The Redhunter

COL. MARTIN: ...Our mission here is simple and focused: secure the people, allowing them to continue building civil capacity and returning to normalcy....

I mentioned that we trained for almost 18 months in preparation for our deployment. But even with the best training that any army can experience in the entire world, we've been constantly amazed at the changes that have occurred in just the last four months since we arrived. A new security agreement governs our partnership operations. Iraqi provincial elections occurred without any noticeable violence, and it was Iraqi-funded, Iraqi-led and secured exclusively by our Iraqi counterparts. Our role is to fully support and assist our counterparts in whatever -- in that great endeavor.

And finally, we're seeing U.S. forces move out of selected sites within Baghdad, transferring them to the Iraqi government ministries or security forces as designated by the government of Iraq.....

MR. BENNETT: ...We're truly at ground level. We deal with people.

We're part of the BCT. The EPRT is embedded with it, as journalists are embedded with the brigade combat teams from time to time. However our chain of command, if you will, goes back to the embassy, through the Baghdad PRT, up to the Office of Provincial Affairs, to the ambassador himself.

...The team is small, just seven people.

What do we do? If you compare us to, let's say, Google, we are an active or a proactive Google. The idea is to give sound, current advice and counsel and ideas to the brigade combat team.

In the areas and particular some of those areas affect security; others are more along the political, economic lines. And of course very important is our services.

What we're really interested in is not so much individual things to do but more to uphold or to recover institutions which have fallen on ill times here in Baghdad, for example, the department of public works....

Our idea is to, as the military is mentoring and coaching and dealing with the Army, we're also -- with the Army, U.S. Army -- we're out working with services, working on politics, working on economics....

"constantly amazed at the changes;" this is something we hear quite often from our commanders who redeploy back to Iraq these days. We hear time and again how impressed they are with the changes.

On to the Q & A

The first exchange we'll look at is on the supply of electricity. Much has been written over the years about how the residents of Iraq do not get electricity all day long. I googled around but cannot find a graph that shows current hours per day availability of electricity.

I did find a story published yesterday on Radio Free Europe which said that for the first time total electrical production was higher than before the invasion in 2003. In fact, total production has reached 6,760 megawatts, which is 2,500 megawatts higher than pre-invasion levels. Even better, this summer an additional 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity will come on line.

Even so, we all know it's still a problem because residents do not get power around the clock like they should.

Q Hi, Colonel. This is Courtney Kube from NBC News.... If I could also ask a question of Mr. Bennett, you mentioned that you work with the department of public works there in Baghdad. Can you update us ... on the average daily electricity that the majority of people in Baghdad are seeing? It seems like that number has been relatively stagnant for the past year or two...

MR. BENNETT: Let me -- let me answer your questions as you gave them, but in reverse order. On electricity, which is a national question because of national grids and national ministry involved, it's not 24 hours a day in Baghdad, or elsewhere in the country. It's growing that way, and in some areas of Baghdad -- for example, the hospitals, police stations and so on -- it has been and remains 24 hours a day.

However, through much of our three districts that Colonel Martin and I work, it is several hours a day; more in the winter than in the summer, because of the demand going in the winter -- going in the summer, because of the air conditioning and the heat.

Mr. Bennett completely ducked the question.. Fortunately, a few minutes later, another reporter followed up. Perhaps seeing that they weren't going to get out of it, both Col Martin and Mr Bennett gave more direct answers:

Q (General ?), hi. I'm Kevin Baron from Stars and Stripes....You were mentioning the electrical grid. If you could explain a little bit more of why we're -- I believe at this point we're still experiencing only partial amounts of electricity per day. What are the root causes for that? And then what it will take to fix that, to get that up to, you know, a normal working city with electricity 24 hours a day.

MR.. BENNETT: Sounds to me like a military problem.

COL. MARTIN: Well, I think in the end it comes down to this is a higher-level problem than us in northwest Baghdad. I know that it's something that we continue to monitor, but it's -- the national grid is something that would be much more appropriately addressed at a headquarters above us.

MR. BENNETT: And the fact is that through many, many years, more consumers, degraded equipment, war damage and so on, there's just simply not enough electricity. The security situation over the last few years contributed to that.

The good news is that we saw that as also an opportunity with some of the people that we have outreach to to be trained as generator mechanics. Small generators are in great demand here on the street, so we have set up some training programs, vocational-type programs, to train people on generators.

