No one cares about Iraq

[jimmoyer]

A letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq
Dec 3, 2004

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.

School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.

Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.

The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.

The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.

The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.

Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.

Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.

Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.

Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.

Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

An interim constitution has been signed.

Girls are allowed to attend school.

Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC Iowa Army National Guard 234th Signal Battalion

 

[Jersay]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Yeah that is a nice post. Blocks out all the bad parts and stuff and shows the goodyness of the U.S occupation in Iraq.

Now that has put my mind at ease, the insurgents are crazed and don't know how could they have it under U.S occupation. :roll:

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Appalling—But Not Hopeless

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

March 27, 2006 issue -

Three years ago this week, I watched the invasion of Iraq apprehensively. I had supported military intervention to rid the country of Saddam's tyranny, but I had also been appalled by the crude and unilateral manner in which the Bush administration handled the issue. In the first weeks after the invasion, I was very critical of several of the administration's decisions—crucially, invading with a light force and dismantling the governing structures of Iraq (including the bureaucracy and Army). My criticisms grew over the first 18 months of the invasion, a period that offered a truly depressing display of American weakness and incompetence. And yet, for all my misgivings about the way the administration has handled this policy, I've never been able to join the antiwar crowd. Nor am I convinced that Iraq is a hopeless cause that should be abandoned.

 

[aeon]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

A letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq
Dec 3, 2004

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.

School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.

Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.

Your article talks like there has never been united nations sanctions, you cant compare what was before thewar, cause already iraq was devastated by bomb raid from the clinton administration that last from 1998 to 2002, and the sanctions that last 13 years.Actually your articles is completly biased.

It is like we would have bombed haiti for 5 years, then we ignite a war against them, do a regime change, then compare the life of peoples from haiti after 5 years of bomb raid and before, your article should compare iraq before the first gulf war, which iraq was going to be a first world standard according to the united nations, even if they had been at war for 10 years with iran, not to mention that women had more right than any other arab nation in the world.


those are the item banned during the sanctions.


agricultural pesticides
all electrical equipment
all other building materials ambulances
baby food
badminton rackets
bandages
blankets
boots
cannulas for intravenous drips catheters for babies
children's bicycles
children's clothes
chlorine and other water
purification chemicals
cleaning agents
cobalt sources for X-ray
machines
deodorants
dialysis equipment
disposable surgical gloves
drugs for angina
ECG monitors

erasers
glue for textbooks
incubators
leather material for shoes lipsticks
medical gauze
medical journals
medical swabs
medical syringes
medication for epilepsy
nail polish
nasogastric tubes
notebooks
nylon cloth for filtering flour
other adult clothes
oxygen tents
paper
pencil sharpeners
pencils
ping-pong balls
polyester & acrylic yarn rice rubber tubes
school books

school handicraft equipment
shampoo
shirts
shoe laces
shroud material
soap
sanitary towels
specific granite shipments
specific umbilical catheters
steel plate stethoscopes
suction catheters for blockages surgical instruments
textile plant equipment
thread for children's clothes
tissues
toothpaste
various other foodstuffs
wool felt for thermal insulation
X-ray equipment
X-ray film





When you look at that, it isnt very hard to conclude, that life will be better in any means.Only naive and guillable peoples will believe in your article.

 

[aeon]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

"People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,'" said the planning officer. "Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions --- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of sanctions." Col. John Warden III

 

[#juan]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

A letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq
Dec 3, 2004

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.

School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.

Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.

The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.

The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.

The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.

Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.

Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.

Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.

Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.

Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

An interim constitution has been signed.

Girls are allowed to attend school.

Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC Iowa Army National Guard 234th Signal Battalion

Rubbish!

He keeps talking about "before the war". Which war is he talking about? I assume he means the Iraq invasion, because the infrastructure was destroyed in the first gulf war, and subsequent bombing for reasons known only to the Americans. You can't pat yourself on the back for re-building something that you destroyed in the first place, now can you?

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

You assume and believe documentation that all
infrastructure was destroyed by the war.

You assume and believe documentation that Saddam
did not let a lot of infrastructure rot away as he
siphoned the UN FOOD FOR PALACES program.

