Good news Iraq

Iraq is the biggest success story of our time but the media in the chase for bad news and ratings want Iraq to fail. That is the true "abuse" in Iraq.

Warning. This a long post and hopefully a good reference for good news from Iraq.

Fox

BAGHDAD — It’s the Iraq (search) you don’t hear about, one with falling unemployment, rising wages, lower interest rates and higher foreign investment.

While the war-torn country is still struggling politically, economically it’s taking off. Businesses are opening, shops are full of merchandise and there’s a lot of hiring and investing going on. The transition to a free-market capitalist system is underway.

CoverUps

"Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1:"

* The first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.

* Over 60 000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

* Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

* The Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

* On Monday, October 6, power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the pre-war average.

* All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.

* By October 1, Coalition forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than their target.

* Teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

* All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

* Doctors' salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.

* Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.

* The Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.

* A Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

* We have restored over three-quarters of pre-war telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

* There are 4,900 full-service connections. We expect 50,000 by January first.

* The wheels of commerce are turning. >From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

* 95 percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

There's more on their list.

Free Republic

Prior to our military invasion of Iraq, nearly all Iraqi schools had closed their crumbling doors. Those schools remaining open often lacked electrical wiring, plumbing and windows. School children had no textbooks and teachers didn’t always get paid.

President Bush’s goal was to rehabilitate 1,000 schools before the fall session began last October. Instead, our efforts successfully reopened over 1,500 schools to Iraqi children.

To date, our country has transformed 2,358 schools nationwide. Our troops even put together and delivered over 1 million school supply kits to those children eagerly anticipating their vastly improved educational opportunities.

-- Processing an average of 20 non-military arrivals and departures every day at Baghdad International Airport;

-- Repairing and Rehabilitating sewage and water treatment plants throughout the country;

-- Adding an additional 225,000 cubic meters a day to Baghdad’s water supply —mostly in overpopulated eastern areas;

-- Vaccinating 3 million children under the age of five since June 2003, and continuing a monthly catch-up immunization program;

-- Renovating 52 primary health-care clinics and re-equipping over 600 clinics to provide essential health-care services;

-- Completing the national currency exchange to introduce a solidified Iraqi currency, the dinar;

-- Creating 77,000 public works jobs for average Iraqi citizens;

and many other successes the media won’t tell us.

Christian Science Monitor

Accused of being collaborators with American occupation forces, Iraqi policemen, guards, and soldiers have endured ridicule, threats, and targeted violence that have left hundreds dead over the past year.

But there are signs that hard-nosed attitudes toward the country's embattled, US-trained security forces are beginning to soften

[...]

"It is beginning to change," says Emad Abbas Qassem, a lieutenant in the Facility Protection Service (FPS), at his post outside a central Baghdad education ministry office. "It's not only the people, but my wife, my family and brothers tell me: 'Go to work and do your duty.' They used to be so afraid."

Washington Post

With a knack for improvisation and little help from Baghdad, Bradley, the political adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Nasiriyah, has carried out what may stand as one of the most ambitious democratic experiments in Iraq's history, a project that goes to the heart of the debate about how Iraq's next government should be chosen. In the province of Dhi Qar, about 230 miles southeast of Baghdad and a backwater even by Iraq's standards, residents voting as families will have elected city councils in 16 of the 20 biggest cities by next month. Bradley will have organized 11, more than half of them this month.

At every turn, the elections have set precedents, some of them unanticipated. Voters have typically elected professionals rather than tribal or religious leaders, although the process has energized Islamic parties. Activists have gone door to door to organize women, who turned out in their largest numbers this past week in some of Iraq's most conservative towns. Most important is the way residents qualify to cast ballots -- cards issued by Hussein's government to distribute monthly rations.

Chrenkoff

Chrenkoff has an extensive examination of the good news in Iraq. Read it all and follow the links and then ask yourself, "why is the media hell bent on portraying Iraq as a disaster"?

Here is a sample from his blog:

And in Baghdad, "American authorities created nine district councils... with representatives sent by 88 neighborhood advisory councils.

HEALTHIER, WEALTHIER AND WISER: "[M]y salary was about 17 US$ before the war. Shortly after the war it was raised to 120 US$.

And there's also good news for retired government employees, who are finally getting decent pensions.

Meanwhile, on the education front, "more than five million Iraqi students are back in school and more than 51 million new Ba'ath-free textbooks are in circulation."

And in health, "some 100,000 healthcare professionals working in 240 re-opened hospitals and 1,200 clinics." The health system has to be rebuilt almost from scratch

SPIRITS REVIVE: "In a stunning upset victory, the Iraq national football team defeated Saudi Arabia tonight 3 to 1 to earn a trip to the 2004 Olympic Summer games in Athens."

Not just Kurds, but also Marsh Arabs, whose homeland was destroyed by Saddam as collective punishment for rebellion, are reviving.

In fact, overall "about 2,200 different [reconstruction] projects worth around US$2.5 billion were under way, with 18,000 already completed.

Deseret News

In terms of shear money, the work in Iraq is the largest reconstruction effort in the known history of the world, administration officials said. So far, the United States has rebuilt power, water, sanitation and transportation systems. Three key bridges are up again, allowing commerce and passengers to move again.

Not only have 2,356 schools been renovated, Americans have gotten rid of Saddam's hateful and grossly inaccurate textbooks and replaced them with 8.7 million revised math and science books. They've even awarded people grants to study at American universities, at a value of $20.7 million.

That's just the start. Americans have helped get 19 million people involved in local politics by establishing and training 78 council districts, 192 lower-level city councils and 392 grass-roots neighborhood councils.

More here, here, here, here

Oh, yeah, did I mention that Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction?