Hello everyone,
The drought has ended, at least for a couple of days. Army won three out of its past four football games.
Oh yeah, and it rained here, too. It rained a steady rain all day on Sunday, and it cleared the air enough that it was actually raining and not mudding. Of course the ground can’t handle all of that water at once, so everything turns to a thick muck out here, and the ground releases quite an interesting smell. Life is good.
A couple of months ago I wrote about route clearance patrols and how those patrols go in search of IEDs. Those patrols are conducted by Combat Engineers, which really is not a core mission of theirs. They have traditionally cleared minefields, but they just blow those up and clear a path. The soldiers who are officially tasked with dealing with explosives of all kinds are the soldiers who work in the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD.
In a conventional battle, EOD forces would handle unexploded ordnance quite often by destroying it in place. When you are fighting force on force, it isn’t all that important to wonder who placed explosives in a particular location, so EOD could simply destroy the ordnance and remove the threat. During a counterinsurgency fight such as this, every little detail on every explosive device is evidence. Evidence leads to individuals, and individuals lead to IED cells. While EOD used to work as an individual Army battalion, due to the extraordinary amount and variety of IEDs in Iraq, EOD is now the core of a larger task force, called Task Force Troy, which includes Air Force and Navy EOD teams, as well as law enforcement officers from the US and allied nations. If it involves explosives, EOD will exploit it and then destroy it after all evidence has been collected. TF Troy has played a major role in attacking the IED networks. To give you an idea of the decline in IED incidents across Iraq, in July 2007, there were about 2600 IED incidents across Iraq (an incident is defined as an IED that exploded against a target or an IED that was discovered and cleared). Keep in mind all of the categories of IEDs that are included here – HBIED, VBIED, SVBIED, you know the list. Anyway, as of July of this year, the number of IED incidents across Iraq was down to 500, and the overwhelming majority of those incidents involved IEDs that were found and cleared. In July of 2007, the number of IED incidents where there was a coalition force (CF) casualty was about 250 for that month – casualty being injury or death. In July of this year, that number was in single digits. Zero incidents is better than 500, but you can see the progress that has been made. Once the IED suspects are detained, they are held for trial in Iraqi courts. All of the evidence and the biometric information that I explained in the past is used to, hopefully, put these people away for a long time. Some of these judges still prefer two Iraqi witnesses instead of hard evidence like fingerprints or biometric matches, so there are still challenges to be overcome.
The gadget in the first photo is one of the tools of the EOD team, and it is called TALON. The little guy is fearless when it comes to inspecting IEDs up close and personal. Equally fearless are the EOD working dogs, which are mainly German Shepherds. Explosive sniffing dogs have played a large role in this fight, as well. I don’t tell you this to upset any dog lovers, but an EOD dog happened to be killed at a separate location on the day that I was working with the EOD team. He found an IED and he inadvertently detonated it. Another Shepherd died a couple of days ago during a lethal operation right here in Tikrit as he went into a building to take on a suspect. I mention that only to point out that there are a lot of resources at work over here which are saving human lives, and there are hundreds of military working dogs in the fight.
The majority of the lethal activity in MND- North is still occurring up in Mosul, where AQI is still fighting it out. Even so, attack levels are remaining fairly low. A new Mosul Reconstruction Operations Center was just opened in Mosul last week, which was a major event in and of itself because that illustrates the commitment by the Government of Iraq to continue to put effort into rebuilding that city which has very few Shia, who hold majority power in the central government. Although this was a big event and many press agencies were present, I understand that there was no reporting on the issue. Voter registration for the January elections has ended, and it should be noted that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) performed extremely well in preventing any attacks on voter registration centers. I don’t imagine that this was mentioned back home either. For the record, Iraqis have to register in person and they have to positively identify themselves and they have to provide a real address and they can only register at one location. How old fashioned of them. They cannot register and vote on the same day, by the way. They are new enough to the whole voting concept that voter fraud is still considered a bad thing and not simply another tool by which to win an election. Let me make a prediction: there will be less fraud and more order in the Iraqi elections than there will be in the US elections. Thank you, Chicago machine. When you have US judges ruling that a park bench can be used as an address to register to vote, I wonder how far we are from a lawless society.
On the topic of Syria, there is no doubt that US military members and Iraqis have died as a result of Syria’s facilitation of foreign fighters coming across its borders. If they are worried about sovereignty, maybe they should do something about all of the Saudis and Somalis and Egyptians who populate their country enroute to their killing sprees in Iraq. Iraq has asked Syria to close its borders to foreign fighters, as has the US. Syria has ignored those requests.
