by people posing as military casualty assistance officers.

Fort Carson Public Affairs Officer Richard Bridges said the con artists reportedly asked family members for the soldiers' Social Security numbers and other personal information.

"If anyone who is really in the military comes to the door, we won't be asking for I.D. - we will already know who will answer the door," Budzyna said. "And we will certainly never ask for money."

Budzyna said word of the scam originated at Fort Bliss, Texas. A family member of a soldier reported being approached by people posing as casualty assistance officers and requesting $300 to support the family's injured loved one.

"LIBERTY EQUALS RESPONSIBILITY"

A warning to the Iraqis, and their Communist handlers.

"Liberty equals responsibility," the posters read. "After the liberation, you have the right to demonstrate without fear, but with this right you have the responsibility to protest peacefully.

"Violence against citizens, Iraqi police or coalition forces will not be tolerated and will be dealt with forcibly," it added.

The posters appeared at the end of a week of daily protests outside CPA headquarters by a group calling itself the Union of the Unemployed and boosted by ultra-leftist Communist groups, demanding jobs or financial support from the occupying coalition. A handful of protests have turned deadly in Iraq since Saddam's regime collapsed April 9, while many other tense stand-offs between demonstrators and coalition troops saw violence narrowly averted.

I HOPE IT ISN'T TRUE

That we went on the cheap with the best possible form of propaganda.

The postwar director of U.S.-backed Iraqi Television announced Tuesday that he has quit, saying inadequate funding made it impossible to compete with rival networks from countries such as Iran that criticize the American occupation.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the director, Ahmad al-Rikaby, said that while vacationing in London on Friday he had informed the management of Iraqi Media Network that he was quitting.

''The U.S. didn't really succeed in countering the propaganda of such anti-coalition networks as al-Jazeera in Qatar,'' he said, complaining that inadequate funding, equipment and training for staff members had left the network unable to meet the need for objective news.

He said Iraqi Media Network was only able to broadcast 16 hours a day, compared with 24-hour news reports from al-Jazeera and Iran's al-Alam networks that included audio tapes believed to be from Saddam Hussein.

''If Saddam and his supporters didn't think such broadcasts were beneficial to their cause, they wouldn't use them,'' said al-Rikaby, 34. ''I have no doubt that there is a hidden message in the broadcasts by several Arabic networks inciting Iraqis to resist the push toward democracy.''

BUT THEN THERE IS THIS PROGRESS

Baghdad — Crowds are still way below prewar levels at one of Baghdad's busiest fruit and vegetable markets, where many shoppers still fear lawlessness — pickpockets in the market and car thieves in streets outside.

Yet, those fears should be easing soon as Iraq's new police slowly retake the streets.

Iraqi police, clearly visible in their brand-new blue uniforms, patrol the perimeter of the market.

Unnoticed, plainclothesmen work indoors, blending with shoppers until someone shouts "Ali Baba! Ali Baba!" — the Iraqi vernacular for thief...

Iraqis have cited the security situation and a sense of general lawlessness in the streets as one of the biggest blocks on the road to a free and one-day democratic Iraq.

Thousands of Iraqi men have been recruited and trained to guard public facilities — banks, government ministries, power plants.

Thousands who worked with Saddam Hussein's fallen regime and were dismissed have come back to work, patrolling alone or with coalition forces day and night throughout the capital, capturing car thieves and smugglers of ancient Iraqi artifacts.

Thousands more have enlisted and trained to work in customs and immigration.

There are over a thousand traffic police on the beat, trying to persuade impatient Iraqis to follow the rules of the road.

And thousands of others have slipped undercover against crime syndicates and kidnapping rings.

IRAQI ARMY BEGINS TRAINING

BAGHDAD, Iraq Aug. 4 —
The U.S. military bused 400 volunteers for the new Iraqi Army north to the city of Kirkuk to begin two months basic training Monday, and American forces passed a third straight day without losing a soldier in combat.

According to the military authorities in the Iraqi capital there had not been a U.S. soldier killed in action since late Friday night.

The new Iraqi army recruits were taken to Kirkuk and on to a U.S. base under heavy guard for fear of attacks on the convoy of red and white buses by the Iraqi resistance fighters. The insurgency has killed 52 American soldiers since May 1, when U.S. President George W. Bush declared major fight was over.

The recruits sent north Monday make up about half the first batch that was to begin training under U.S. instructors this month. More than 12,000 Iraqi soldiers were scheduled to be ready for service by year's end and 40,000 by the end of 2004.

