Chrenkoff

"We all know it's a dangerous place. But the thing that I want people to understand is that they only see those one or two instances in the country that are negative. You don't really hear about the 100 things that have gone good,"

Angered by Shiite calls for a federal region, Sunni clerics urged followers... to vote against the constitution if it contains measures they believe would divide the country...

Iraq's three major Sunni organizations appeared to have taken a united stand both for voting and against demands for federalism after they boycotted the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections...

Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidaie, of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, told worshippers at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque to register for the upcoming votes because "we are in need to your voice to say 'yes' for the constitution or 'no.'"

The general conference of Sunnis in Iraq, which includes "the Sunni Mortmain", "the Association of Muslim Scholars", "the Iraqi Islamic Party", and a group of Sunni parties and organizations, was held in Baghdad and has urged all Arab Sunnis to participate in the coming elections.

In his speech before hundreds of attendees, Ahmed Abdel Ghafur Al Samera'i said, "Participating in the plebiscite on the constitution is a prescribed duty for all Sunnis."
He added, "I swear to Allah that the greatest privilege, through which you gain the love of Allah, is your efforts in participating in the coming elections and gathering the Sunnis, hoping that Allah would alleviate their suffering."

Alaa Maki, member of the political bureau in the "Iraqi Islamic Party", has confirmed, "The party has suggested the provision of cities of Sunni majority with additional lists, so that everyone would be able to register their information in the electors and plebiscite on the permanent constitution records."

He added, "We would enter the elections with a heavier weight than some people imagine. We would continue in participating in the political process side by side with the constituents of the Iraqi people." He referred to the existence of some misunderstanding among the political blocs, with regard to the elections' law and the mechanism of executing them. He called all Imams and preachers to direct and urge people to participate in the plebiscite on the permanent constitution and participate in the coming elections.

All indications showed that there is high percentage of people in the regions that boycotted the last parliamentary elections are registering their names to participate in the coming October referendum and the general elections next January, Laith Kubba told the press.

In Fallujah, considered one of the major hotbed of Iraqi insurgency, clerics of mosques called on the residents in the city to participate in the constitution referendum scheduled to be held in mid October.

They urged the residents through loudspeakers to participate and say "no" to those who want to isolate them from the political process.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party, also distributed handouts calling on the people to participate the referendum. Many of the residents showed support and desire to participate.

"I want to participate and I call on the people of the city to do so because we do not want to let those who came from the other side of the border to rule us again," said Mohammed Uthman, a government employee.

"If we don't participate this time, it means we let the present government to continue, and thus the real ruler would be the Iranians and not the Iraqis," he added.

The Independent Supreme Commission for Elections has announced launching more than 500 centers for registering electors in all Iraqi cities.

Farid Ayar, member of the commission council said in a statement, "There are543 centers all over Iraq, of which 517 are currently working regularly." He pointed out, "The necessary protection has been provided for the working centers. There are 26 closed centers at present, due to the lack of sufficient security protection."

Over the past month, USAID arranged for 18 experts to provide assistance to the Iraqi National Assembly's (INA) Constitutional Committee resulting in the production of 72 topical papers in Arabic on issues including federalism, natural resource allocation, human rights and electoral systems...

The final constitutional dialogues were conducted last week, reaching over 79,000 Iraqis in over 3,100 meetings...

USAID representatives organized a workshop to address the advantages and disadvantages of various electoral systems.

USAID's Local Governance Program (LGP) is promoting the organization of Local Government Associations (LGAs) throughout Iraq. The LGAs will act as lobbying and advocacy organizations to represent the interests of the local government without having any authority to direct their operations. Recent activities included:

- A training session on the role of LGAs for 23 new members of an LGA in Babil Governorate. LGA members met with the local INA office to explain the role of LGAs and to present a list of issues related to local government.

- In Karbala Governorate, LGP and LGA members met to map out forthcoming activities and to plan a conference on the impending Constitution to raise public awareness. On July 17 LGA members and the LGP met with the Provincial Council (PC) to provide an update on activities and to offer assistance. The LGA suggested providing education and advocacy to the general public on the legal responsibilities of the PC.

- The LGP presented training sessions on "Understanding Public Services" for 36 LGA members-24 men and 12 women.

Even a year ago, the dusty, rolling hills north of Kirkuk were largely barren. But the horizon has changed rapidly in recent months with a flurry of newly constructed cinder block homes dotting the hillsides.

Thousands of returning Kurds have transformed pockets of land around Kirkuk into small settlements - leading to the rebirth of villages once emptied out by former dictator Saddam Hussein under his "Arabization" plan to force out ethnic Kurds and Turkomen.

In this village, 15 miles northeast of Kirkuk, hundreds of new houses have sprouted since January because the flow of displaced Kurds returning to the area has grown steadily since the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam in 2003.

"We are starting from the beginning again," Mayor Abdul Samad Rahim Karim said. "God willing, we will succeed in making Shwan better than before."

The returnees are a legacy from Saddam’s era, when the Ba’athist Party forcibly expelled tens of thousands of Kurds and Turkomen and replaced them with Arabs from the south to consolidate government control over oil resources and farmlands located in northern Iraq.

In other places, the Kurds’ return, many to squatter camps around the city, and their demands for restoration of their property have provoked sharp protests from many Arabs as well as Turkomen in the community.

Many Iraqis already obsessively watch "American Idol", a version of the original British "Pop Idol" franchise, and a glitzy Lebanese copy called "Arab Superstar" on free-to-air Arabic satellite channels.

But "Iraq Star" is a brave indigenous effort to perk up the spirits of a depressed nation. The studio set is spartan and drab, and there is no studio audience, though viewers are being promised tinseltown touches when the finale is held in Beirut.

"We are trying to lighten the load and problems Iraqis are going through," said director Wadia Nader during recording of an episode this weekend in a Baghdad hotel.

"We had shows like this in the 1960s when people were discovered on television. But since then, with so many wars, Iraqis couldn't see this kind of thing," he added.

Shattered glass, body parts, a blood-splattered blue sedan: the grainy video pans over the scene as Iraqi officers comb the site of a drive-by assassination.

It's "Cops" Iraqi-style, minus the "Bad Boys" soundtrack but otherwise roughly modeled after the American TV show.

Created to make government more transparent, "The Cops Show" featuring Kirkuk officers in action is the first of its kind in the country and is breaking new ground in Iraqi television. A live call-in portion gives the public the chance to praise the security forces or gripe about them.

Screened weekly on Kirkuk Television, which broadcasts in this northern city of nearly 1 million people, "The Cops Show" has opened the floodgates in a community long suppressed.

"During Saddam Hussein's time, it was very different," station manager Nasser Hassan Mohammed said. "You were unable to ask questions. You couldn't say anything bad about police.

"Now people can call in directly. Anyone has the right to do this. This is the difference now. This is freedom."

The call-in portion, initially a novelty, has become a staple of the show, and panelists field up to 30 calls per segment, Mohammed said. And because Kirkuk is ethnically mixed, the show switches among the languages spoken by Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen or Assyrians.

It took Iraqis a while to master the art of the phone-in.

"But after more than a year, they understand very well," Mohammed said.

Denmark, Italy and the United Nations have extended new grants to preserve ancient sites in the southern Province of Dihqar, the province’s deputy governor, Ahmad Ali, said.

Dhiqar is home to some of Mesopotamia’s best-known ruins, among them those belonging to the fabled Sumerian cities of Ur and Larsa.

“An agreement has been signed with the United Nations Development program to maintain and develop archaeological and tourist sites in the province,” Ali said.

He said Italy has allocated $450,000 for the construction of “a cultural and information center in Nasiriya, the provincial capital.

Dhiqar, with an area of 12,900 km square, is a key southern province. Besides its archaeological riches, the province is the site of major oil fields.

Iraq is suffering from rampant inflation, endemic disease and falling oil production, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday in its first review of the country for 25 years.

Nevertheless, Lorenzo Perez, the IMF director who oversaw the review, said that in the medium term he was "quite optimistic" about the country's prospects, although this will "depend on the level of oil prices".

"It is easy to overlook that the establishment and maintenance of relative macro-economic stability in the midst of violence is an achievement in itself," he added.

The IMF said sweeping reforms were needed in almost every sector of the economy, which is thought to have halved in size between 1999 and 2003, when the invasion occurred.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios and Iraq’s Minister of Planning signed an agreement in Amman, Jordan, to establish the Iraq Investment Promotion Agency, which will play a leading role in job creation and economic development for years to come.

The agreement commits USAID to equip the new agency’s staff and train them in managing the organization and promoting investment.

Support will be delivered through USAID’s Izdihar project, whose staff had worked with the Government of Iraq to develop an investment promotion strategy that culminated in the signed agreement.

With the creation of the Iraq Investment Promotion Agency, Iraq will join the more than 160 other countries with similar agencies that compete for approximately $7 trillion annually in foreign direct investment worldwide.

In addition, the work of the new agency will help expand the markets for Iraq’s domestic products and services, stimulate economic growth and create new jobs at home.

The Ministry of Industry has set up a committee to register eight major state-owned companies on the Baghdad Stock Exchange.

