"BECAUSE FREEDOM IS NICE".

Yet a day spent on a typical street in Baghdad's Al Karradah neighborhood reveals more decidedly mixed attitudes about the postwar situation here than suggested by the daily incidents of violence.

Indeed, voicing clear gains as well as difficulties in day-to-day life, all of the residents in a small but varied sample seemed willing to give the occupation force time to stabilize the country.

The need for greater security was a common concern of residents, though several said the situation had improved since the early days of looting and robberies. In contrast, many residents said their income had risen or stayed the same, while their freedoms had expanded dramatically.

Only one person of a dozen interviewed said American forces should leave Iraq right away - while the rest wanted US troops to stay until a new government had been established and security achieved.

"The Americans brought us freedom, but there's still a lot to do in terms of security," says Um, who asked simply to be identified as her son's mother. "If the Americans leave now, we won't have security at all in Baghdad," adds her son, Haider Majeed, a high school student...

"There is a lack of security, but psychologically, things are better, because freedom is nice," he says.

OH OH.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A soldier from the 1st Armored Division and his Iraqi interpreter were killed in a grenade and small arms attack in north Baghdad Monday, the U.S. military said.

Spokesman Cpl. Todd Pruden said the military had no further information on the soldier's death.

"SOMETIMES THE MEDIA DO NOT HAVE A CLEAR VISION OF HOW THINGS ARE IN IRAQ"

Indeed.

The Imam has a mosque in Kadhimiya and has supported Americans since their arrival. At Gold's behest the Imam has met with Ambassador L. Paul Bremer twice in the past two months.

Unlike many mosques in the Baghdad area, Friday prayers over minaret loudspeakers at the Imam's mosque don't include cries to fight the Americans.

The other meeting, at one sheik's "recreation" house, includes five other local sheiks as guests along with several brothers and nephews who are guests or who assist in serving the Americans.

The sheiks recently let it be known they had watched American Army activity since May and they have decided to support the military and to oppose its enemies. The meeting is the first since word of the decision was made...

Gold tells both groups he has brought an American reporter with him to show the American people the real truth about the goodness of the Iraqi people.

"Bad news sells papers, good news does not" Gold tells the Imam. "He has seen the ugly side, but I wanted (the reporter) to show him good people, to see how we're working together on a good common cause."

The Imam is more subtle in his appraisal of American media coverage.

"A lot of media are paying attention to little things," he said. "Sometimes the media do not have a clear vision of how things are in Iraq."

FORMING AN IRAQI CIVIL DEFENSE CORPS.

"We're starting this week to raise an Iraqi civil defense corps," L. Paul Bremer III announced on the "Fox News Sunday" television program. Bremer was in town for consultations with senior U.S. administration officials on the situation in Iraq.

The new militia, Bremer noted, "will be made up of Iraqis who will be under American military command to help us basically with the armed part of the work we're doing" in establishing security across Iraq. He did not address the planned size of the militia...

Bremer noted that establishing the Iraqi militia will bolster the country's security along with three other elements: the just-started recruitment for a new national army – "a defensive armed force, not involved in domestic policing"; the just-opened academy to train a 65,000-member police force for "policing the cities"; and an Iraqi border guard force being formed "to help us defend the borders."

However, by establishing a pro-coalition Iraqi militia to assist in the search for Saddam supporters still in Iraq, Bremer noted, "we're likely to get better intelligence about who it is we're fighting."

GETTING CREATIVE WITH COMBAT RATIONS

At least one of the soldiers mentioned here is in CPT Patti's company.

Like many soldiers, Nonemaker is a fan of the cheese packet that’s included in several MRE varieties. Mix it with the main course, add a small bottle of Tabasco sauce, and you’ve got a different entree.

In theory, the cheese is designed to go with some kind of bread or crackers included in the MRE. But there are other uses for those crackers — and not just as additional flak protection, as some joke. Crumpled up, they can be added to just about anything.

