This is another email from a high-school friend of a coworker, who was involved with training the new Iraqi army. More delusional optimism.
See the earlier post here:
Help me debunk this Bush tool's take on Kay's report
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=14639
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Thanks for your note. You can't imagine how great it is to hear from friends at home.
I think the biggest disconnect between the situation on the ground here and the impression most people have from the media is that we see every day so much that is increasingly normal -- at the same time that there are real and serious (but not, I think, growing) problems. For those of us who work here, there is some real element of physical danger -- my Spanish general deputy spent most of today on the grim task of arranging to send home the body of the Spanish sergeant who was gunned down as he walked to work this morning,. Today we also lost a US soldier, several Iraqi policemen and a ministry of education official as well. Those deaths are hard to take and inevitably the knowledge that there are people out there consciously trying to kill American and other coalition officials and soldiers and Iraqis who are working with us to improve things certainly affects how we behave. But even those deaths have to be put in the context of 160,000 foreign troops in the country, a couple thousand patrols every day, literally tens of thousands of military and civilian convoys, and several hundred thousand Iraqi public employees at work.
For ordinary Iraqis, life is quite normal, by the standards of this part of the world. To be sure, there are real problems -- unemployment is very high. Crime is somewhat above pre-war levels (if you don't count Saddam's murders or discount for his emptying the jails a year ago), corruption is widespread. There is a potential for ethnic violence. Basic industry and infrastructure are a mess -- because of a generation of under investment and inadequate maintenance, not war damage, which was minimal.
But all those real problems exist in the context of real improvement. Electric power is above pre-war levels and in many areas, it is on almost all the time. Fuel stocks (propane for cooking, diesel for generators and vehicles, kerosene for heating -- yes, that will be a problem in a couple months) are growing and gas lines are short. The stores are full of goods. The schools are open for the fall term. (In Diwaniya to the south, where I was at lunchtime day before yesterday, the sidewalks were full of boys and girls in school uniform coming home for lunch.) University exams were given over the summer on schedule. People feel secure enough, and some at least have enough mmoney to spend, that Bremer has agreed to the restaurant owners'sassociation's plea to extend the curfew from 11pm to 1 am. Inflation is very modest. Most of the rail system is functioning, for both freight and passengers. Bus service, including intercity, is working. Medical services, while bad by Western standards, are improving and better than before the war. The phone system is beginning to come back. Garbage is collected regularly throughout Baghdad. Most courts are functioning (interestingly the regular courts were not allowed to handle sensitive cases, and so were relatively non-political, so it has been possible to get them going again on a reasonably good basis). More and more Iraqis are taking on routine security jobs -- cops on patrol, guards at key buildings and facilities, border controls -- allowing the US troops (and those from the other 30-odd countries with troops here) both to focus on strictly military tasks and to get out of the tricky business of large scale direct encounters with the locals. Most cities have local councils, mostly based on some form of elections (admittedly usually indirect). I am, of course, particularly proud of the first battalion of the New Iraqi Army, which has been my special project. (The photo shows them on parade at their graduation ceremony last weekend.)
I am, as the soldiers say, "short." That is I can taste the snack on the plane out to Amman -- which, inshallah, I will take on 10 or 11 Nov. And there have been plenty of frustrations and disappointments. But I am very, very happy to have had the chance to do this, and I will greatly miss -- not just the excitement and all the neat stuff I've gotten to do -- but the chance to work with good people, both Iraqis and foreigners, on something very important.
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