OTHER SIGNS WE AREN'T YET THERE.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said Tuesday that it was canceling the flights to Iraq in September, because U.S. officials had told the airline that the security situation was too unstable.

AN URGENT NEED FOR A GENUINE POLICE FORCE

If this isn't brought under control, our soldiers will suffer the blame.

As instructed by Amjad's captors, family members last weekend took the money to a location 25 miles outside the city. There, they found an oil drum with the boy's name painted on it and dropped the money inside, al-Sayeedi said.

On Monday -- two torturous days later -- the boy was dropped off in his neighborhood at 6 a.m., and an impromptu street celebration erupted among neighbors announcing his survival.

Tuesday, American and Iraqi police officials acknowledged that the plight of the al-Sayeedi family and others has become far too common. The police have broken up four organized rings of kidnappers in the last month, freeing about 10 captive adults and children. Authorities believe many more kidnappers may be at work.

In a raid early Monday, Iraqi police found a kidnapped man and woman who had been severely beaten and tortured -- their toenails pulled out by the captors. After a brief shootout, several kidnappers were arrested and some provided information that led to the rescue of an 8-year-old boy in another location.

Bernard Kerik, chief U.S. consultant organizing the rebuilding of the Iraqi police, said families have been paying up to $30,000 in ransoms. He said many of the kidnappers rotate in from other cities to commit crimes in Baghdad. One ringleader appeared to have ties to the former regime of Saddam Hussein, but money, not politics, appears to be the motivation for the kidnappings.

AND THIS CERTAINLY WON'T IMPROVE THE CIVILIAN SUPPORT

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 — An American civilian was killed today when the mail truck he was driving was blown up by a homemade explosive north of the town of Tikrit, military officials said here today.

The employee, working for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was driving in an area still regarded as a war zone by military officials and near the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

STRAINED

Department of Defense announced recently that it will keep U.S. troop strength in Iraq at about 145,000 for the indefinite future, and the Army announced a plan to rotate units currently stationed in Iraq after they have served about a year.

Defense had hoped to be withdrawing troops from Iraq by now, but the discovery of a large Ba'athist resistance network in June, the upsurge of violence since then and the failure of other nations to contribute as much to peacekeeping forces as the Bush administration had hoped put the kibosh on that.

Some 30 nations are helping out in Iraq, but only Britain and Poland are providing more than token assistance.

A number of Democratic notables have suggested that the Bush administration swallow its pride and go hat in hand to the United Nations. But the U.N. record of peacekeeping in Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo, Somalia and Sierra Leone does not inspire confidence that turning over responsibility for reconstructing Iraq to that body would have a happy outcome.

If we are to succeed in Iraq, Iraqis must assume responsibility for governing themselves, and for protecting themselves. The sooner that process begins, the sooner we can declare victory and come home.

The process has begun, and is in fact well under way, though successes are largely being ignored by a news media that seems determined to paint as bleak a picture as possible.

When Iraqis supplement, and eventually replace, Americans on peacekeeping and security duties, three good things happen:

• The number of U.S. troops required to provide security in Iraq declines.

• The threat to the U.S. troops still in Iraq diminishes, because they will be less vulnerable to attack.

•Unemployment in Iraq diminishes and the number of Iraqis dependent upon the United States for their livelihood increases. This has a beneficial impact upon loyalty.

The place to begin in Iraq is where the Marines have begun, by training Iraqis to be security guards at schools, hospitals, mosques and other important public buildings now mostly being protected by U.S. troops.

THE UMBRELLA GENERAL

Did you know that under no circumstances can a male soldier, wearing any uniform of the United States Army, to include the black-tie, tuxedo equivalent Dress or Mess Blues, take shelter beneath an umbrella no matter how hard it is raining?

It is a fact.

That fact does not apply to female soldiers who are wearing anything better than the Class C uniform (BDUs or DCUs).

The exception for females (and I won't even go into the apparent sexist, double standard of the exception) is less than a decade old. Some General made the decision that it is OK for females to carry an umbrella. And the day they made that decision they, by default, reinforced the prohibition against males carrying umbrellas even when dressed to the nines.

Why? Because, simply put, no General wants to be remembered as the "umbrella General". No General wants to be the one to turn his back on over 200 years of tradition.

So, why discuss this here?

Because, whether you have realized it, we have seen the equivalent of the Umbrella General principle at work over the last several months.

We have the most professional military in the world. And one of the tenants that sets our military apart from many others is that we have codified civilian control of the military in the USA.

