From: "Glenn Meadows" 

Interesting.

There was an interesting caller on Talk Radio last week, an Nashville
resident who is an Iraqi immigrant, now a US citizen.  He had just come
back from visiting relative in Iraq, and called to discuss the distorted
view he sees on the network/TV/Print news here in the US (and probably the
world as well).  The one key point he made, is that the visible news
footage we see here, showing blown out buildings and such is SO selective. 
He said that he visited several sites he recognized from News footage, to
see how bad it was, and said that on either side of the building that was
shown, there is massive NEW construction going on, new homes going up,
schools being rebuilt, and such.

His point is that from the media news, you would think that every place is
in total disarray, while the reality was that during his 3 weeks there, the
destruction was very limited in the vast majority of the areas.  Where
heavy fighting is/was going on, more destroyed, but the vast vast majority,
major improvements were underway.

As a US citizen, he was very disgusted with the selective vision that the
US (and probably the world) is getting of what else is going on.  Everyone
from the area he is from were far better off, and very grateful for the US
"intervention" (his words).

--
Glenn M.


"jeff"  wrote in message
news:41a25713$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> ... with the other guys cash (Go read it all):
>
> http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/11/whats-next-for-fallujah.html
>
>
> "Here's how it worked. About one week after we (the 101st) arrived in
> Mosul (approx. May 8th), every major subordinate command in the 101st
> (including mine, of course) received an order to report to Finance
> Headquarters, draw $10,000 US cash (seized assets recovered from the old
> regime) and go out and spend it. There were rules and guidelines- no
> single purchase over the amount of $2,000. Any expenditure must benefit
> the Iraqi people only, and may not result in any kind benefit to
> Coalition Forces whatsoever. No spending on entertainment for the
> Iraqis. Other than that, it was pretty much go out there and spend. I
> was selected to be my brigade's project manager because of my experience
> handling budgets and my history of successfuly dealing with Iraqis.
>
> I first went to a Civil Affairs guy who lived in the tent next to mine,
> and asked him if he had any good tips. He told me that the University
> had been severely looted, and that they could use some help with ADP
> products (monitors, disk drives, etc.). We went to the University,
> worked out the arrangements, made some connections, and delivered the
> products the next day. The purchase was simple- we went to a computer
> store across the street from the university, worked out a deal, and had
> them deliver the goods at the agreed time and place, at which time we
> paid them. We repeated this often. After our first purchase for the
> university we still had $8,000, so we stopped at a primary school and
> asked them how we could be of assistance. They were very happy to see
> us, and we communicated through our interpreter. We worked out a deal to
> get them school supplies, new school desks, chalkboards, etc.
>
> When our $10,000 ran out, we drew more and repeated the process. Every
> other major subordinate command in the 101st did the same thing we did.
> This continued for about 3 weeks.
>
> Once it became obvious that this operation was working, Division
> Headquarters decided to step things up. We were soon authorized to draw
> $250,000 at a time (usually about one draw every two weeks- and the
> maximum withdrawal amount continued to grow), and spend up to $10,000 on
> a single purchase (more if we obtained the CG's approval).
>
> 
>
>
> When it was all over, I had spent over $2.7 million, mostly on the
> University. I'm told that other Division's throughout Iraq followed our
> model, since we had so much success with it. As far as I know, CERP is
> still ongoing."

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