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UPDATE: Captain’s Journal has more on the electricity issue in Iraq.

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The Stars and Stripes has an excellent article today explaining in detail the electricity situation in Iraq. Though security has greatly improved Iraqis are not satisfied with just that, they want electricity as well.  According to the article electricity is currently at 4,230 megawatts across the country which is near the pre-war level of 4,500 megawatts.  However, during the Saddam Hussein regime Baghdad was guaranteed power at the expense of areas outside of the city, particularly Shiite areas.  There are parts of Iraq that have power now that never had power during the time of Saddam. 

Something the article did not mention was the increased availability of electrical goods with the opening of the economy that has put additional strain on the power grid.  After the US invasion it was incredible to see the number of trucks filled with electrical goods flowing down the highway from Turkey.  

The article did mention that the US refurbished certain power plants in Iraq and then turned them over to the Iraqi government where due to incompetence they once again were in disrepair and not operating at peak efficiency.  Most troubling is the report that Shiite militias are controlling the power plants:

Armed militias have taken control of many of the switching stations that regulate the flow of electricity throughout the country, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.

At a news briefing with U.S. military officials, electricity minister Karim Wahid said the armed groups have effectively been able to keep certain areas of Iraq without electrical power.

Wahid’s remarks were first reported by The New York Times on Thursday.

“The development adds to existing electricity problems in Baghdad, which has been struggling to provide power for more than a few hours a day because insurgents regularly blow up the towers that carry power lines into the city,” the Times reported.

“Officials have been trying to control the flow of electricity from huge power plants in the south, north and west by calling local officials there and ordering them to physically flip switches. But the officials refuse to follow those orders when the armed groups threaten their lives, [Wahid] said, and the often isolated stations are abandoned at night and easily manipulated by whatever group controls the area.” [Stars & Stripes]

This is definitely troublesome and just another reason why I expect a confrontation with the Shiite militias once Al Qaida in Iraq is destroyed.  The article did not specify which militia was controlling what power plants, but I highly suspect the Mahdi Army since that would be keeping in line with its Hezbollah roots of controlling public services thus undermining the national government and making them into a proxy government to the people.  The Mahdi Army already controls many hospitals and food distribution centers in Iraq, thus concluding they are controlling power plants as well is not much of a stretch. 

This solution to the problem being implemented by the 3-82 Field Artillery Regiment in Baghdad I think is a great idea:

The men of the field artillery regiment aren’t swayed by outside issues. They want to help out residents in their own area of operation, one megawatt at a time.

According to 1st Lt. Jesse Wood, a civil military operations officer, plans to install a one- megawatt generator are already in the works, paid for by the artillery unit’s funds.

“We’re trying to figure out how and where to run the cables for it right now,” Wood said. “It could cover 300 to 350 households once it’s up.”

Installing these generators in every neighborhood would increase the electrical output but would also give the neighborhood a stake in protecting their own electrical infrastructure from insurgent attacks while simultaneously decreasing the power the militias currently have by controlling the large power plants.  However, to make the small community generator idea feasible a reliable method of bringing fuel into the neighborhoods would need to be established which the militias will probably try and influence. 

The whole issue over electricity is probably the country’s second most important issue behind improving security.  I think this Michael Totten interview of an Iraqi interpreter sums up the importance of this issue to average Iraqis quite well:

If you give average Iraqis electricity right now it will be enough. This is the most important thing. Give them power for seven days in a row and there will be no fights.

After the US came and Saddam fell they earned 3 dollars a month. Now they earn between 100 and 700 dollars a month.

Giving them electricity would reduce violence. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what would happen to this Army base if the power was cut off forever and the soldiers had to spend the rest of their lives in Iraq. Do think think these soldiers would still behave normally?

Iraqis are paid to set up IEDs. They do it so they can buy gas for their generator and cool off their house or leave the country. Their hands do this, not their minds.