So, no matter how many stars a General has, he still works for a civilian, the Secretary of his service, who works for the Secretary of Defense who works for the President.

GEN Shinseki retired earlier this summer. He was the Chief of Staff of the Army. That's it...that is as high as you can go. The pinnacle of success in the United States Army.

And then a strange thing happened...nobody wanted his job.

Well, that may not be entirely correct...but this is: no General on active duty to whom the position was offered wanted the job.

I can't be absolutely certain, but my gut tells me this is unprecedented in this nation's history.

And so, we come to the question of why. Why did no active duty General take the position?

Read the article below, and we'll come back to the question.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday there is no need to increase U.S. armed forces for now even though the military is being stretched by commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.

“We’re absolutely open-minded about how many people we have in the armed services,” Rumsfeld said. “The way to get the right number,” he added, is not to rush to a change “the first time you feel the effects of a spike in activity, as we do right now with Iraq.”

He said continuing analyses of troop strength, conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicate current force levels are sufficient for engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Sinai peninsula and South Korea.

“But I can assure you that if at some point the circumstances in the world are such that the president and the Congress and the country believe that we need to be doing so many things that that it appropriately calls for an increase in end-strength, we certainly would ask for an increase in end-strength,” Rumsfeld said.

Last week the nominee to be Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told a Senate committee the Army is likely to need more troops to meet its worldwide commitments.

“Intuitively I think we need more people,” Schoomaker had said. “I mean it’s that simple.”

Rumsfeld was replying to a question about that testimony.

He said there were steps that could be taken to improve the efficiency of current troop levels, including putting civilians in jobs now being done by as many as 380,000 people in uniform.

“That’s a pile of people,” he said. “They need to be doing military functions.”...

Earlier Tuesday, the acting Army chief of staff, Gen. John Keane, said troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the Army and its size might need to be increased.

“There’s no doubt” more troops are needed, Keane told reporters. “I’ve just told you we’re short of infantry, we’re short of chemical-biological soldiers, we’re short of military police.”

But he said before military leaders can come up with a number for an increase in combat troops, they have to see what military slots can be converted to civilian slots. He also said combat support services have to be improved.

“Clearly we’re stretched and we know we’re short certain skill sets we’ve got to fix,” he said. “That’s as specific as I can get until we do the rest of the analysis.”

Keane is to retire this summer. Rumsfeld tried to persuade him to take over the chief of staff slot when Gen. Eric Shinseki retired last June, but Keane declined, officials said. Rumsfeld then picked Schoomaker, who is awaiting Senate confirmation.

So here it is. General Shinseki knew the Army is understrength and said as much in his now famous "12 division strategy with a 10 division Army" comment.

But Secretary Rumsfeld doesn't see it that way. He continues to see "efficiencies" to be gained, and his bias is blatant in his comment that "380,000 folks in uniform" need to be doing "military functions".

What does he mean? He means that he believes that civilians should be cooking for our soldiers, creating potable water for the soldiers, repairing broken vehicles, handling the mail, inspecting our food and on and on and on. He means that if a soldier isn't engaged in launching bullets at the enemy, then that soldier is not performing "military functions". (See Monday's posting: "How new efficiencies screw our soldiers.")

And he testifies this to be the case even as the Army's senior logistician proclaims that our soldiers are living in substandard conditions in Iraq because civilian contractors were a no-show on the battlefield.

Lieutenant General Mahan has it right...the only recourse for this misguided displacement of Army functions is to sue the civilians after the fact.

Doesn't do CPT Patti much good at the moment, does it?

And so - where does the Umbrella General come in?

The Generals know that General Shinseki was right.

Secretary Rumsfelds much touted "transformation of the military" has at its roots the peacetime idea that non-bullet-launching functions should be handed over to civilians. Problem is, it doesn't work. We saw that in the Civil War with the spotty attendance of the "sutlers" on the battlefield, who were fair-weather merchants at best. LTG Mahan sees it in Iraq. More importantly, your soldier and my soldier see it every day in Iraq.

So well known is Secretary Rumsfeld's intent, and so heinous is it to the well being of our soldiers (and Marines, and Airmen and Seamen and Coasties) that no active duty General who was offered the job wants his legacy to be that of ripping the support out of the Army.

And so - the umbrella issue highlights that tradition weighs heavily in the Army for even light things. But today's issue goes well beyond that. It reflects that the professional experience of upwards of 35 years of service that each of these Generals have can not reconcile what they know to be true with what Secretary Rumsfeld has in mind.

