SOMEONE FACT CHECK THIS LETTER

[nirvana3240]

I got this email, it was one of those ones that someone sends to 500 people at one time. I think there are some serious factual errors in it, does anyone know anything that can disprove any of this? I'm planning not only to post a revised version on my blog, but also send a corrected version back to anyone who recieved this one.
So, can anyone fact-check this?



DID YOU KNOW THIS?

Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?

Did you know that the Iraqi government employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq’s higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?

Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the re-established Fulbright program?

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have 5- 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a navel infantry regiment.

Did you know that Iraq’s Air Force consists of three operation squadrons, 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 bell jet rangers?

Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?

Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?

Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?

Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a recent televised debate recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN’T KNOW!
WHY DIDN’T WE KNOW?—OUR MEDIA WOULDN’T TELL US!

Because a Bush- hating media and Democratic Party would rather see the world blow up than lose their power.

Instead of shouting these accomplishments from every rooftop, they would rather show photo’s of what a few perverted malcontent soldiers have done in prisons in many cases never disclosing the circumstances surrounding the events.

Instead of showing our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at presidential motorcades.

The lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves only one purpose. It undermines the world’s perception of the United States and our soldiers.

I AM ASHAMED OF MY FELLOW AMERICANS WHO WOULD RATHER SEE TERRORISM SUCCEED THAN A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT. Thanks Dan!

---- This is verifiable on the Department of Defense website

[MSgt213]

1. Dan got it from the DoD website. What's to fact check? Its all wrong

[Kerrytravelers]

2. Google or yahoo the inquiry names.

I've never heard of any of this, and my husband and I both read the papers, domestic and foreign.

This is just bs, all the way.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Learn to use google and snopes

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/combatend.asp

[sueh]

9. Yes, Snopes is a great site for myth busting. Nirvana, when someone

forwards you something to good to be true check it out on Snopes. If it's a myth, copy & paste the Snopes text into an email and send it back to the person who sent the propaganda to you.

[opiate69]

14. Actually, I prefer "refute and reply all"

[jojo54]

11. I bookmarked Snoopes in favs

Thx.

[NAO]

4. "Some people say"...Says verifiable on DoD website, but no links provided

This strikes me as something somebody just made up, and then says, "of course it's all verifiable".

They know that it will have a powerful impact on everyone that reads it, and further they know that hardly anybody will really bother to fact check the claims.

[applegrove]

5. The USA broke it so the USA owns it until some sort of stability n/t

Even the Europeans and the UN now want to invest because to let it go down the toilet would endanger more lives.

That doesn't me that Bush isn't Osama bin Laden's bum boy!!

[Mabus]

6. I do think it needs to be looked into

I checked out just one and found it to be accurate but not the whole story:
Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

Actually it REopened. It was open up until the invasion. "Its last official trading day was March 19, 2003, the day before the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was launched." http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=108749

[ComerPerro]

7. Did you kno w that a lot of this was there before we invaded?

Did you know that a lot of people now don't have electricity or running water because we knocked out the infrastructure?

Did you know that we still have found no WMD, and even administration officials concede that they may never be found?

Did you know that, despite all the "flawed intelligence" that helped Bush get this war that he wanted so badly, Bush still awarded former CIA director George Tenet with a Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Did you know that we have literally spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war, while millions of Americans do not have access to adequate Health Care?

Did you know that the administration assured us, before the invasion, that the most that US taxpayers would have to spend on this is under $10 billion?

Did you know that Bush has recently asked for another $80 billion to fund the occupation?

Did you know that not a single hijacker on 9/11 was Iraqi?

Did you know that Saudi Arabia was recently ranked as one of the world's worst dictatorships?

Did you know that most of the 9/11 hijackers are Saudi?

Did you know that the Bush Administration considers Saudi Arabia to be a trusted ally, and is currently defending Saudi Arabia in a lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims?

Did you know that Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of 9/11, is still lose?

Did you know that Bush was quoted as saying that he doesn't care where bin Laden is?

OF COURSE WE DIDN’T KNOW!
WHY DIDN’T WE KNOW?—OUR MEDIA WOULDN’T TELL US!

Because a Bush-worshiping media and Republican Party would rather blow smoke up your ass than actually sit back and examine what's really going on..

[Mabus]

8. Here's more

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?

Now half a mil is way less than 1.1 mil, right?

Cell Phone Service Comes to Iraq
Iraq Fact of the Day

Improvements in telephone service are helping Iraq reintegrate into the international community and paving the way for the new economy. Today, mobile telephones are available in Iraq for the first time, and by April 2004, there could be more than half-million Iraqi cell phone subscribers. New technology is also making it possible for Iraq to establish its first emergency call network.

Source: Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040115-15.html

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have 5- 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a navel infantry regiment.

Actually Iraq doesn't have a navy, they have the Iraqi Coastal Defence Force http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/jni/jni040505_1_n.shtml
and it looks like it is the other countries that have been more help in training, etc.

[nirvana3240]

10. thanks

[amjucsc]

12. Actually they may not be lies...

I don't have an especially hard time believing that we've rennovated elementary schools, built water treatment plants, etc. After all, to the best of my knowledge the government isn't ACTIVELY trying to immiserate the Iraqi people for the sheer unadulterated hell of it. However this dosen't mean that we're efficiently using the $300 bil we've spent on the war to turn Iraq into a paradise.

As is often the case the facts aren't so important as the manner in which they're spun. The fact that there are now Iraqi fullbright scholars, and that the Iraqi air force now has C-130s dosen't make up for the fact that much of the country is a war zone.

Oh, and if 1.2 million Iraqi's have cell phones, I'll be awfully damn surprised.

[Contrary1]

13. Liberal media??? What a crock.

If this were true, Shrubco would be showing the video during one of his
"press conferences". Too bad Jeffie is gone, maybe he could have gotten
the whole thing started with one of his thought provoking questions.