TV is the most interesting thing to Iraqis. They learn everything from the TV. Right now they only have one hour of electricity every day. Do you know what they watch? Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera pushes them to fight. If they got TV the whole day they would watch many things. Their minds would be influenced by something other than terrorist propaganda.

Right now they have no electricity. They have no dreams. Nothing. And Saddam messed with their minds. For more than 30 years he poisoned their minds.

You can’t understand Iraq because you can’t get inside their mind. When you get inside their mind…it is a crazy mind. [Michael Totten]

Who knows Iraqi better than another Iraqi thus I take what this man as saying as being very true. General Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy is clear, hold, and build.  Hopefully in the areas of Iraq that are in the build stage electricity is priority number one. 

I have decided to try something new here at the ROK Drop and offer a story, joke, and a brain teaser for the weekend as well as one to start the week with.

Story for the weekend:
“The Real Meaning Of Peace” Author Unknown
“There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.
One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.
The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all. But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest – in perfect peace.
Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?
“Because,” explained the king, “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.”

Humour
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.” – Erma Bombeck

Brain Teaser:
After Barry dropped the live grenade the five soldiers charged out of the bunker before it could go off. Barry was not the first out. Andy was neither first nor last. Colin pushed out immediately behind Barry. Dave wasn’t second out. Ernie was two men behind Dave. In what order did the men race from the bunker?

Answer Below

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The Chosun is wondering if Korea is raising an army of beauty queens:

Korea’s servicemen are changing. The rough skin, sun-burnt faces and stubble-length hair that once were the trademarks of typical army men have gone for the new generation. Some now rival women in the use of cosmetics, and some even order wigs to disguise their short hair for the vacation. And some buy dietary supplements in an attempt to create the perfect body.

Han (21) is stationed in Gangwon Province. He spends an average of W110,000 (US$1=W944) on bath products and cosmetics. [Chosun Ilbo]

Guys like this would have to lean on their families for the extra money since the ROK soldiers get paid next to nothing for their service, which leads me to believe this is something more likely reserved for the more well off than your average Kim ROK soldier.  A few of my KATUSAs were beauty queens, but the vast majority were not and this article is probably a bit overstated.

You will be seeing a whole lot more of this in the coming weeks:

Headline: Poll Majority Mistrustful of Upcoming Iraq Report

A majority of Americans don’t trust the upcoming report by the Army’s top commander in Iraq on the progress of the war and even if they did, it wouldn’t change their mind, according to a new poll.

President Bush frequently has asked Congress — and the American people — to withhold judgment on his so-called troop surge in Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, issue their progress report in September.

But according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Thursday, 53 percent of people polled said they suspect that the military assessment of the situation will try to make it sound better than it actually is. Forty-three percent said they do trust the report. [CNN]

I have talked about this before, but as the September progress reports come nearer expect the attacks on General Petraeus’ creditability to increase.  Senator Reid began the personal attacks on General Petraeus all the way back in June

Some of you may remember that the last time Petraeus testified before Congress the Democrats used this article from LTC Paul Yingling to try and discredit General Petraeus and the new commanders in Iraq as incompetent even though if you actually read the whole article it has nothing to do about the current leadership in Iraq.  This didn’t stop politicians and the media from claiming that it is a scathing indictment of US leadership in Iraq.  This is just the beginning there will be a whole lot more attacks to come.

Someone needs to be fired over this:

A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said.

The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.

The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina — twin sisters — exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority” were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator. [Tony Capaccio – Bloomberg]

First of all, it is disgusting that people would rip off the military at a time soldiers are at war dieing every day and need every dime available to support them.  Secondly, this is a huge oversight error because this had been going on since 2000 without anyone noticing.  Whoever was over responsible for oversight of this system should be held accountable. 

Fortunately the Army is getting their money back and audited all the shipping records in this system and tracked down a few more frauds.  One positive thing to take out of all this is that somebody did catch it and those responsible for the fraud were tried and convicted with the military getting their money back. 