Yes, we owe much to civilian control of the military. But the civilian masters could learn much from the collective message of the Professional Soldiers who have spent their lives studying the art of war.

CENTCOM PRESS RELEASES

August 5, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-09


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


SOLDIER DIES FROM APPARENT HEART ATTACK

CAMP DOHA, Kuwait – A US soldier assigned to Coalition Forces Land Component Command died earlier today from an apparent heart attack.

The soldier complained of having chest pains while performing convoy duties between Camp Arifjan and Camp Arlington west of Camp Wolf.

The soldier was taken to the Kuwaiti Defense base and transported to the 801st CSH.

Name of the soldier is being withheld pending next of kin notification.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6th. The 87th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

It is 114 degrees in Baghdad today. It is forecasted to readh 117 by the weekend.

Have you ever been where it is 117 degrees?

Me neither.

But depending upon which forecast one believes, it may be 99 degrees here in Giessen on Thursday.

Our empathy grows.

WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO BUILD HERE?

Superb opinion piece that looks at the US Forces' technical combat ability, already unsurpassed in the the world, and notes that smart bombs do little to help our forces in their current mission - rebuiding a nation.

I agree that building a new future in the Arab world is a worthy challenge for a great power, assuming it's done with the Arabs' help rather than being imposed on them. But I am increasingly worried that this administration's military version of "transformation" will subvert its political goal.

Here's the problem: The Pentagon's version of "transformation" is all about using technology to enhance the military's standoff power -- the precision-guided bombs and unmanned robots that allow America to dominate a battlefield without risking high U.S. casualties. But political transformation requires the opposite -- an intimate "stand-in" connection with the culture and people you propose to transform.

This conundrum has been evident in Iraq: U.S. military forces raced north to Baghdad, overwhelming any opposition in their path. The road from Kuwait to Baghdad provided images of the new precision and lethality of American weapons: Iraqi tanks smoldered in ruins even as the surrounding sand revetments looked almost untouched. I saw one tank that had tried to hide under a bridge but was destroyed by a missile smart enough to nail the tank but leave the bridge intact.

The Iraqis never saw what was coming at them militarily. That helped America win the war quickly and decisively. But this same disconnect -- the separation of U.S. power from the society that the administration hopes to reconstruct -- is a big part of what has been going wrong in postwar Iraq.

America remains too much of a standoff power in the new Iraq. The U.S. military lacks the language skills, the cultural familiarity, the network of political connections to make the necessary, intimate connection with that country. It needs to "stand in" now, but it doesn't have the tools to do so securely. Hunkered down against a small but pesky Iraqi resistance, it looks like an occupying army more than a transforming (or "liberating") one.

This imbalance between America's military force and its strategic needs is only likely to grow worse unless the Bush administration moves to redress it. The Pentagon is already working on the next generation of military "transformation," and from what I heard at a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) conference last week, the future will only add to America's standoff military power.

The world's only superpower is contemplating new technologies that could come out of the latest "Terminator" movie. On this future battlefield, "super-empowered" U.S. war-fighters will have body-machine interfaces that will make them all but invulnerable. They will be able to fire weapons just by thinking "fire"; they will be impervious to heat, hunger, thirst or fatigue. Remote sensors will constantly feed target data to aircraft that can fire precision weapons from a safe distance. When things get too dangerous even for the super-empowered, the Pentagon can send in smart robots and swarms of unmanned predator planes...

I hope DARPA keeps experimenting with future weapons technologies, and I applaud Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's agenda for transformation of a sometimes hidebound military. But the Bush administration needs to embrace the softer side of power, too. An America that can actually transform the Middle East will need more Arabic speakers, social scientists who understand the Islamic world, development economists, human rights activists.

Above all, a United States that's serious about transforming the Arab world will need people who care passionately about the region and its people. This is not a standoff project. Real transformation will require connection, not distance.

Read the whole thing here.

THE THING IS...CAN YOU BELIEVE A WORD THESE PEOPLE SAY?

In interviews here, some Tikritis readily admit that Mr. Hussein is in the area, protected by the people upon whom he lavished wealth and privilege during his rule. The funeral Saturday of his sons, attended by dozens of family members and friends, gave ample testament to the nostalgia for his rule. Locals here said Tikritis who have cooperated with the Americans have been attacked and, in some cases, killed.

"Saddam is with us in Tikrit, and the Americans will not find him," Sheik Ismael al-Dibis, a tribal elder here, said in an interview. "They cannot find him even if they searched for a hundred years."

