Another installment on what it is really like in Iraq (as opposed to what you normally read in newspaper or hear on TV newscasts) by Ralph Peters. "Iraq: The Untold Truths" reports on how the Iraqi military has stepped up to keep the peace.
March 7, 2006 -- BAGHDAD
IRAQ: THE UNTOLD TRUTHS
AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.It's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.
What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?
* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army. [CONT'D. HERE]
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