TUESDAY, August 5th. The 86th days of CPT Patti's deployment.

It has been 9 days since I heard from her.

HOW NEW "EFFICIENCIES" IN THE ARMY SCREW OUR SOLDIERS

The peacetime thinking of those in charge says the military can achieve great "efficiencies" (read that - cost savings) if we hire civilian contractors to perform non-core functions on the battlefield. Hence Secretary Rumsfeld is trying to shift any number of functions out of the uniformed ranks.

Problem is, according to the senior Army logistician...it doesn't work. You can't force civilians into a war zone, you can't afford their insurance, and if the water-balloon hits the fan, civilians make very poor riflemen.

So - if you have a soldier in Iraq who is still eating MREs 3 times per day on any day of the week, a soldier who isn't sleeping in air-conditioned billets, or using a "real latrine' instead of a 55 gallon drum, your soldier is the victim of this sort of "Just-Too-Late Logistics" that Mr. Rumsfeld wants us to buy more of.

We've said it before...when you want to buy an Army on the cheap, you wind up with a cheap Army.

U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up, Army officers said.

Months after American combat troops settled into occupation duty, they were camped out in primitive, dust-blown shelters without windows or air conditioning. The Army has invested heavily in modular barracks, showers, bathroom facilities and field kitchens, but troops in Iraq were using ramshackle plywood latrines and living without fresh food or regular access to showers and telephones.

Even mail delivery -- also managed by civilian contractors -- fell weeks behind.

Though conditions have improved, the problems raise new concerns about the Pentagon's growing global reliance on defense contractors for everything from laundry service to combat training and aircraft maintenance. Civilians help operate Navy Aegis cruisers and Global Hawk, the high-tech robot spy plane.

Civilian contractors may work well enough in peacetime, critics say. But what about in a crisis?

"We thought we could depend on industry to perform these kinds of functions," Lt. Gen. Charles S. Mahan, the Army's logistics chief, said in an interview.

One thing became clear in Iraq. "You cannot order civilians into a war zone," said Linda K. Theis, an official at the Army's Field Support Command, which oversees some civilian logistics contracts. "People can sign up to that -- but they can also back out."

As a result, soldiers lived in the mud, then the heat and dust. Back home, a group of mothers organized a drive to buy and ship air conditioners to their sons. One Army captain asked a reporter to send a box of nails and screws to repair his living quarters and latrines.

For almost a decade, the military has been shifting its supply and support personnel into combat jobs and hiring defense contractors to do the rest. This shift has accelerated under relentless pressure from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make the force lighter and more agile.

"It's a profound change in the way the military operates," said Peter W. Singer, author of a new book, "Corporate Warriors," a detailed study of civilian contractors. He estimates that over the past decade, there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of contract civilians performing work the military used to do itself.

"When you turn these services over to the private market, you lose a measure of control over them," said Singer, a foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

ERASER, PLEASE

We need to clean up these textbooks.

BAGHDAD - Ghada Jassen's 5th-grade students used to greet her each morning with a salute of "Long live Saddam Hussein!" as she walked into the classroom, then "Long live the Baath Party!" as she motioned for them to take their seats.

Their textbooks were filled with Saddam's regime as well: Math texts substituted S and H for the variables X and Y, reading comprehension paragraphs discussed Zionist aggression and using oil as a political weapon, and other exercises promoted joining the Popular Army as an everyday activity such as buying a music cassette or acting in a play.

"We didn't believe these things but we had to say them," said Jassen, who taught for 18 years under Saddam's regime. "Saddam was there in all the books, even the math books."

That is changing, as Iraqi teachers and parents team up with U.S. and international organizations to root the former Iraqi dictator out of textbooks and replace militaristic rote learning in Iraqi classrooms.

In the months since the fall of the regime, a panel of 37 Iraqi secondary school teachers working through the interim Ministry of Education has been reviewing the nation's textbooks, excising everything from math word problems about trench digging on the Iranian border to photos of tanks and rifles.

"They've gone through and removed Baath propaganda statements, photos of Saddam Hussein, discriminatory statements about groups," said Dorothy Mazaka, a U.S. Agency for International Development education specialist, who is working as a liaison to the Ministry of Education...

"We want to have real education, to be a progressive country," said Al Sa'ad Majid al Musowi, a businessman on Baghdad's city council, who brought up education reform as a priority at the council's first meeting.

"Education is very important to the reconstruction of our society. If you want to civilize society, you must care about education," he said.

A BIT WORRISOME

U.S. officials blame die-hard Saddam loyalists and foreign Arab fighters for a wave of attacks on American troops that has killed 53 soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. They say attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated -- and increasingly deadly.

On Sunday morning an Iraqi civilian car hit an explosive device and burst into flames on the road to the U.S. base at Baghdad airport, badly wounding the driver.

Sergeant Brent Williams of the 1st Armoured Division said the blast had probably been caused by a landmine. Asked whether it had been intended for U.S. convoys that use the road regularly, he said: "That's a possibility."

A crowd of children gathered, flinging stones at soldiers and shouting their support for Saddam.

"Our flesh and blood, we sacrifice for you Saddam," the children chanted as the car smouldered.

On Thursday, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine on the airport road.

U.S. officers say they hope that if they track down Saddam they can end the guerrilla campaign.

Colonel James Hickey, the pugnacious cavalry officer who commands the 4th Infantry's 1st Brigade, says the deposed dictator is being forced into a corner.

I find a couple of things pestering me today on this subject.

The first is what has happened to prompt those children to gather around and chant those things? From my readings I had come to believe that the children often serve as a GIs barometer to measure what is going on in the Iraqi homes, out of sight of the soldiers.

Of course, with the reporting being selective and spotty, this sort of thing might be happening everywhere daily, and we simply don't know about it.

Still, if it is new...I'm not keen on it.

Second pestering item of the day goes back to yesterday's post entitled "Militant Islamists". Here is what bothers me. If Mr. Bremer is correct and some of the attacks are coming from outsiders (non-Iraqis) with a fundamentalist Islamic agenda, the capture or death of Saddam Hussein will have not one whit of impact on these groups.

Now certainly we might hope that those attacks stemming from former Ba'athists will die off once the former dictator does the same.

But those who would impose a Muslim fundamentalist government on Iraq (as if they worked well in Afghanistan and Iran) actually are happy that Saddam is out of the way, and now see the US as the obstacle between them and another gloriously brutal and corrupt government for Allah (sarcasm, mine).

And these nut cases are probably reasonably well trained and funded from outside Iraq.

Nope, I'm not happy with these developments.

"GI JANE"

Alicia Flores' relatives call her GI Jane. The Army calls her one of the first servicewomen to enter Iraq during the war.

On March 19, Flores, a Proviso East High School graduate and an Army chemical operations specialist based at Fort Stewart, Ga., volunteered to accompany a smoke platoon--including three other women--with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

On the fourth morning, an ambush of mortar rounds marked their first encounter with Iraqi troops--and Flores' 20th birthday.

"After the firefight, the guys stopped the tanks and got out and sang happy birthday to me," said Flores. "That was about it."

Her four months in Iraq, though, weren't all gunfire. First, she had to learn to live with an armory of men who'd never served alongside women before...

By the third week, the convoy reached Baghdad, where they helped guard the airport, which was under attack daily. Eventually she pulled guard duty at Saddam Hussein's presidential palace, where she and other soldiers amused themselves by playing dress-up with Saddam's extensive wardrobe and performing skits for each other.

They broke up the monotony of guard duty by taking pictures of themselves pointing weapons at Saddam's many portraits or posing as a dictator in one of his oversize throne chairs or pretending to dip their toes in his empty swimming pool.

When soldiers discovered a stash of more than $600 million, Flores was assigned to guard it, too.

"All we could do was sit there and watch it," she said. Less fun was "baby-sitting" the enemy prisoners of war, including five from the military's deck of cards and several others she called "High-Dollar Value Guys." Part of her responsibility was to make sure the prisoners received one MRE (meal ready to eat) and one bottle of water a day. Prisoners were kept 25 to a cell. Several offered her marriage proposals.

"They would tell the other male soldiers that they had a camel and a sheep and wanted to trade them for me. A lot of them wanted me to marry them and take them back to America."

Hmmm...CPT Patti is responsible for the overnight detention cell in Central Baghdad...wonder how many camels and sheep she has been offered???

BALANCING

Headlines versus heartlines.

Against a backdrop of media reports about escalating attacks that seem to be “ongoing, nonstop” as Jennifer Rossin puts it, being an Information Age military spouse brings a knot of colliding, sometimes contradictory, information and emotions.

“As much as it worries me, I still watch [the news],” Jennifer Rossin said, adding that CNN is “one of the few channels we get” at her Wiesbaden housing unit.

But she and others talk about disconnects between media reports and what they’re hearing directly from their soldiers in Iraq. Soldiers, they say, talk or write about being bored, homesick, exhilarated by the adventure or exhausted by the heat. But rarely do they directly mention attacks...

Asked whether she believes the media or her husband on the ground, she answers without pausing: “I believe what my husband tells me.”

CENTCOM PRESS RELEASES

August 3, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-06

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Former regime loyalist and weapons were seized in numerous successful raids and patrols conducted by Coalition forces throughout Iraq on August 2.

Raids conducted by the 4th Infantry Division resulted in 26 detainees including two suspected key mid-level former regime loyalists. Additionally, 162 hand grenades, 9 rocket-propelled grenades, 10 AK-47’s, four blocks of dynamite one heavy machine gun, various ammunition and explosives, and 200 million Iraqi Dinar were seized.

Twenty former regime loyalists, including a targeted leader, were captured in a series of raids conducted by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment on August 3.

In the last 24 hours, coalition forces conducted 22 raids, 836 day patrols and 605 night patrols and conducted 154 day patrols and 164 night patrols jointly with Iraqi police.


August 3, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION EFFORTS AID IRAQ'S RECOVERY

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A school has been reconstructed virtually from the ground up in a small village near Ar Ramadi. Soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment helped rebuild the school in a move to put it together the right way when it had been built originally in the wrong way.

The villagers’ school in the town of Abutiban now has a new roof, a bathroom, water tanks, fans, windows and chalkboards thanks to engineers from the 3rd ACR and soldiers from the 490th Civil Affairs Battalion from Abilene, Tex. The school was originally constructed three years ago when Saddam Hussein ordered it to be built in three days. Since the people lacked the money with which to purchase the proper building materials the school was built haphazardly. As a result, its roof sagged badly, it had no electricity and no toilet facilities. Through their efforts Coalition forces have provided the people of Abutiban with what amounts to a whole new school.

Also near Ar Ramadi, Coalition forces and members of the new Interim Governate Council of Al Anbar met Aug. 1 for the first time to discuss issues related to security, employment, water and electricity. The Interim Governate Council represents all seven districts in Al Anbar province. The council’s formation represents a milestone toward democracy and self government for the people of Al Anbar.

Near Tikrit, 4th Infantry Division engineers and civil affairs soldiers this week finished repairs to two water pumps in Shayke Gassim Eldori, a village five kilometers south of Ad Dawr. As a result of the efforts of soldiers from the 4th ID, the water treatment facility can now provide the normal water supply to the Ad Dawr populace and its surrounding communities.

MONDAY, AUGUST 4th. The 85th day of CPT Patti's deployment. It is 114 degrees today in Baghdad.

A RARE RESPECTABLE POST-WAR POSITION FROM THE LEFT

Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign may be stalled, but at least he understands that his party is headed for electoral ruin if its White House hopefuls keep on questioning the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Four of the candidates actually voted to authorize force in Iraq. Yet all but Lieberman are now running away from that position - and accusing President Bush, in increasingly strident tones, of deceiving the American people.

"Some in my party threaten to send a message that they don't know a just war when they see it," the Connecticut senator said in a speech last week.

"And, more broadly, [that they] are not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom."

Indeed, he said, the furor over those 16 words in Bush's State of the Union Address has a "disquieting zeal," adding that too many Democrats have seized on the speech "as though it offers proof that they were right all along" to oppose the war. And the same, he said, "is true of some who supported the war but now seem to have forgotten why" - referring specifically to rivals John Kerry and Dick Gephardt.

Lieberman also singled out Howard Dean as one of those who fail to appreciate that "Congress did the right thing in authorizing the war."

Moreover, said Sen. Joe, "nothing we have learned since the end of the conflict should make us doubt that we were right to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein and protect America and the rest of the world from his aggression."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

VERY COOL

The newly formed Iraqi Inter- Religious Council for Peace (Iq-IRC) will meet for its first working session this weekend to address the role of religious communities in rebuilding Iraq and establishing conditions for Iraqi self-government. Convened by the World Conference of Religions for Peace, the Iq-IRC comprises senior Iraqi religious figures, including Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Sabeans...

"The formation of the Inter-Religious Council is a commitment by Iraq's religious leaders to address inter-religious tensions, to work together to meet critical humanitarian needs and to find constructive ways to help forge a new political order," said Dr. William F. Vendley, Secretary General of Religions for Peace.

Humanitarian assistance already is underway in the name of the Inter-Religious Council through mosques, churches, temples and hospitals, providing food, water and medicines to the needy regardless of religious affiliation. "At our mosque we distribute food and medicine supplied by Christian organizations. Together we survive," said Sheikh Ali Houssein-al Jabbouri of efforts at the Shakir al-Adoud mosque in Baghdad.

PROFILE

Of GEN Abizaid.

The extent of his influence was made abundantly clear, however, in his first encounter with reporters since taking over the helm at Central Command.

After weeks in which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld repeatedly declined to say that the U.S. military was still involved in a war in Iraq, despite a mounting toll of casualties, Abizaid contradicted his boss during a July 16 news conference at the Pentagon. Baathist die-hards in Iraq, he said, were waging "a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us." For good measure, he added, "It's low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it."

Those comments not only made news, but sent several messages. They told the American public that casualties in Iraq aren't a failure of peacekeeping but the necessary cost of combat. At the same time, they spurred Abizaid's subordinates in Iraq to be aggressive and use all the war-making tools available to them. And they showed that Abizaid would speak his mind.

"That was General Abizaid," commented retired Army Col. Joe Adamczyk, a veteran paratroop who served at West Point when Abizaid was commandant there from 1997 to '99. "What you see is what you get -- and you get a proven warrior who combines this with tremendous aplomb, insight and understanding when dealing at the highest levels of our government and the international community."

One reason Abizaid can get away with crossing Rumsfeld is that he worked closely with the defense secretary in 2001 and 2002, as the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism began. As director of the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- a quiet but powerful position inside the Pentagon -- he is said to have forcefully told Rumsfeld on several occasions that he was wrong on an issue. Rumsfeld has the reputation of tolerating such behavior only when his interlocutor has all the facts marshaled...

Then it was off to a white tablecloth lunch at the al Rasheed Hotel with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and a gaggle of reporters and columnists traveling with him.

Showing his inclination to confront the adversary, which sometimes includes the news media, Abizaid looked around the table at the journalists and criticized coverage that said the reconstruction of Iraq was lagging. "The impatience of the press is always of some interest to me," he said mildly. "The progress here is quite remarkable, actually."

PERSPECTIVE

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Bernard Kerik was dubbed the ''Baghdad Terminator'' after he summarily dismissed a newly reinstated Iraqi official who turned out to be a member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

A British journalist happened to be there and the ex-New York police commissioner had a new unofficial title.

''If you're going to criticize me for terminating Baath Party members go ahead. I like that,'' Kerik tells an Associated Press reporter accompanying him on his day's rounds. ''You can't please everyone. We're in Iraq; this is a war zone. Perhaps you can do things nicely, but there's times you can't.''...

Banging his fist on a desk, he brings to order a meeting of advisers at the interim Interior Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi police force he's responsible for re-establishing.

Then Kerik speaks softly and slowly. ''I want to know what you're doing, what you're supposed to be doing, what you need to do it.''

Spotting an unfamiliar face, he shoots a question: ''Who are you?'' The woman springs to attention sputtering her name, department and duties.

Kerik listens, sipping coffee from a plastic cup.

The meeting slogs along. The Baghdad International Airport is ready to reopen but still unsafe. Fire trucks are sitting idle because the bureaucracy is snarled. Traffic police are being ignored or abused.

Kerik says he is unfazed by the magnitude of problems facing the U.S.-led interim administration: sabotage, guerrilla attacks, the heat, decrepit electric and water systems and the impatience of Iraqis and the rest of the world.

When he was police commissioner in New York, he and his team turned it into one of the world's safest cities, and that will happen in Iraq, too, he says.

''It took eight years and I had every resource available information technology, a readymade staff I had everything you could imagine and it took eight years. We've only been here for 100 days and you want what? Come on!''

Read it all.

YET ANOTHER REASON TO ADORE THE UN

Spies

Before the mid-March war on Iraq, four active spies worked out of the Iraqi mission on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Said Ahmad, who now serves as head of the mission, said on Friday.

The most feared intelligence presence in the mission, he said, was Abdul Rahman I.K. Saad, expelled by the United States in June 2002 for ''activities incompatible with his diplomatic status.''

Saad's formal title was ''first secretary'' -- a relatively high rank for a U.N. diplomat.

Two others, described as ''guards,'' lived in the mission basement, on a constant vigil against defections and disloyalty to Saddam, Ahmad told Reuters.

An Iraqi journalist expelled by the United States in February, Mohammad Hassan Allawi, also was a spy despite denials by Iraqi officials, he said.

Allawi, 38, was based at the United Nations and well-liked by his media colleagues, who never suspected his dual roles. Washington forced him to leave the United States a few weeks before the war began.

The two ''guards'' also went back to Baghdad before the fighting began, giving the remaining staff some freedom.

Things got even more relaxed after U.S. Marines entered Baghdad...

After U.S. Marines toppled Saddam's statue in central Baghdad on April 9, at least a dozen framed portraits of the former Iraqi president were removed from the mission's walls, Altayi said in an interview.

''There wasn't much ceremony,'' he said. ''It was more like, 'Get these damn pictures out of here.''' While most were destroyed, some were given away as souvenirs, he said.

"HE'S MAKING A JOKE OF HIMSELF"

Out of power and hunted by large numbers of U.S. forces, Saddam Hussein is still giving orders to Iraqis, telling them what to do with such seemingly minor things as looted property and government cars -- if a new audiotape aired Friday is authentic.

In the rambling audio recording, said to have been recorded Sunday, the taped voice told Iraqis they could keep looted cars or sell them without any fear of repercussions once he returns to power. But it warned that those who handed cars over to the occupiers would be treated as traitors...

For Iraqis who have grown used to life without Hussein, even for those bitter about the difficulties of the U.S.-led occupation, the tape seemed almost surreal in its denial of reality.

Mohammed Najar, a 46-year-old interior decorator in Baghdad, was flabbergasted: "He doesn't exist! How can he be issuing us these instructions? It's unbelievable! He's making a joke of himself."

MILITANT ISLAMISTS

A fight the Iraqis must fight on their own for the soul of their country.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, said Saturday that military experts have drawn strong links between al-Qaida and other terrorist groups and the guerrilla attacks that have killed 59 U.S. soldiers since May 1 when President Bush declared the end of major combat operations.

Iraqi insurgents killed a U.S. soldier and injured three others late Friday night despite stepped-up efforts by American forces to find and disarm increasingly diverse resistance groups.

Bremer said four groups are behind most of the attacks: Baath Party loyalists, remnants of the irregular Saddam Fedayeen force, intelligence officers from the former regime and foreign fighters. A senior administration official in Washington added a fifth group: common criminals.

The foreign element, Bremer said, includes al-Qaida and Ansar al Islam, a militant Islamic group that U.S. and Kurdish forces attacked in northern Iraq during the war but is now believed to be restructuring.

"With regret, I say we did not kill all of them," Bremer said. "Some of them escaped to other countries and are now trickling back in."

Senior administration officials in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are classified, said the foreigners include Syrians, Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Pakistanis and even a few Albanians.

Two things are most worrisome, one intelligence official said: Many of the foreign fighters appear to have been trained in terrorist or guerrilla tactics, and none of them appears intent on restoring Saddam to power. Most of the foreigners, in fact, are Islamic militants who cheered the fall of the secular Iraqi regime, the official said.

"The danger is that some of these guys want to make Iraq the next Afghanistan or Somalia or Chechnya, the next battleground between Islam and the infidels. Getting rid of Saddam and turning the electricity back on won't do anything to change that."

