posted January 11, 2004 12:58 AM            

Making the rounds of GI e-mail traffic in Iraq these days is the follwing inspiring missive. It is reproduced below in its entirety and exactly as written:

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 (~60,000 Iraqis providing security to citizens).

Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

The Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

Power generation hit 4,518 megawatts (Oct), exceeding prewar output.

All 22 Universities & 43 technical institutes/colleges are open

Nearly all primary and secondary schools are open.

Coalition has "rehabbed" 1,500+ schools (500 ahead of schedule).

Teachers earn from 12-25 times their former salaries.

All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

Doctors salaries are at least 8 times what they were under Saddam.

Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from almost zero to 12,000 tons.

Coalition has helped administer 22 million+ vaccinations to children.

Coalition has cleared 14,000+km of Iraq's 27,000km of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created 100,000+ jobs for Iraqi men & women.

Coalition has restored over 3/4 of prewar telephone services and 2/3+ of potable water production.

4,900+ full-service telephone connections (~50,000 by year-end).

Commerce is expanding rapidly (bicycles, satellite dishes, cars, trucks, etc) in all major cities and towns.

95% of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.

The central bank is fully independent.

Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.

Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

Satellite TV dishes are legal.

Foreign journalists are not on "10-day visas" paying mandatory fees to the Ministry of Information for minders. There is no such Ministry.

There are 170+ newspapers.

Foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.

A nation that had not one single element – legislative, judicial or executive – of a representative government, now does.

In Baghdad alone, residents have selected 88 advisory councils.

Baghdad's democratic transfer of power (1st in 35 years); city council elected its new chairman.

Iraqi Chambers of commerce, businesses, schools and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

The Iraqi gov't regularly participates in international events.

Since July the Iraqi gov't has been represented in 24+ international meetings, including UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank, IMF and the Islamic Conference Summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it is reopening 30+ Iraqi embassies worldwide.

Shia religious festivals (all but banned) are no longer illegal.

For the first time in 35 years, in Karbala, thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

The Coalition has completed 13,000+ reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Uday and Queasy are dead, and no longer feeding Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.

Children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.

Political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.

Millions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

As a side effect, in neighboring countries, (1) Saudis will hold municipal elections, (2) Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents, (3) Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms, (4) The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded (first time) to an Iranian (Muslim woman) who speaks out for human rights/democracy & peace.

Saddam is gone.

Iraq is free.
Little or none of this information has been published by the Press Corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important. Iraq, under US lead control, has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared. It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.

Now, take into account that many people in our government and media continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure. Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our sons and daughters in this conflict, do you think any other country in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and its coalition partners have in so short a period of time?

Karl Nielson LT, CHC, USNR 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Chaplain