“They add some crunch to [the food],” said 1st Sgt. Luis Gonzalez of the 501st Forward Support Battalion.

That crunch also includes dessert. Some soldiers take the pouch containing chocolate drink mix and add less water than suggested. That creates a pudding. From there, you could add crackers for more bulk. Or add peanut butter to create something akin to Reese’s candy.

That’s one of few uses for the peanut butter packages, according to many soldiers.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE

July 20, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-62

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE KILLED, TWO INJURED IN VEHICLE ACCIDENT

BAGHDAD, Iraq – One soldier was killed and two were injured in a military vehicle rollover accident July 20 near Baghdad International Airport.

One soldier died at the scene.

The two injured soldiers were taken to the 47th Forward Support Battalion for treatment.

The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

MONDAY, JULY 21st. The 71st day of CPT Patti's deployment.

MORE DEBATE ON ROTATION AND FORCE STRUCTURE.

A generation ago, soldiers ordered to Vietnam had to stay 12 months. A generation earlier, GIs sent off to the Korean War had to earn their way home by accumulating 36 points -- four points a month for combat, one point for being a rear-area cook.

During the Civil War, many Union troops enlisted -- some for as short as 90 days -- then simply dropped their weapons and walked home when their tours were finished. World War II draftees were in it until the end.

Today's troops in Iraq, however, have no idea when they are coming home.

The Army can't tell them, senior officers say, because amid the increasing demands of the occupation, it is also struggling to fill commitments in Afghanistan, Korea, the Balkans and elsewhere. And it doesn't have enough brigades and divisions to rotate between home and foreign missions.

To some critics, this spells a need for more than the Army's 10 divisions and 481,000 soldiers.

"We're reaching a point where we have to go ahead and bite the bullet and put more forces in our force structure," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said at a congressional hearing last week, "so we can rotate those troops, who are doing so well and serving so proudly, out of Iraq."

Instead, the Army has reached for a morale-busting solution discredited in Vietnam: If it doesn't have enough brigades and divisions to change battle-worn units for fresh ones, it replaces individuals with new soldiers from back home...

Among troops in Iraq, meantime, one question is foremost.

With his unit in formation recently, Lt. Col. Mark Calvert, a squadron commander with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was asked: "When are we going home?"

"We ARE home," Calvert said, gesturing at their dusty, windblown encampment in eastern Baghdad. "And we will be at home here until the Army tells us this isn't home anymore."

DISTRACTING THE SOLDIERS FROM THE REAR

An interesting perspective.

"However, the 'mind games' on return dates have been very difficult to deal with. The soldiers continue to execute their missions with perfection, but their morale is dropping fast, which can create force protection problems.

"Soldiers' minds are going to begin drifting back to their homes and families instead of focusing on their present mission. This makes the soldiers easy targets.

"I have heard stories that wives are contemplating to self induce bodily harm to get their husbands back home through a Red Cross message. Again, this is a rumor, and I cannot verify it.

"I do not expect spouses to go that far, but a married soldier's decision to re-enlist is based largely on his/her spouse's desire. I see a big readiness issue for the military based on the present situation."

I've heard of spouses threatening the same type thing here.

Read it all.

HOW THE IRAQI ARMY ALSO COLLAPSED FROM WITHIN.

Great Washington Post article.

During the war, the lack of communication and coordination hastened the defeat of the Iraqi forces. A regular-army general in charge of an air defense unit in Baghdad said he was ordered not to activate his weapons because the Republican Guard was responsible for the city's defense.

The favoritism heaped on the special militias widened the gap between them and the regular army, whose soldiers received one-third as much pay, whose officers were accorded much less respect and whose units received inferior equipment, commanders said.

"We didn't work for Saddam Hussein, we worked for the country," said Col. Jamal Salem, 41, who headed operations at a major supply base about 15 miles outside Baghdad. "It was our job. I loved the army."

As a result, he said, "we had no fight with the Americans. When we heard they were in Baghdad, it was over for us."...

Hussein's system of rewards also spawned an atmosphere of deceit that deluded the president into believing his armed forces went into the war far better equipped and militarily capable than they really were, senior officers said.

Gen. Yasin Mohammad Taha Joubouri, an artillery specialist with 38 years in the regular army, said he was summoned to a meeting with the president in 1999, who ordered him to help the Defense Ministry build one of the largest artillery pieces in the world.

The army, with assistance from specialists, designed a cannon with a barrel 210 millimeters -- more than eight inches -- in diameter, a weapon so cumbersome that Joubouri and the other specialists knew it could not work. Still, Joubouri helped build a full-scale model and drafted fake performance records to convince the president that the project was progressing.

"No one could tell him it couldn't work," said Joubouri, who said he was still working on the cannon when he left the army six months ago. "He was giving us awards and presents."...

Twenty days before the United States attacked Iraq, his men and equipment moved from military bases to warehouses, schools and private homes.

PROGRESS

The Baghdad Zoo reopens.

The Baghdad Zoo was once the largest in the Middle East, boasting 450 animals from all over the world.

Now, there are just 80 left. Many were killed by the U.S. bombing, carried off by looters or eaten by Iraqis impoverished by 12 years of U.N. sanctions.

BAITING THE SOLDIERS

That is what William F. Buckley says Peter Jennings did recently in Iraq.

And he says it is disgusting.

"Lead us not into temptation." I commend this commandment to Peter Jennings of ABC, who did exactly that devil-work with only lightly concealed gusto in midweek on his nightly news.

Here are two or three soldiers, outdoors, their gear still on. The sun is scorching hot. In fact, our soldiers have been hot for four months. And sandswept, early on.

They were fighting a very hot war for six weeks, and maybe one of them, maybe all three, saw other soldiers alongside being killed. And for what seem now the interminable weeks since April 9, when Saddam's statue was toppled and Baghdad surrendered, they haven't known where the next stray bullet or hand grenade will come from, or whether one of them will be its victim.

And it isn't only the hidden assailant who has eyes on them, it's all those Iraqis who scurry about taunting them as infidels and oppressors, and sometimes throwing rocks. Thank God, they all thought until a few days ago, their division would be called back to America in a week or two! -- but no. An order came in canceling their departure, prolonging their tour of duty for who knows how long.

Along comes Peter Jennings' reporter, with the camera and the microphone. "Well, soldier, what do you think about staying on in Iraq (news - web sites)?"

It is a tribute to residual self-control (maybe Mother would be watching?) that the soldier asked that question didn't reply using spiky barracks-talk. Peter wanted to know, what did the soldier think about staying on for a while in Iraq?

What this soldier said was that he wanted to go home, that he could no longer trust the word of the military, that he wasn't sure the whole operation wasn't a bad idea, that he had no good feelings left for the Iraqis, given how badly they were reacting to the GIs.

What would you expect him to say?

GOOD COMMENTARY

Societies cannot live on mass anger. Nor is there wisdom in asking foreign liberators for instant remedies to a society slowly and systematically poisoned by political terror.

There are burdens for America in Iraq. But the real burden rests with Iraqis.

Around them, there are neighbors who wish them ill, who prophesy for the new Iraq failure and heartbreak and a return to the ways of despotism. There are Arab regimes eager to prove that tyranny is the only workable arrangement in Arab life.

It is up to the new leaders of Iraq, and to the communities from which they hail, to prove that liberty and a modicum of order are not alien to the soil of those lands.

RECRUITING THE NEW IRAQI ARMY

Recruiting for Iraq's new army, meanwhile, began at three enlistment centers across the country, in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. More than 300 potential recruits had registered by the end of the day. In Baghdad, recruiters ran out of applications by 2 p.m.

Under rules of new enlistment, former soldiers accepted for training will be stripped of rank and enter the army as the equivalent of privates, Riley said, though some may later be promoted. Elite soldiers of the previous regime and top Baath Party officials will be excluded.

Enlistees will initially receive $60 a month, be outfitted with light arms and will take over the country's border patrol, checkpoints and eventually other tasks.

"A CAUSE THAT IS, AT BEST, STILL A CONCEPT"

Baghdad summers are hot, incessantly hot, unrelentingly hot and so many other kinds of hot there is really no point trying to capture the heat in words. Eskimos may have dozens of different words for snow, but Army soldiers have at least as many words for Iraq's summer heat, none of which can be printed in a family newspaper.

If a single image had to be chosen to reflect what the life of a soldier is like in Baghdad, it would probably feature a soldier with an M-16 in one hand and a 1.5 liter plastic bottle of water in the other hand.

From a measured scientific perspective a common Baghdad day includes 90 degree temperatures by 9 a.m. and it can still be more than 100 degrees after 10 p.m...

Two things are true about Army life, some soldier always has it better and some soldier always has it worse. There is something striking about seeing a fuel tanker truck driver just before noon in July passed out on his cot set up on the dusty ground in the quickly disappearing shadow of his truck. Baghdad may be about as bad as Army duty assignments get, but these soldiers have adapted and are getting their job done with whatever they have to work with.

Nobody here is playing around. Col. Russ Gold's constant "3-P" admonition sums up most soldiers' demeanor as they carry out their jobs. "Be professional, be polite and be prepared to kill."...

Yesteryear's black and white movie of the wet-behind-the-ears Italian kid from Brooklyn thrown into combat after basic training doesn't apply. Almost every soldier I've met in Baghdad is well-trained, many have college degrees and many have been hardened by prior tours of duty in Bosnia, Korea, and other places not renowned for their tourism trade. Similarly, the soldier as baby killer image of a past generation doesn't apply. These are well-trained, professional soldiers.

Unfortunately for soldiers, their training and experience can not solve a paradox they did not create. A decade of sanctions may have damaged Iraq's economy, but the looting that occurred in the days after Saddam Hussein's downfall all but wiped it out.

In just a few days in April, Iraqi-on-Iraqi thievery and vandalism turned much of Baghdad into what one soldier likened to a scene from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" after the Grinch took everything up the chimneys of Whoville including a last morsel of cheese he snagged from a mouse.

The best artilce about the daily lives of soldiers in Baghdad I've read. Read the whole thing here.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

July 20, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-61

TWO U. S. SOLDIERS KILLED, ONE WOUNDED IN RPG ATTACK

MOSUL, Iraq — Two soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division were killed and one wounded when their unit was ambushed with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire near Tal Afar July 20.

The soldiers were transported to the 21st Combat Support Hospital for treatment. Two soldiers later died of their wounds.

There were no reported enemy casualties.

The victims’ names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

July 19, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-60

OPERATION SODA MOUNTAIN HUMANITARIAN PROJECTS HELP IRAQIS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition forces performed a number of successful humanitarian projects, to enhance the long-term stability throughout Iraq, in support of Operation Soda Mountain, which ended on July 17.

The 4th Infantry Division engineers opened the Buffalo Soldier Bridge, which spans the Tigris River, on July 17. The completion of the bridge project marks the first completed joint project between the 4th ID’s 14th Engineer Battalion and local Iraqis. The bridge, which had been damaged by erosion, is now safe for civilian as well as military traffic.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) delivered 50,000 liters of water to the village of Musaid, located approximately 17 kilometers west of Mosul, free of charge. Musaid does not have a water pipeline or well to provide adequate water. Truck delivered water is expensive due the distance of Musaid from a reliable water source. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st AD has started a drinkable water delivery program to help small villages and towns in the area surrounding Mosul.

The 122nd Engineer Battalion of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment met with school principals, community representatives and parents throughout Al Anbar to democratically discuss plans to improve the schools. The meeting, sponsored by the U. S. Agency for International Development, gives schools up to $20,000 to purchase supplies such as chalk, desks, fans, paper, pencils and other scholastically related materials.