And you belittle the hard work on repairing
and rebuilding.

I think we had to go in there, because what you are
seeing NOW was going to be worse LATER, and this
dispute between the SHIA and SUNNI was going to have
its day, just as the breakup of Yugoslavia was going
to have its day.

But how we led up to the war, I will totally agree
how badly mismanaged and egoistic it was and it has
cost a lot of lives.

I do wish Bush Senior had broken his promise to
the Arab allies and the Europeans NOT to go to Baghdad
and NOT to interfere on anything after Saddam was
kicked out of Kuwait.

We made a bargain with the devil on that one.

 

[#juan]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

You assume and believe documentation that all
infrastructure was destroyed by the war.

Hell yes! I watched power stations and water treatment plants and bridges get blown to hell on television. In that war Americans were proud of showing off their "smart bombs". Sure, the stupid sanctions didn't help, but bombs did the bulk of the damage.

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Eye witnesses are highly unreliable according to
most scholarly studies.

You saw it !!

So did I.

Hell, the allies did the same thing to Germany
and they were commended for rebuilding Germany.

The tragedy would have been if they had not done
so in either that war or this one.

But the bombing in Iraq is nowhere near that level,
and prior to Gulf War I infrastructure was rotting
away.

In fact this war had less destruction than what
was caused by the insurgent bombings, but that sexy
statistic was never researched, nor reported because
it has no audience for it.

 

[Jay]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Maybe Saddam should have thought twice (or at all) about his actions!!

 

[Johnny Utah]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

In the reality of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 Liberals bible of truth, Iraq under Saddam was peacful and full of life. There were rainbows, flowers, no rape rooms, no torture chambers, no mass graves.

Saddam wasn't stealing Billions from the Iraqi people to fund his many palaces or bribing UN Officials"UN Oil for Food Scandal" while Iraq's infrastructure was falling apart. None of this ever happen to Iraq under Saddam before the War because it's all Bush's fault.

 

[aeon]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

In the reality of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 Liberals bible of truth, Iraq under Saddam was peacful and full of life. There were rainbows, flowers, no rape rooms, no torture chambers, no mass graves.

Saddam wasn't stealing Billions from the Iraqi people to fund his many palaces or bribing UN Officials"UN Oil for Food Scandal" while Iraq's infrastructure was falling apart. None of this ever happen to Iraq under Saddam before the War because it's all Bush's fault.

Saddam was a son of a bitch, and did most of his crual act, when he was supported by the retards reagan administration.


Get your facts straignt mr factual, saddam stole in bribe 750 millions , not billions as you try to show.


"People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,'" said the planning officer. "Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions --- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of sanctions." Col. John Warden III

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Aeon, the $750 million bribes I guess was reported
in the paper. You are what you read.

Unless if your cyncism is consistent, you'd hazard a guess
that was the tip of the iceberg.

But we all have our selective cyncisms, held close
like a dear pet.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

In the reality of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 Liberals bible of truth, Iraq under Saddam was peacful and full of life. There were rainbows, flowers, no rape rooms, no torture chambers, no mass graves.

Saddam wasn't stealing Billions from the Iraqi people to fund his many palaces or bribing UN Officials"UN Oil for Food Scandal" while Iraq's infrastructure was falling apart. None of this ever happen to Iraq under Saddam before the War because it's all Bush's fault.

Get your facts straignt mr factual, saddam stole in bribe 750 millions , not billions as you try to show.


"People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,'" said the planning officer. "Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions --- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of sanctions." Col. John Warden III

Sorry sir! the Billions included the birbes to UN Officials.
Saddam wasn't stealing Billions from the Iraqi people to fund his many palaces or bribing UN Officials"UN Oil for Food Scandal" while Iraq's infrastructure was falling apart.
My comment of his stealing Billions included his palaces and the UN bribes, sorry I didn't break it down for you.

But hey you want to do the Math in the Billions he stole and take away the 750 Million you say he bribed the UN with fine.

What is 750 Millions? Never heard of it.