So we've turned that lemon, if you will, into a small glass of lemonade.

COL. MARTIN: And we've done some other initiatives as well. Recently we opened a solar power project on a clinic in A'amiriya, where the clinic and its critical services receive continuous power. And that has made a huge difference for that particular clinic. And we're actually looking at some others to expand in that regard.

I would imagine that Col. Martin gave Mr Bennett an earful later with the latter's initial response of "Sounds to me like a military problem. " What was that supposed to mean? Insurgent attacks are way down from years ago.. Surely the problem with electrical production is still that insurgents are blowing up power lines and/or substations?

Perhaps he realized his own mistake because at the next opportunity he addressed the issue more clearly.

I think the lessons here are that despite the progress, Iraq is still a third world country, and Saddam destroyed the country more than we had realized.

Let's compare the U.S. to Iraq using the CIA Factbook:

Per Capital GDP
U.S. - $48,000
Iraq - $4,000

Life Expentancy
U.S. - 78.14
Iraq - 69.62

Infant Mortality
U.S. - 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births
Iraq - 45.43 deaths/1,000 live births

School Life Expectancy (years spent in school)
U.S. - 16
Iraq - 10

Literacy
U.S. - 99%
Iraq - 74.1%

Unemployment
U.S. - 7.6%
Iraq - 18% to 30% (uncertain)

With statistics like these it drives me nuts when some Americans, on the right as well as the left, demand that Iraq "pay us back" what we've spent there just because they ran a budget surplus this past year. Do these same people want to exact payment from Germany and Japan as well?

Finally, we come to Col Martin's closing statement. Note how insurgent attacks went from 25 per day in January 2007, before the surge got under way, to 1.5 per day today. Yup, the surge has certainly worked....

COL. MARTIN: I've got four things I'd like to leave with you.

One, it's incredible, the progress I've seen since I arrived back here, having served here a couple years ago, in 2003, 2004. Within our area that we're in right now, an area in January 2007 that had 25 attacks per day, currently the attack-per-day ratio -- or the attack- per-day rate is down to less than 1.5. All right, that's 5 percent of what it was in January 2007. That's a function of, first, the Iraqi people and their strength and resilience; second, Iraqi security forces; and third, the strength of our partnership with those security forces and our relationship with the people here.

I'd like to thank each of you for the opportunity to speak about what superb soldiers of this tremendous brigade are doing every day for the people of northwest Baghdad in concert with their security partners. Their discipline and high standards remain the cornerstone of the numerous successes here, and they frankly amaze me every day.

I'd like to send a special thanks to our families and friends back in the greater Fort Riley community out in the middle of Kansas. Their continued support coupled with their caring efforts for brigade rear detachment has allowed me and frankly the entire brigade to focus on point, on mission.

Most importantly, we want to thank Junction City, Manhattan and northeast Kansas and our community partners in Dickinson County for all of their support. It's a great community there, a great place for soldiers to know that their families are cared for. Their continued support allows us to focus on mission and continue to be successful here in Baghdad.

Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening..

MNF-Iraq reported today that violence in Iraq was at a 6 year low. This represents a 90 percent decrease since the surge began in early 2007.

Glad we didn't listen to Obama on the surge.

Previous

Iraq Briefing - 17 December 2007 - Maj Gen Joseph Fil

At the time of this briefing Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil commanded the 1st Cav, which was then just leaving Iraq. His message at the time was straightforward

Now, I want to be absolutely clear that while we have seen significant progress during our tour here, we are very mindful that it is fragile and that there is very tough work ahead. Al Qaeda is down, but it is by no means out. It remains a very dangerous enemy that maintains the ability to conduct attacks against the innocent, and we must continue to pursue them, to attack their networks even as they're trying to regenerate. Likewise, militia and criminal networks are still very potent threats who are continuously seeking to regain power and authority....

I think it's clear that pulling out too quickly, before the Iraqis are truly able to take over these areas independently, would be very risky. And there are some areas in the city where, at this point, it would fail. They're simply not ready to stand entirely on their own.

A few months later, in February of 2008, Fil was promoted to Lieutenant General and assumed command of Eighth United States Army and Chief of Staff/United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea.

A good promotion for a job well done.