Here is another example that if there is an anti-Israel angle that the media can find they will publish it:

Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow refugees from Darfur to stay after they sneak across the border from Egypt, drawing criticism from those who say the Jewish state is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder.

Israel has been grappling for months over how to deal with the swelling numbers of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have been crossing the porous desert border.

The number of migrants has shot up to as many as 50 a day, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, apparently as word of job opportunities in Israel has spread. The rise has led to concerns that the country could face a flood of African refugees if it doesn’t take a harsher stand on asylum seekers. [Matti Friedman – AP]

The article is titled “Israel to Turn Away Darfur Refugees”, but towards the end of the article the AP writer includes a quote that these refugees are economic refugees from Darfur that were living in Egypt:

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After reading this Bill Roggio posting it is clear that the US is not the only country conducting a surge operation in Iraq:

The aggressive pace of operations since January has resulted in an explosion in the prison population. There are currently 42,000 detainees in Iraqi and Multinational Forces Iraq custody. Of those detained, 2,760 are foreigner fighters as of August 8. This number includes over 800 Iranians.

Nearly 30% of the foreign prisoners in coalition jails are Iranians, yet there are people that want the public to believe that Iranian involvement in Iraq is exagerated by the Bush Administration.  Others are in total and complete denial.  I’m not sure what more evidence would please these people considering the EFP bombs that have been found in Iraq with some containing packaging clearly indicating they are from Iran.  Than there is the six Quods Force operatives captured in Erbil and the smuggled sniper rifles clearly from Iran because their manufacturer linked their serial numbers to the rifles they sold to the Iranians.  Even more damning is the senior Hezbollah operative captured in Iraq admitting to his Iranian ties.  Now as US casualties from Sunni insurgents and terrorists decrease due to the "awakening" movements and military victories against Al Qaida; there is a surge in activity by the Iranian sponsored Mahdi Army to kill more US soldiers and kidnap and assassinate government officials before General Petraeus’ report to Congress next month. 

With such clear Iranian involvement in Iraq what should the US do about it?  I have long felt that entry to Iranians into Iraq should be closed until the security situation improves.  A deadline for Iranians to leave Iraq should be given than any Iranians discovered inside of Iraq after the deadline should be arrested.  Such a policy would obviously not prevent Iranians from secretly entering Iraq, but it would greatly hinder their movements and give the US military and Iraqi police the cover they need to arrest Iranians where as it is now they have to have reason to do so. 

Many Iranians do legitimately travel to Iraq to see religious sights that they had long been unable to see during the Saddam Hussein regime.  In order to allow these pilgrims to enter the country the Iraqi government at some point could have highly organized bus tours to control the religious pilgrims entering the country.  This is a way to not alienate the actual Iranian public from having access to religious sights while also keeping tourist money from pilgrims flowing into the country. 

So why doesn’t the Iraqi government and the US military implement such a policy?  Probably because such a policy would directly effect the Mahdi Army, which is dependent on Iranian aid.  Muqtada Al-Sadr’s political front is part of Iraqi Prime Minister’s Maliki’s political coalition that gave him the prime minister seat.  Stopping the free movement of Iranians in Iraq could cause them to pull their support of Maliki thus causing him to fall from power. 

The time may not be now, but at some point, hopefully in the near future, both the Iranians and Al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army will have to be dealt with.  There will never be reconciliation in Iraq until Sadr and his thugs are dealt with. 

More thoughts on the Mahdi Army can be read at the Captain’s Journal.  

The longer General Petraeus stays in command the more I’m convinced he is definitely the right man to be leading the war effort. Not only have many gains been made on the ground in securing Iraq, but he is also very savvy with engaging the media. A perfect example is this bombshell he just dropped:

The top American commander in Iraq said Wednesday he was preparing recommendations on troop cuts before he returns to Washington next month for a report to Congress, and believes the U.S. footprint in Iraq will have to be “a good bit smaller” by next summer.