Right don't blame Saddam for letting Iraq go to hell, blame The USA. It's their fault Saddam invaded Kuwait that started the 1st Gulf War which also started the UN Sanctions on Iraq. Yep Saddam is innocent. :roll:

 

[#juan]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

comment | posted November 18, 2004 (December 6, 2004 issue)
UN Oil for Food 'Scandal'

Joy Gordon


The CIA's Duelfer report may have confirmed the gross falsity of the WMD claims invoked by the Bush Administration to justify its war against Iraq, but it has also triggered a feeding frenzy in the growing attacks against the United Nations. In January the Iraqi newspaper Al Mada published a list of people and organizations, including UN personnel, who supposedly received vouchers from the Iraqi government to purchase oil. In April the General Accounting Office (since renamed the Government Accountability Office) published a report claiming that the Oil for Food (OFF) program had been rife with corruption and that through smuggling and kickbacks, Saddam Hussein had managed to acquire more than $10 billion in illicit funds. A series of Congressional investigations followed, featuring conservative witnesses who pilloried the UN for incompetence, corruption and general unfitness. In the latest hearings chaired by Republican Norm Coleman, the committee staff claimed that Saddam's access to illicit funds totalled over $21 billion--twice the sum claimed by the CIA--and that the money went to terrorists around the world, not to mention (rather astonishingly) the post-Saddam insurgency.

If it is true that Benon Sevan, former head of the OFF program, accepted illicit oil vouchers, then that may well constitute fraud (although the evidence cited against him so far has been tenuous). But it would also have been in direct violation of clear UN policies--hardly an indicator of institutional corruption.

Rarely mentioned, either at the hearings or in the press coverage, was the fundamental distinction between the policies established by the Secretariat and the UN agencies and those that result from decisions of particular member states within the highly politicized Security Council. For example, the CIA report says that the bulk of the illicit transactions were "government to government agreements" between Iraq and a few other countries, for trade outside the OFF program. According to the report, they resulted in income to Iraq of $7.5 billion.


The largest of these arrangements was with Jordan--revenue from which totaled about $4.5 billion. This trade arrangement was the single largest source of Iraqi income outside the OFF program. From 1990 until the OFF program began in late 1996, "Jordan was the key to Iraq's financial survival," according to the report. Why didn't "the UN" do something about it? Because the Security Council--where the United States was by far the single most influential member--decided in May 1991 that no action would be taken to interfere in Iraq's trade with Jordan, America's closest ally in the Arab world.

Likewise, the maritime smuggling that took place under the nose of "the UN" in fact took place under the nose of something called the Multinational Interception Force, a group of member nations that responded to the general invitation of the Security Council for nations to interdict Iraqi smuggling. The "UN" Multinational Interception Force turns out to have consisted almost entirely of the US Navy. The commander of the MIF was at every point, from 1991 to 2003, a rear admiral or vice admiral from the US Fifth Fleet. The United States contributed the overwhelming majority of ships--hundreds in fact. Britain provided the deputy commander and some naval forces and other countries contributed a few ships. The UN itself provided no forces or commanders. "The UN" failure to interdict Saddam's tankers of illicit oil turns out, in nearly every regard, to have been a US naval operation.


The much-vaunted kickbacks on import contracts also turn out to be not quite as advertised. Saddam, the claim goes, inflated the price of import contracts by 5 to 10 percent, then received the difference in cash from the contractors. Thousands of contracts, stretching over years, were involved; how could the UN have been so incompetent as not to notice? In fact, prices inflated by only 5 or 10 percent were difficult to detect precisely because the amounts were so small and often within the normal range of market prices. But when pricing irregularities were large enough that they might have indicated kickbacks, the UN staff did notice. On more than seventy occasions, the staff brought these to the attention of the 661 Committee, the Security Council body charged with implementing the sanctions. On no occasion did the United States block or delay the contracts to prevent the kickbacks from occurring. Although the United States, citing security concerns, blocked billions of dollars of humanitarian contracts--$5 billion were on hold as of July 2002--it never took action to stop kickbacks, even when they were obvious and well documented.

