[Sgt>Stackem]

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I found this an interesting read. For those that may not know, AUSA is Association of the United States Army. For GR and MSGT, thought you old cav troopers might like to hear what your brethren have been up to.

Subject: Fw: [VHFCN] Real news from Iraq

> Went to an AUSA dinner last night at the Ft. Hood Officers' Club to hear a
speech by MG Pete Chiarelli, CG of the 1st Cav Div. He and most of the Div.
have just returned from Iraq. Very informative and, surprise, the Mainstream
Media (MSM) isn't telling the story. I was not there as a reporter, didn't
take notes but I'll make some the points I remember that were interesting,
suprising or generally stuff I had not heard before.

It was not a speech per se. He just walked and talked, showed some slides
and answered questions. Very impressive guy.

1. While units of the Cav served all over Iraq, he spoke mostly of Baghdad
and more specifically Sadr City, the big slum on the eastern side of
theTigeris River. He pointed out that Baghdad is, in geography, is about the
size of Austin. Austin has 600,000 to 700,000 people. Baghdad has 6 to7
million people.

2. The Cav lost 28 main battle tanks. He said one of the big lessons learned
is that, contrary to docterine going in, M1-A2s and Bradleys are needed,
preferred and devastating in urban combat and he is going to make that point
to the JCS next week while they are considering downsizing armor.

3. He showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last Aug-Sep they
were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last three months, the
graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.

4. His big point was not that they were "winning battles" to do this but
that cleaning the place up, electricity, sewage, water were the key factors.
He said yes they fought but after they started delivering services that the
Iraqis in Sadr City had never had, the terrorist recruiting of 15 and 16
year olds came up empty.

5. The electrical "grid" is a bad, deadly joke. Said that driving down the
street in a Hummv with an antenna would short out a whole block of apt.
buildings. People do their own wiring and it was not uncommon for early
morning patrols would find one or two people lying dead in the street,
having been electrocuted trying to re-wire their own homes.

6. Said that not tending to a dead body in the Muslum culture never happens.
On election day, after suicide bombers blew themselves up trying to take out
polling places, voters would step up to the body lying there, spit on it,
and move up in the line to vote.

7. Pointed out that we all heard from the media about the 100 Iraqis killed
as they were lined up to enlist in the police and security service. What the
media didn't point out was that the next day there 300 lined up in the same
place.

8. Said bin Laden and Zarqawi made a HUGE mistake when bin laden went public
with naming Zarqawi the "prince" of al Quaeda in Iraq. Said that what the
Iraqis saw and heard was a Saudi telling a Jordainan that his job was to
kill Iraqis. HUGE mistake. It was one of the biggest factors in getting
Iraqis who were on the "fence" to jump off on the side of the coalition and
the new gov't.

9. Said the MSM was making a big, and wrong, deal out of the religious
sects. Said Iraqis are incredibly nationalistic. They are Iraqis first and
then say they are Muslum but the Shi'a - Sunni thing is just not that big a
deal to them.

10. After the election the Mayor of Baghdad told him that the people of the
region (Middle East) are joyous and the governments are nervous.

11. Said that he did not lose a single tanker truck carrying oil and gas
over the roads of Iraq. Think about that. All the attacks we saw on TV with
IEDs hitting trucks but he didn't lose one. Why? Army Aviation. Praised his
air units and said they made the decision early on that every convoy would
have helicopter air cover. Said aviators in that unit were hitting the 1,000
hour mark (sound familiar?). Said a covoy was supposed to head out but
stopped at the gates of a compound on the command of an E6. He asked the SSG
what the hold up was. E6 said, "Air , sir." He wondered what was wrong with
the air, not realizing what the kid was talking about. Then the AH-64s
showed up and the E6 said, "That air sir." And then moved out.

12. Said one of the biggest problems was money and regs. There was a $77
million gap between the supplemental budget and what he needed in cash on
the ground to get projects started. Said he spent most of his time trying to
get money. Said he didn't do much as a "combat commander" because the the
war he was fighting was a war at the squad and platoon level. Said that his
NCOs were winning the war and it was a sight to behold.

13. Said that of all the money appropriated for Iraq, not a cent was
earmarked for agriculture. Said that Iraq could feed itself completely and
still have food for export but no one thought about it. Said the Cav started
working with Texas A&M on ag projects and had special hybrid seeds sent to
them through Jordan. TAM analyzed soil samples and worked out how and what
to plant. Said he had an E7 from Belton, TX (just down the road from Ft.
Hood) who was almost single-handedly rebuilding the ag industry in the
Baghdad area.

14. Said he could hire hundreds of Iraqis daily for $7 to $10 a day to work
on sewer, electric, water projects, etc. but that the contracting rules from
CONUS applied so he had to have $500,000 insurance policies in place in case
the workers got hurt. Not kidding. The CONUS peacetime regs slowed
everything down, even if they could eventually get waivers for the regs.

There was more, lots more, but the idea is that you haven't heard any of
this from anyone, at least I hadn't and I pay more attention than most.

Great stuff. We should be proud. Said the Cav troops said it was ALL worth
it on Jan. 30 when they saw how the Iraqis handled election day. Made them
very proud of their service and what they had accomplished.