The 1st Armored Division continued the renovation of six medical clinics. Additionally, The 1st AD continued with their major ongoing projects, which includes fuel, food and medical supply distribution as well as coordinating supplies for the upcoming student exams.

The 3rd Infantry Division coordinated the delivery of an X-ray, dental chair and office furniture to the Taji and Mandy Al Batchechy medical clinics.

Coalition forces were also successful in the security portion of Operation Soda Mountain conducting 141 raids resulting in 678 individuals detained, including 64 former regime leaders. Additionally, Coalition forces captured 4,297 mortar rounds, 1,346 rocket-propelled grenades and 635 weapons, 509 hand grenades as well as various other weapons.

Elsewhere, Coalition forces continued aggressive patrols throughout the country over the last 24 hours conducting 19 raids, 1,100-day patrols and 897-night patrols. They also jointly patrolled with the Iraqi Police conducting 132-day patrols and 123-night patrols. Independently, the Iraqi Police conducted 11-day patrols and 21 night patrols. The total raids and patrols resulted in 147 arrests for various criminal activities including five for murder, one for kidnapping, 18 for car jacking, 15 for aggravated assault, six for burglary and eight for looting.

SUNDAY, JULY 20th. The 70th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

MORE MASS GRAVES.

U.S. military in Iraq said on Thursday its troops had uncovered a mass grave near the northern city of Mosul where as many as 400 people, probably Kurds, may be buried.

A military statement said about 25 human remains -- all women and children with bullet holes through the skull -- were uncovered in a valley at al-Hatra town, some 300 km (170 miles) north of Baghdad.

Residents estimate that between 200 and 400 people could be buried there, the statement said, adding the find had been made by the 101st Airborne Division and that Army pathologists had arrived on site on Monday...

The human rights group Amnesty International says it has information about 17,000 disappearances in Iraq over the past 20 years but that the actual figure may be much higher.

Indeed, this story says it could be as high as 300,000.

DID YOU EVER WONDER ABOUT SPECIAL PAY FOR COMBAT?

You can learn about it here.

Troops on the ground in Iraq may not be thrilled with the prospect of spending more time there, but they can take some solace in raking in an extra $500 to $600 a month, thanks to several different salary supplements.

Since the Pentagon has designated Iraq a combat zone, where death and dismemberment are ever-present threats, soldiers are eligible for a bonus known as hostile fire pay/ imminent danger pay.

When the latest Gulf War began, HFP/IDP amounted to $150 per month. However, an April spending bill bumped up the payments by $75, to $225 per month.

The raise is scheduled to vanish in October, however, unless Congress acts to make it permanent.

Please note the last line.

Do you believe that hostile fire pay/imminent danger pay needs to be reduced in October?

Neither do I.

Contact your congressmen, please.

OUR OWN ROADMAP FOR PEACE?

A team of reconstruction experts led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) spent 12 days traveling through much of Iraq to research the report. Although many of the recommendations in the report’s shopping list were predictable (the need for dependable utility services, jobs, etc.), the underlying central theme of the report is that the U.S. is going to have to put its money where its mouth is – and very soon:

Among its recommendations:

Develop a series of work initiatives to keep Iraqis from being idle, with a particular emphasis on young, urban populations.

Get and keep state-owned enterprises up and running in the short-term to provide employment, while developing a clear medium and long-term plan for privatizing those enterprises.

Start micro-credit programs in all provinces immediately, placing a special emphasis on lending to women.

The CPA should do whatever is necessary to improve provision of basic services, such as electricity, water, and sanitation.

Begin developing follow-on for the oil-for-food program, as a food shortage caused by any disruption will cause a national protest. This must include the transparent handling of obligated resources under the program.

The CPA should involve Iraqis personally in the success of Iraq’s oil industry. Personal bank accounts or trust funds funded by oil revenues should be developed, to catalyze the banking system and get cash to the public.