A Soldier's Perspective

CJ Liveblog With Rep Wilson and Conaway

The liveblog will begin in just a few minutes. Refresh your screens to contribute. If you'd like to ask a question, you can add my Yahoo ID and IM me a question. My Yahoo name is asp_liveblog. Send me a message with your questions.

Okay, let's clean this up. We were first briefed that Rep. Ros Lehtinen would be unable to attend the Conference Call. In her place was Rep. Mike Conaway from Texas. That worked out great since I'm from Texas. Brothers don't conference call. Brothers gotta hug!!

Anyway, the call started on time, which is a concept still foreign to all Code Pink events (sorry had to throw that in).

Rep. Conaway began the call talking about the differences in security since the last time he visited Iraq. The risks were quite reduced as he didn't wasn't given a horde of security to walk around like last time. He was told where the facilities were and left to roam freely. He started off by saying how impressed he was with the high morale of the troops there. The troops are well led, they're well equipped and definitely well fed. While in Iraq, he had the opportunity to meet with Gen Casey, MG Oates, and MG Thurman (who was actually a previous commander of mine).

Conaway noted that the big issue in Iraq right now is the formation of a unity government. The fact that it's taken so long to form the government is indicative of the positive political process the government is enjoying for the first time. The trouble right now relates to trying to get everyone together to hash out their differences and think about how to best lead the Iraqi people and set aside personal tribal fights. The U.S. is continuing to pressure them forming this government while being careful not to force views or policies on them.

While in Iraq, Rep. Conaway had the opportunity to visit a medical trauma facility (field hospital) in Balad. At this facility, surgeons are capable of performally virtually every procedure necessary to save lives, except organ transplants. One positive observation while visiting this facility was that there weren't any American soldiers there. Unfortunately, there were some Iraqi soldier being treated. This is indicative to something that the representatives will bring up later.

Right now the big push is on training the police force. As the media has so aptly made known, the police aren't as well trained as the military is right now. There are few reasons for this. For one, under Saddam Hussein the protocol was for the police to pull someone over or arrest them. They would proceed to assault and brutalize the citizens into a confession, true or not. This is a mentality that has been burned into the Iraqi psyche, both on the law enforcement and the citizen sides. We are trying hard to teach them that this isn't the way police are supposed to act in a democratic society.

Another problem we're confronting with police that we don't find in the military is that police are recruited locally and have more affiliations with tribes and family in the area. This makes uniform and equal treatment difficult to achieve.

The military is working hard to reduce its presence in Iraq. We're trying to push more responsibility onto the Iraqis and reduce their reliance on our presence in the country. This will get them self-governing quicker and create more acceptance of the government by the Iraqis. We are waiting until evenings to conduct resupplies to reduce our profile. The last thing we want in these neighborhoods while everyone is out conducting daily business is to have a bunch of military vehicles getting in their way. One thing that we've done at the Balad hospital is to build a way to create our own clean water instead of having it transported in. This alone has reduced the number of convoys needed and reduced traffic by over 150 vehicles per day. Not only does this ease traffic issues and lower our profile, but it makes our soldiers safer by keeping them off the roads where IEDs are.

Talking to the soldiers, Mr. Conaway noted a disturbance in the force (military force that is). Soldiers are concerned about the anti-war protests being shown on television. The constant presence of people like Murtha spouting off at the mouth that this war is a lost cause is creating confusion. The soldiers see the great things they're doing on a daily basis, but don't hear about it when they listen to the news. Instead, they go around touting all the mistakes being made by a minority of soldiers and undermining their efforts on a daily basis. Those people out there claiming to oppose the war while supporting soldiers should note this (I'll be writing a post on how I think it's possible to oppose the war and support the soldiers at the same time later).

After this introduction, Rep. Joe Wilson (SC) was next. This trip makes his fifth to Iraq. While there, he visited facilities in Kirkuk. He was able to monitor the training of Iraqi police and, without being introduced, was able to talk with some of the Iraqis being trained. These are the guys that are being trained on the proper way to treat people. Word on the street is that the LAPD is sending people to Iraq to receive this training as well (that's an assumption on my part).

One of the indications that the Iraqi police are being trained well and moving along with progress is the fact that the terrorists have shifted their targets towards these recruits and their checkpoints. If the Iraqi police weren't doing so well, Wilson said, they wouldn't be targeted.

"It is my opinion that if the Iraqis were incompetent as policemen, the insurgents would have nothing to fear and wouldn't target them," Mr. Wilson added.

