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| Iraq |
| Violence toned down by 93% during last quarter of 2008 — U.S. army |
| 2009-01-09 |
| Aswat al-Iraq: Acts of violence targeting civilians and Iraqi and U.S. forces in the country has toned down by 93% during the last quarter of 2008, a spokesman for the U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday. The credit for this decreasing violence goes to the Iraqi forces thanks to their initiative and preemptive attacks, General David Perkins said during a press conference he held on Thursday in Baghdad, attended by Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He noted that the security progress has helped joint Iraqi-U.S. forces to make other achievements through broadening the scope for the forthcoming provincial council elections. On the role of the Multi-National Force (MNF) in the efforts to maintain security during the local elections, he replied that the Iraqi forces will provide actual security for the electorate and ballot stations while the MNF's role will be confined to providing external security, protection of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) and securing air cover on elections day. The Iraqi provincial council elections are scheduled to be held on January 31 in 14 out of Iraq's 18 provinces. No local elections will be held in Kirkuk and the three autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Duhuk. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 93%, that's not that good. 95% would be pretty good, but 93% isn't that impressive. /liberal bias |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-09 17:14 |
| #6 Unfortunately, it also highlights a continued deficiency in the Army of actually not doing that, using troops to tell the story by supporting blogs and blogging rather than suppressing it. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-09 16:09 |
| #5 local papers were recruiting individual troops of the 56th Stryker Brigade to act as blogger Which no doubt made for far more accurate and interesting reporting than the normal MSM. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-01-09 12:44 |
| #4 very good |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-09 10:20 |
| #3 Too late, Besoeker. There *are* no network staff left in Iraq. They left before New Years. What's left is locals & the occasional embed from a local paper with community troops. Although it sounded like our local papers were recruiting individual troops of the 56th Stryker Brigade to act as bloggers instead of going to the expense of sending an on-the-payroll reporter with the Bloody Bucket. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-01-09 09:42 |
| #2 Pull out ALL the reporters and TV crews. We simply cannot have any of these successes or stories broadcast and reaching US citizens. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-01-09 07:34 |
| #1 QUAGMIRE!!! ...for the MSM |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-01-09 07:15 |