GUERRILLA WARFARE

To rename streets in Baghdad.

There's no Yasser Arafat Street in Baghdad anymore, and a main thoroughfare along the Tigris River once named for an eighth century poet has a new name as well.

Both have been renamed for Shiite Muslim imams whose memory had no place in Saddam Hussein's rule, when Sunni Muslims dominated despite being a minority in Iraq.

In midnight operations underlining the newfound strength of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority, Shiite leaders are whitewashing the names of many of Baghdad's bridges, streets and neighborhoods, replacing the hallmarks of the old regime with scrawled titles rich in symbolism for Shiites.

The obvious tributes to Saddam's 23-year-rule went long ago. Signs at Saddam International Airport, Saddam Bridge, Saddam University, Saddam Hospital and the Saddam City neighborhood came down as the capital fell in April, along with countless statues and posters of the dictator...

Saddam had named the street for Yasser Arafat when Israel put the Palestinian leader under virtual house arrest in 2000. Signs bearing Arafat's name disappeared overnight in late June, and new ones with the imam's name went up.

Many of Iraq's Shiite Muslims resent Arafat for backing Saddam in the 1991 Gulf War and for accepting Iraqi aid since then, even while Iraq suffered under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

There also was resentment over special treatment Saddam granted Palestinian refugees in Iraq, and the Iraqi dictator contributed to funds that paid compensation to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

"Yasser Arafat is the same as Saddam. He was not honest with his people, and he created a single-party system to cripple the freedom of his people," Sajjid said. "They are two sides of the same coin."

CHAPEL, GATORADE, JOKES AND OIL

A quick update on various items of interest in Iraq.

International rail links into Iraq are about to become operational for the first time since before the war.

The first train to use the lines, which will come from Syria to Iraq, is expected to arrive in Baghdad on Friday, carrying empty oil tanks that have been sitting in Syria since before the war began. The tanks “will raise the ability to move crude oil around the country by about one-third,” a civilian coalition official said Wednesday.

Note: CPT Patti is not in the 101st Airborne Division...so she still needs the Gatorade.

MONTANA RESERVISTS DESCRIBE LIFE IN BAGHDAD

And highlight the media's fixation on the bad news.

Days are long and hard for the soldiers, but they do have some leisure time.

"In our free time, mostly we read books, listen to CDs, play video games and watch movies," Sgt. Brian Biesemeyer, 29, of Shelby wrote. "We're a lot like a kid who's been grounded.

"We also talk about home and our families and what's in the news," he added. "I also try to go to the chapel whenever I can."

Some soldiers took issue with the media portrayal of war and subsequent military occupation.

"All you see on the news in Iraq is what went wrong or what attacks have happened to U.S. troops," Staff Sgt. Erik Pedersen, 31, of Billings wrote. "What you do not see is what we are doing to get this country back in order."

What is lost between here and there, Sgt. Michael Boller, 23, of Billlings said, "is the face of the Iraqi civilian. I'm not talking about the Regime, or the soldiers who fought against us. I'm talking about the people who drive to work everyday hoping to be paid so they can feed their families. The man who was aware of the war going on behind him and hoping that it would also set a new standard for him and his family's future. Television focuses on the wreckage of a HUMMWV (a Humvee) instead of the soldier giving a small child a handshake."

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

August 2, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-04

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE KILLED, THREE INJURED IN RPG ATTACK

BAGHDAD, Iraq - One 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and three injured at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 1, when their convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade attack south of Shumayt.

Soldiers were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital.

Soldiers’ names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The incident is under investigation.


August 2, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-05

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IRAQI WOMAN KILLED DURING ATTACK ON U.S. SOLDIERS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi woman was killed Aug. 1 when U.S. soldiers fired in self-defense during an attack in the Al Mansor district.

Unknown assailants dropped an explosive device on a six-vehicle convoy from a highway overpass at approximately 6:45 p.m. The woman was near the location where the explosion occurred.

Iraqi Police Services officers and soldiers from the 1st Armored Division secured the scene.

Neighborhood residents brought the victim to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3rd. The 84th day of CPT Patti's deployment.