But he cautioned against a quick or significant U.S. withdrawal that could surrender “the gains we have fought so hard to achieve.”

If you are closely following things in Iraq you would already know that this is nothing new, but most people are not. The US military has to begin troop reductions from Iraq by next summer because the “surge” was created by extending tours for units in Iraq and deploying units earlier that were scheduled to go to Iraq. A lot of people don’t realize that no new units were sent to Iraq to create the “surge”, just a change in timings for the units already there or going.

The Army recently announced that no tours to Iraq would exceed 15 months thus that means US troops would have to start being withdrawn by next spring. However, General Petraeus’ is using this fact to his advantage by dropping quotes in the media about how the troop reductions are actually related to gains on the ground and he is simultaneously taking away talking points from the Democrats praying for the defeat of US forces in Iraq by announcing troop reductions. He has also announced this when Congress is in recess thus ensuring he has maximum media attention and the Democrats probably cannot respond.

It seems out of all the Generals who have been running things in Iraq, General Petraeus understands that engaging the media is just as important as making gains on the ground. By doing this he slowly preparing the battlefield in Washington next month to his favor. You can almost feel the conventional wisdom about the war slowly changing and it is all because of the leadership from the top by General Petraeus and the servicemembers executing his new counterinsurgency strategy.

I have long chronicled the misinformation campaign being waged by the media in regards to US military recruiting and today the Associated Press has again offered another dubious article about recruiting.  To be fair this article is by far not the worst I have seen, but it is still pretty bad.  Check out how this article begins:

Need a down-payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help — if you’re willing to join up. Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks. […]

An Associated Press review of the increasingly aggressive recruiting offerings found the Army is not only dangling more sign up rewards  – its loosening rules on age and weight limits, education, and drug and criminal records.

Click here to read the rest of this entry.

I have long chronicled the misinformation campaign being waged by the media in regards to US military recruiting and today the Associated Press has again offered another dubious article about recruiting.  To be fair this article is by far not the worst I have seen, but it is still pretty bad.  Check out how this article begins:

Need a down-payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help — if you’re willing to join up. Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks. […]

An Associated Press review of the increasingly aggressive recruiting offerings found the Army is not only dangling more sign up rewards  – its loosening rules on age and weight limits, education, and drug and criminal records.

By just reading the opening paragraphs of this article you would think the Army is throwing a bunch of money to recruit elderly, obese, uneducated, criminals because of the war in Iraq.  Does this line of reasoning sound familiar?  Well it should because I have long demonstrated how the left and their media allies have been doing everything possible to label soldiers as uneducated, low life, criminals responsible for committing war crimes all over Iraq and are not worthy of the nation’s respect.  This AP article is clearly keeping in tune with this leftist narrative.  The only thing wrong with this narrative is that it is not true, but since when has the media been concerned about facts?  Perception is all that matters and this article is one in the long line of articles trying to create negative perceptions of the US military through dubious reporting.

Now after leading people on that there is a recruiting crisis due to the war in Iraq that is requiring the military to throw all this money at a bunch of elderly, obese, uneducated, criminals, the AP writer suddenly admits that the military is on track to meet this year’s recruiting goals:

In June, the Army failed to meet its recruitment target for the second month in a row, although it apparently met its goal to recruit 9,750 troops in July and is on target for 80,000 for the year that ends Sept. 30.

Notice the sneering “apparently met its goal”, no not “apparently”, the military did meet their recruiting goal.  Not only is the military on target to meet recruiting numbers for the year, but the numbers are actually above the needed percentage.  But once again since when has the media been concerned about facts?  Obviously not Kimberly Hefling from the AP who wrote this article.

So what exactly is this expensive program to throw money at obese, uneducated, low lives you may ask?  Well, just one of the best recruiting ideas since the GI Bill in my humble opinion:

The Army would like to start a pilot program targeting 500 people who might not otherwise considering joining. In the pilot, the takers who complete a 4-year enlistment would be eligible for up to $30,000 in incentives — including money for a home loan or business. Eventually, the Army wants to offer up to $45,000.