Mr. Wilson reiterated some of the points that Mr. Conaway had talked about and then opened the call to questions. In all, there were eight bloggers who RSVP'd to participate. I currently don't have the names of everyone who attended. However, Robert Bluey from Human Events and Flip from Suitably Flip were two other bloggers I'm aware of (thanks to Flip). I'm still awaiting a reply to my email as to who else participated.

The first question mentioned the recent town hall meeting in New York, where the Bloger was from. This is the town hall where Murtha-Focker made the outrageous claim that 80% of Iraqis said they want us to leave (watch the video clip HERE). The blogger wanted to know the Representatives' take was on this.

Conaway mentioned the same thing I've been trying to get across through my IED updates. Iraqis are approaching soldiers on a private basis begging them not to leave. In the past three years, more than 5 million Iraqis have purchased cell phones, something outlawed by all but the elite under Saddam. Commerce is strong and businesses are thriving. A major problem affecting the Iraqi people is the lack of lights, electricity and transportation lacking due an absence of an executive branch. This is something that again the government needs to hammer out quickly and put the business of the people at the front.

Wilson added that the vast majority of Iraqis disagree with a quick withdraw. All Iraqis understand that they don't want a permanent American presence in its current state, yet they understand who is responsible for the security situation currently (us for those confused).

"Sovereignty is important [to the Iraqis]," said Wilson, "But if [having the Americans leave] means unrestricted civil war, they're willing to wait."

He went on to compare Iraq to our previous wars. After WWII, we rebuilt Japan and Germany to prevent the spread of communism to those countries. We helped rebuild Korea for the same reasons. Right now, we're rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq to prevent the spread of terrorism. If we leave now, terrorism will sweep in and destroy everything we've worked hard to achieve in that region. The Gross Domestic Product of Iraq last year was 5.5% and the International Monetary Fund estimates it will grow another 10.4% this year, ten times that of the United States!! For those unfamiliar, GDP is the total value of goods and services produced by a nation.

I'll explain and finish the rest tomorrow. It's late and I've been chatting too much tonight. I hope this isn't boring everyone to tears. If so, just leave a comment and I won't finish updating. hehe. I think this is good information taken straight from the battlefield. It's a completely different picture than we're seeing and hearing here in the states. It's a picture many of us Milbloggers have been trying to paint for anyone that will listen.

Questions: Retired generals are making a big ado about Rumsfeld and media is conducting poll. What can secdef do to change persception, what is soldiers opinions of secdec?

Answer: Wilson: folks on the ground understnad change of command; understand there is alot of discussion and viewpoints, but orders are orders; soldiers find it inappropriate to make remarks about secdec; truth is he works for president and president trusts him; critics just blame him for their dissatisfaction of the war in general; scapegoat

Conaway: a lot of second guessing going on; this happens every six months. Intrnational monetary funds states that growth is actually 10.4%, ten times American growth.

What is the plan to get more good news out of Iraq?

Answer: problem is that we aren't getting results we want; the other side has better graphics; death statistics, bombing, etc; good news is hard to get out; that's one reason that Joe and I go to Iraq – to bring back the good news; gets credibility to the people; no specific plan, but they know they need to do a better job of getting out the good news; it is frustration at all levels from soldiers to generals

Wilson: thanks to the bloggers for doing what they do to get out the good news; my son has done a lot of good things in Iraq about building water facilities for the first time in many places but ahsn't seen the news; a million bookbags distributed to Iraqi school children, nothing reported; Good news has feet while bad news has wings

A resource he uses for updates on facts and figures for all information from Sec 703-697-6210 you can receive what is called an Iraq update; state department has Iraq weekly status report – http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/iraqstatus/2006/c16536.htm

Conoway: setting up Prov. Reconstruction team s in iraq; tehy will be able to publicize these projects and will generate good news stories

Wilson: Mike and I are eternal optimists; served 31 years in Army National Guard as JAG;

Question: reports of electing a pRime minister? and sense any awareness of distorted reports by iraqis and their feeling of these reports?

Answer: Mike: limited access to he Iraqi people themselves; with respect to leadership – the current state of affairs is volatile; there's not a lot we can do other than pressure them that it's important to come to an agreement

Joe: enouraging that we are dealing with people who are democratically elected; in our country it took 13 years from time of independence to time constitution was fully implemented; thank goodness we didn't have satellite trucks to cover our constitutional process at the time;

soldiers know what they're doing in Iraq; they want to do the job and do it right; they understand that building a democracy takes time and they're committed to the mission; they are well led; we're trying not to create a dependency on the US; in Iraqis best interest that we step back to avoid that dependency;

This is the raw data from the call. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to record it and go back later. I'll have this cleaned up and rewritten later.