The Americans think they can. Despite the boasts of his supporters, the Americans say they have been deluged with information about Mr. Hussein. In addition to the 600 Iraqis detained here, the Americans have captured two men on the most-wanted list, including Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, who was No. 4, a ranking based in part on his closeness to Mr. Hussein.

The Americans are handing out rewards for information, but they say their biggest asset is the desire for justice by the many residents whom Mr. Hussein brutalized.

UH...NO THANKS, I THINK I'LL JUST WALK

It is a familiar scene in post-Saddam Baghdad. Even by the low standards of other Middle Eastern cities, the traffic in the Iraqi capital is off the scale. Everyone ignores the traffic lights; roundabouts are driven around according to whichever route seems quickest; and the lane markings might as well not exist.

A few blocks away from where Sgt Naji is fighting his losing battle, Rashid Hamid, also a sergeant, has given up and is hiding from the punishing glare of the afternoon sun in a shelter. Next to him sits a white Suzuki motorcycle which he once used to chase traffic offenders. He doesn't bother with that any more.

"What is the point? People take no notice of us. They have no respect for us because they know we cannot take any action because there is no law and there are no courts," he said. "Before, when we could fine people, everybody kept to the law. Now they just swear at us. Insulting a traffic policeman used to get you six months in jail."

Most of all Sgt Hamid, who has been a traffic policeman for 18 years, wanted his gun back - which the US authorities in Iraq will not allow. "How will people take us seriously unless we have a gun?"

According to him some of the drivers causing mayhem on Baghdad's roads probably do not even know they are breaking the law. The directorate of traffic was looted during the conflict, and driving licences can now be bought on any street cornerfor a few dinars.

THOSE IOWANS AND THEIR DANG SWEET CORN AGAIN

Kum & Go donated coolers, and Wal-Mart donated butter, salt, and pepper. Additional coolers and ice were donated by a number of other groups, as well as letters of support written for the troops.

As to the corn itself, it was donated by the Garst seed company.

There’s about 300 dozen, or 3,600 individual ears of corn being provided, said Lori Thomas, marketing manager for the Garst seed company.

“We picked a corn that’s super sweet. It’ll hold its sugar for a whole week. So, it should taste great when it gets to Baghdad, which will likely be on Thursday,” Thomas said.

Before getting to Baghdad, the corn will be transported by the Ruan truck until it reaches the Charleston air force base in South Carolina. Next, it will either go by air to Germany or straight to Baghdad. Quite a feat of cooperation, but most of all, a feat of caring.

MAIL CALL

Some troops living and working in Baghdad have received mail from the continental United States in as few as five days. Boxes sent through the military parcel service from Germany have arrived in Baghdad in as little as three days. Stateside mail is getting to soldiers on an average between 11 and 15 days 85 percent of the time.

Last week, the military began flying tons of mail daily to northern Iraq through the international air express company DHL. Four to six pallets of mail are picked up at the central warehouse at Baghdad International and flown to troops in Mosul about twice a day.

CENTCOM PRESS RELEASE

August 5, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-08

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE

BAGHDAD, Iraq – In the last 24 hours, coalition forces conducted 25 raids, 885 day patrols and 709 night patrols and conducted 176 day patrols and 165 night patrols jointly with Iraqi police.

Acting on a tip from a local Iraqi that a religious man was firing his weapon at other Iraqis in a Baghdad mosque, 1st Armored Division soldiers along with Iraqi Police officers conducted a raid at the mosque. Two Iraqis were detained and two AK-47s, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher and one rifle were confiscated.

A gun battle observed between two Iraqis was defeated by a 1st AD military police patrol. The patrol gunner fired rounds at the men’s location when one of the men turned toward the patrol causing both men to flee.

An improvised explosive device consisting of a fuel can connected to batteries was discovered in Baghdad by a 1st AD patrol. An explosive ordnance detonation team defused the IED without incident.

Acting on a tip received from a local Iraqi citizen, a raid was conducted by 4th Infantry Division soldiers against individuals suspected in mortar attacks on Coalition forces in Ba’qubah resulting in significant finds. Weapons confiscated in the raid included five 60 mm mortar rounds, three AK-47s, a number of loaded AK-47 magazines, a crate of 7.62 ammunition, one mortar sight, and grenade fuses. Five individuals were detained.

A weapons cache consisting of 50 120 mm mortar rounds was discovered in the Mosul area by 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldiers. An EOD team was called to dispose of the cache.