I know that there has pretty much been a news blackout back home with regards to Iraq. At the height of the violence, there were over 250 reporters in Iraq. Now, there are fewer than 50, and most are not from US agencies. A US news agency representative says, “There just isn’t a story there.” I understand that excitement sells papers. I also know that Americans like to win, so I have a feeling that good news stories would sell. I still read comments about the “Iraqi War disaster,” and that description might have fit a year ago. Maybe the American people need an update. Having said that, maybe people are getting around the media and learning for themselves what is happening over here. According to a Pew Research poll, Americans have had a huge shift in their thinking about Iraq. In the poll, they were asked to rate progress in Iraq, and they could answer “very” or “fairly well,” or “not to” or “Not at all well.” In June of this year, 52% gave the negative responses and 48% gave the positive. In September, 58% gave the positive responses and 37% gave the negative. In April 2008, 47% said that we would succeed in Iraq and 46% said that we would fail. In September, 58% said we would succeed and 34% said we would fail. It is good to see that the media has not been totally successful in defining Iraq in their terms.
Here is my view on the media. I don’t expect them to ignore the bad when bad occurs, but neither is it OK to ignore the good when it occurs. I think that for many Americans, Iraq is going to end up being simply “The Iraq War.” The only opinion people will have is that they supported it or they did not support it, but no one will know anything about it, other than they learned the term “IED.” I think that the American people are being cheated by the press. I think that it is wrong that they do not get to experience the successes of their military. Think about the Olympic Teams, or even your favorite sports team. Win or lose, you get to analyze every detail of every event or game. Think if the press took the “there’s no story there” attitude towards the Olympics. You would have read about every event where the US did not win, but you would know nothing about Mark Phelp’s 8 gold medals. I think that it is extremely important that the American public has confidence in its military, which means that the public should have the full story when the military is engaged in war. I think that if the public was properly informed of the “stories” that take place every day in Iraq (or Afghanistan), people would be very inspired by the determination, competence, and honor of their young soldiers. I see that as a very good thing. I have been in the Army for a lot of years and I am still inspired by them. There is nothing wrong with allowing people to know that their fellow citizens in uniform are demonstrating courage and heroism on a routine basis. Every day, Iraqi citizens and soldiers are seeing a side of the American military that many Americans don’t get to see. As I said, you are being cheated.
Congratulations – only 6 more days of enduring what must be a non-stop stream of political commercials on your TVs and radios. Good luck.
The second attached picture shows you another weather day in Iraq. I once mentioned that it looked like Mars here one day back in April, but that particular day shown in the picture takes the cake. Mars or Mercury, it was a strange look.
The third picture is probably the most disturbing of all. Look close and you will see little blue flags out there. Yes, it is a golf course. It is a 9-hole course and it opened here on Speicher on Father’s Day. I have never seen anyone use it (who actually brought clubs here?), but I imagine somebody has been out there. When the PGA tour sweeps through here in a few years, remember where you saw this course first.
Everyone take care.
The drought has ended, at least for a couple of days. Army won three out of its past four football games.
Oh yeah, and it rained here, too. It rained a steady rain all day on Sunday, and it cleared the air enough that it was actually raining and not mudding. Of course the ground can’t handle all of that water at once, so everything turns to a thick muck out here, and the ground releases quite an interesting smell. Life is good.
A couple of months ago I wrote about route clearance patrols and how those patrols go in search of IEDs. Those patrols are conducted by Combat Engineers, which really is not a core mission of theirs. They have traditionally cleared minefields, but they just blow those up and clear a path. The soldiers who are officially tasked with dealing with explosives of all kinds are the soldiers who work in the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD.
In a conventional battle, EOD forces would handle unexploded ordnance quite often by destroying it in place. When you are fighting force on force, it isn’t all that important to wonder who placed explosives in a particular location, so EOD could simply destroy the ordnance and remove the threat. During a counterinsurgency fight such as this, every little detail on every explosive device is evidence. Evidence leads to individuals, and individuals lead to IED cells. While EOD used to work as an individual Army battalion, due to the extraordinary amount and variety of IEDs in Iraq, EOD is now the core of a larger task force, called Task Force Troy, which includes Air Force and Navy EOD teams, as well as law enforcement officers from the US and allied nations. If it involves explosives, EOD will exploit it and then destroy it after all evidence has been collected. TF Troy has played a major role in attacking the IED networks. To give you an idea of the decline in IED incidents across Iraq, in July 2007, there were about 2600 IED incidents across Iraq (an incident is defined as an IED that exploded against a target or an IED that was discovered and cleared). Keep in mind all of the categories of IEDs that are included here – HBIED, VBIED, SVBIED, you know the list. Anyway, as of July of this year, the number of IED incidents across Iraq was down to 500, and the overwhelming majority of those incidents involved IEDs that were found and cleared. In July of 2007, the number of IED incidents where there was a coalition force (CF) casualty was about 250 for that month – casualty being injury or death. In July of this year, that number was in single digits. Zero incidents is better than 500, but you can see the progress that has been made. Once the IED suspects are detained, they are held for trial in Iraqi courts. All of the evidence and the biometric information that I explained in the past is used to, hopefully, put these people away for a long time. Some of these judges still prefer two Iraqi witnesses instead of hard evidence like fingerprints or biometric matches, so there are still challenges to be overcome.