This is a fantastic idea and yet the AP writer from the start of the article has made this program out to be something that is intended to recruit obese criminals.  Since when have criminals been concerned about getting a down payment for a home?  This program is going to appeal to whole different class of people who maybe don’t want to go to college or maybe have already gone to college, but they know that in four years they could not save up the $45,000 for a down payment on a home that the Army is offering.

Instead of insinuating that this program is intended to recruit obese criminals, the AP writer should be highlighting the great ingenuity of this program, but that doesn’t fit the leftist narrative, thus readers are lead to believe obese criminals want a down payment for a home mortgage.  This is the type of ridiculousness that passes as journalism in the US now a days.

Believe it or not, the article actually gets better before it ultimately gets far worse.  More than half way through the article Hefling actually includes some facts that probably has more effects on recruiting than the Iraq War:

Beyond the Iraq war, the military says other factors have affected its ability to recruit. More high school graduates are going to college, and the economy is strong, providing lots of civilian jobs. At the same time, only three of 10 people between 17 and 24 fully meet the military’s standards.

Less obvious factors have also decreased the recruitment pool. They include higher obesity rates, more people diagnosed with mental health conditions such as attention-deficit disorder, more criminal citations due to the increase of the drinking age from 18 to 21.

“The numbers of people who meet our enlistment standards is astonishingly low,” said Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense.

Wow, this seems like some pertinent information that should have been in the front of the article and not towards the end.  By reading this it is clear that this new recruiting program was designed to compete against a strong economy offering good jobs to potential recruits and not uneducated, low life criminals.

At least the AP writer actually allowed some facts to actually seep into the article which is why I said in the beginning of this posting that it wasn’t the worst posting on recruiting I have read; usually the journalists just leave out such facts all together.  This journalist just decided to bury the facts, but at least she included them.

However, not to far after actually offering some real facts, our AP writer has decided to delve back into the realm of fiction again:

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said her organization is concerned that low-income young people and minorities are targeted by recruiters and lured with promises into making decisions they would not otherwise have made.

The old recruiters are targeting poor helpless minorities claim again.  I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to keep shooting down this ficticious claim, but here I go again.  Let’s go back to the land of facts instead of conventional wisdom.  The facts are that recruiters are actually recruiting less blacks than in years past.  Guess who is taking the place of potential black recruits?  You guessed it, white recruits!  Is the AP going to write an article condemning the “targeting” of white recruits by the US military any time soon?  I think we all know the answer to this question.

What is even more ridiculous about this claim is that the military is offering low income and minority kids a college education and a down payment on a home is some how a bad thing.  I suppose Ms. Lieberman would prefer these kids go on government programs where for their whole lives they are dependent on people like her to ensure they keep getting their free hand outs.  How dare the US military do something like offer these kids a college education, a down payment on a home, job skills, and leadership training that would break this cycle of government dependence that many low income minorities find themselves in?

Of course Hefling wraps up her whole absurd article by going back to the narrative that their is a recruiting crisis caused by the Iraq War, which I have already pointed out in great detail there isn’t:

It’s not just the attitudes of young people that have seemingly shifted. In 2005, statistical surveys revealed that because of the Iraq war, adults who work with students were less likely to suggest joining the military.

“The willingness of coaches, teachers, counselors and parents to commend military service to America’s youth is lower than is good for our nation and our military,” said Dominguez, the Defense Department official.

The journalistic incompetence of the AP continues with no end in sight.

Just for the record, the facts clearly show that military recruits are smarter, increasingly middle class, (even the numbers of wealthy enlisting is up) and the number of poor and minority recruits are dropping with more whites joining and the overall numbers are nearing the make up of the average US population.

Facts are hard for the demagogues, the race baiters, and class warfare specialists to accept, but longer the War on Terror goes on, more the demographic make up of the US military is becoming a direct reflection of American society itself.  What is so bad about that?