Far from giving Saddam a free hand, the OFF program involved extensive monitoring and oversight. The government of Iraq first had to submit a list of every single item it hoped to purchase in the coming six months, and the UN staff had to approve the list. Once Iraq had signed a contract with a vendor, the contract was circulated to UNSCOM (later UNMOVIC), to see if there was anything that could be used for military purposes. Every member of the Security Council had the opportunity to review every contract, and each member could block or delay any contract for imports. Every member of the Security Council also had to approve every contract for the sale of oil. If there was cash paid under the table, it did not happen for lack of oversight. It happened despite the most elaborate monitoring system imaginable. And if the members of the Security Council--including the United States--failed to do their job, that is not the fault of Kofi Annan.

The Duelfer report, along with eight sets of Congressional hearings, vitriolic press coverage and considerable ranting by the right, suggest an antipathy toward the UN that goes well beyond election-season maneuvering. The consequences of this scandal will be considerable. We witnessed the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq without Security Council authorization; we might recall that the Security Council would not grant the American demand to authorize an invasion, precisely because the United States was unable to provide any compelling evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. If the world's most respected institution of international governance is rendered impotent by accusations as distorted and exaggerated as these, we should all fear the consequences.

 

[Jersay]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Good post juan.

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

So Saddam was a smaller thief.

Good work. Highly motivated effort there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"For example, the CIA report says that the bulk of the illicit transactions were "government to government agreements" between Iraq and a few other countries, for trade outside the OFF program. According to the report, they resulted in income to Iraq of $7.5 billion."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Illicit, eh ?
Billions ?

And how about all those caring nations that sought
to build nuclear power and oil for their own personal Saudi
Arabia be begruding in forgiving this new nation of Iraq
it's Saddam's debt to them ?

And this debt was from the illicit contracts during the mythical porous containment policy everybody said worked.




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The UN" failure to interdict Saddam's tankers of illicit oil turns out, in nearly every regard, to have been a US naval operation. "
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Under cries of Europe saying America is strangling
the people of Iraq, despite many interdictions, a
decision was made not to suffocate it. And under
cries of Europe demanding the EMBARGO be dismantled.
Not to mention the Jordanian connection to overland
oil sales.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"On no occasion did the United States block or delay the contracts to prevent the kickbacks from occurring. Although the United States, citing security concerns, blocked billions of dollars of humanitarian contracts--$5 billion were on hold as of July 2002--it never took action to stop kickbacks, even when they were obvious and well documented. "
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

So it did not block the billions and then it did block it.
But prior to that, the CRITICAL MASS at the UN was so
against American obstruction of the UN program that
it was not deemed possible to block it, and as the
article itself says if the UN could not see the 5 to 10
percent skim by Saddam, why would it expect America
to be any smarter, eh ?

Guess all of this spin got past you Juan ???

And I'm sorry Juan, I do believe your cyncism highly
warranted about American behavior, its hubris and its
rush to walk over everybody.

It certainly takes time
to build consensus when everyone is of another mind,
but we rushed it, typical of the Bush administration
not learning anything about how his Dad did got such
help and respect when he assembled a REAL COALITION
of 500,000 troops paid for by the Japanese and the
Saudis, albeit for a bargain with the devil of letting
Saddam remain in power to fester, albeit for watching
him continue a vengeful slaughter on the Shia and the
Kurds.

There is no doubt America needs to drop its swagger
and how it approaches international understanding.

But that article requires careful study, and in my
opinion stumbles all over itself.


.
.
.

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

Hmmm....

 

[darkbeaver]

RE: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IR

During the ten years of US enforced sanctions in Iraq
after Desert Storm, 525,000 men women and children died from starvation, untreated disease, depleted uranium radiation exposure, and malnutrition.North Americans like you JimMoyer and me are responsible, that we can sleep at night is a
testament to the level of callous disregard of human life common North Americans have adopted as the norm.

 

[Sublime]

Re: NO ONE CARES ABOUT IRAQ

IRAQ??

Are we still drilling for oil in that sand pit???

Sheesh, why doesn't Bush take a hint already.

EDIT: There's no Weapons of Oily Destruction in Iraq.