The gadget in the first photo is one of the tools of the EOD team, and it is called TALON. The little guy is fearless when it comes to inspecting IEDs up close and personal. Equally fearless are the EOD working dogs, which are mainly German Shepherds. Explosive sniffing dogs have played a large role in this fight, as well. I don’t tell you this to upset any dog lovers, but an EOD dog happened to be killed at a separate location on the day that I was working with the EOD team. He found an IED and he inadvertently detonated it. Another Shepherd died a couple of days ago during a lethal operation right here in Tikrit as he went into a building to take on a suspect. I mention that only to point out that there are a lot of resources at work over here which are saving human lives, and there are hundreds of military working dogs in the fight.
The majority of the lethal activity in MND- North is still occurring up in Mosul, where AQI is still fighting it out. Even so, attack levels are remaining fairly low. A new Mosul Reconstruction Operations Center was just opened in Mosul last week, which was a major event in and of itself because that illustrates the commitment by the Government of Iraq to continue to put effort into rebuilding that city which has very few Shia, who hold majority power in the central government. Although this was a big event and many press agencies were present, I understand that there was no reporting on the issue. Voter registration for the January elections has ended, and it should be noted that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) performed extremely well in preventing any attacks on voter registration centers. I don’t imagine that this was mentioned back home either. For the record, Iraqis have to register in person and they have to positively identify themselves and they have to provide a real address and they can only register at one location. How old fashioned of them. They cannot register and vote on the same day, by the way. They are new enough to the whole voting concept that voter fraud is still considered a bad thing and not simply another tool by which to win an election. Let me make a prediction: there will be less fraud and more order in the Iraqi elections than there will be in the US elections. Thank you, Chicago machine. When you have US judges ruling that a park bench can be used as an address to register to vote, I wonder how far we are from a lawless society.
On the topic of Syria, there is no doubt that US military members and Iraqis have died as a result of Syria’s facilitation of foreign fighters coming across its borders. If they are worried about sovereignty, maybe they should do something about all of the Saudis and Somalis and Egyptians who populate their country enroute to their killing sprees in Iraq. Iraq has asked Syria to close its borders to foreign fighters, as has the US. Syria has ignored those requests.
I know that there has pretty much been a news blackout back home with regards to Iraq. At the height of the violence, there were over 250 reporters in Iraq. Now, there are fewer than 50, and most are not from US agencies. A US news agency representative says, “There just isn’t a story there.” I understand that excitement sells papers. I also know that Americans like to win, so I have a feeling that good news stories would sell. I still read comments about the “Iraqi War disaster,” and that description might have fit a year ago. Maybe the American people need an update. Having said that, maybe people are getting around the media and learning for themselves what is happening over here. According to a Pew Research poll, Americans have had a huge shift in their thinking about Iraq. In the poll, they were asked to rate progress in Iraq, and they could answer “very” or “fairly well,” or “not to” or “Not at all well.” In June of this year, 52% gave the negative responses and 48% gave the positive. In September, 58% gave the positive responses and 37% gave the negative. In April 2008, 47% said that we would succeed in Iraq and 46% said that we would fail. In September, 58% said we would succeed and 34% said we would fail. It is good to see that the media has not been totally successful in defining Iraq in their terms.
Here is my view on the media. I don’t expect them to ignore the bad when bad occurs, but neither is it OK to ignore the good when it occurs. I think that for many Americans, Iraq is going to end up being simply “The Iraq War.” The only opinion people will have is that they supported it or they did not support it, but no one will know anything about it, other than they learned the term “IED.” I think that the American people are being cheated by the press. I think that it is wrong that they do not get to experience the successes of their military. Think about the Olympic Teams, or even your favorite sports team. Win or lose, you get to analyze every detail of every event or game. Think if the press took the “there’s no story there” attitude towards the Olympics. You would have read about every event where the US did not win, but you would know nothing about Mark Phelp’s 8 gold medals. I think that it is extremely important that the American public has confidence in its military, which means that the public should have the full story when the military is engaged in war. I think that if the public was properly informed of the “stories” that take place every day in Iraq (or Afghanistan), people would be very inspired by the determination, competence, and honor of their young soldiers. I see that as a very good thing. I have been in the Army for a lot of years and I am still inspired by them. There is nothing wrong with allowing people to know that their fellow citizens in uniform are demonstrating courage and heroism on a routine basis. Every day, Iraqi citizens and soldiers are seeing a side of the American military that many Americans don’t get to see. As I said, you are being cheated.
Congratulations – only 6 more days of enduring what must be a non-stop stream of political commercials on your TVs and radios. Good luck.
The second attached picture shows you another weather day in Iraq. I once mentioned that it looked like Mars here one day back in April, but that particular day shown in the picture takes the cake. Mars or Mercury, it was a strange look.
The third picture is probably the most disturbing of all. Look close and you will see little blue flags out there. Yes, it is a golf course. It is a 9-hole course and it opened here on Speicher on Father’s Day. I have never seen anyone use it (who actually brought clubs here?), but I imagine somebody has been out there. When the PGA tour sweeps through here in a few years, remember where you saw this course first.
Everyone take care.
1 comment:
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/30/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
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