FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE: ON PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER.

The bad guys are three percent of the population. Informants are everywhere and we receive 300 tips per day on where the bad guys are and what they are up to.

When and if we can prove Saddam is dead, the Ba’ath party holdovers are completely out of business. In fact it is my opinion that when we prove he is dead, a whole lot of Ba’ath party members will have their throats slit in the night. The Iraqis know who they are and where they are.

You can see the change in the country happening daily. Baghdad is beginning to function as any other city. And the people are beginning to understand it is a slow but worthy process.

We have focused our efforts early on toward security and rebuilding public services such as the hospitals, fire houses, police, schools and universities.

And although the Iraqi’s believe America is capable of anything it sets its mind to (“You put men on the moon, you have space shuttle, why then do we not have water?) they are beginning to understand this is a slow process.

Some folks here read the stories in the press and believe the situation in Iraq is getting worse. That is not the case. Let me give you and example.

When we took responsibility for central Baghdad the departing unit told us there were only 43 remaining sites of unexploded ordnance to be dealt with. That number is up in the hundreds now. Is that because it got worse? No, it is because we have more patrols out in the street. And the Iraqis trust us more. So we see more and we learn more from the locals.

Similarly – the incidents of shootings. The numbers of shooters isn’t growing. It is all tied together. Ba’athists who have money (remember that Saddam Hussein pulled off with 4 tractor trailer loads of cash just before the war) find some poverty ridden soul and offer him money to shoot soldiers.

These guys generally can’t shoot well. And so we capture them and interrogate them and find out who is paying them. So in some ways when they shoot it is good, because it forces them to pop their heads up…and we usually get the shooter and whoever is behind him.

This is a country of snitches. We have no shortage of information leading us to the bad guys.

Meanwhile, our soldiers, your soldiers, are guardians of the birth of freedom.

Be proud of them.