A statement faxed to the newspaper did not say when these firms will go public but stressed that the move will not be initiated until the ministry works out guarantees that tens of thousands of employees that will keep their jobs.

The committee is currently evaluating these companies and would advise the ministry on the price and number of shares that will be available to the public at the Baghdad exchange.

Taha Ismael, who heads a central commission charged with privatizing of state-owned companies, said the move will cover four cement factories, a pharmaceutical firm, and three construction enterprises.

“Employees will be given share options which they can buy and pay for later,” he said.

Fly into Arbil, the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and you feel that you have arrived in another country.

It is the Kurdish, not the Iraqi, flag that flutters from Arbil International Airport, Kurdistan's new, glass-fronted "gateway" to the world, which saw its first flights from Dubai, Beirut and Amman arrive last month.

The airport was built on a former military base once used by Saddam Hussein's regime to bomb the Kurds of Halabja.

Now it brings in investors. Businessmen, scared away from other parts of Iraq, are coming to Kurdistan instead, and helping its economy to take off.

"Before all we saw was war, and planes bombing our cities and villages," says the airport manager, Kameran Murad, who fought against the regime in the late 1980s.

"Now the aircraft are our link with the outside world. Everything is changing."

Take the town of Suleimaniya. Its skyline is dotted with cranes. Everywhere you look bulldozers are at work.

"Things are booming. The price of land is ridiculous. It's just going up and up and up," says businessman Bettin Saleh, who has two shops in a new mall.

"People have money, people are spending it, they feel it's safe to spend - and build for the future."

And there's no shortage of labour, as Arab Iraqis head north to join the Kurdish workforce.

"I'm here because it's dangerous where I'm from and there are no jobs," says Aziz Abed Ali, from Baghdad. "Here it is safe and there is work."

Property prices in Najaf are being driven through the roof by the Shia visitors who have flocked to its holy sites since the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces.

Home to the shrine of Imam Ali, a cousin of the prophet Mohammed and a revered figure in Shia Islam, Najaf is considered a top pilgrimage site by members of the denomination.

These include millions living across the border in Iran, who were unable to visit during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

The fall of his regime and accompanying thaw in relations between the two countries has brought with it an influx of pilgrims. And there are plans to spend 20 million US dollars on a new international airport near Najaf, with the help of a low-interest loan from Iran.

At the same time, local real estate agents and entrepreneurs say they are doing a roaring trade.

"Those experienced in religious tourism have started to buy land and buildings in order to turn them into hotels and tourist villages," said Hussein Abdullah, who owns a real estate agency. "They expect [that in the future] Iraq will be the focal point in the world."

Iraq has stepped up oil production from its southern oilfields by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 2.3 mln bpd, a spokesman for the state-owned South Oil Company told Agence France-Presse.

'Production from the southern oilfields has been increased to 2.3 mln barrels per day from today,' said Samir Jassem Masquqi.

Southern Iraqi oil production was previously 2 mln bpd, of which 1.5 mln barrels were exported and the rest used for domestic consumption.

Iraq produces and exports from 450,000 to 550,000 bpd from its northern oilfields.

Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum said last week that oil exports and revenue had reached their highest levels since March 2003, when US-led forces invaded the country.

Crude exports rose 11 pct to 1.6 mln bpd in July, compared to 1.44 mln barrels the month before.

Oil export revenues reached 2.5 bln dollars in July, Ulum said.

The Korean government has expressed its readiness to supply Iraq with an internet system, of a capacity of 10000 subscribers as a test system, in the field of the mutual cooperation between the two countries.

This came during the visit of Dr. Javan Fuad Masum, telecommunication minister, to the Korean embassy, where she met the Korean ambassador to Baghdad.

The ambassador expressed his hope for establishing a group of projects relating to the field of telecommunications, including the development of an ADSL system, in specific. He promised to provide Iraq with an internet system, in addition to training 10 technicians in this field in Korea. The ambassador has promised to bear the responsibility of erecting and operating the Korean exchanges (Samsung brand), which Iraq has been provided with earlier.

If there's one business that's quite literally taking off in Iraq right now, it's air travel, with more and more Iraqis lining up to get out of their troubled land, either for a break or forever.

Since resuming flights a year ago after being grounded for 14 years by sanctions, Iraqi Airways now operates 20 flights a week to destinations like Amman, Damascus, Istanbul and Dubai.

Many are fully booked, producing a hectic scramble at Baghdad airport when the gate is called, as desperate passengers clamber over one another to get to the front of the line.

Routes to Beirut, Cairo, Saudi Arabia and Iran are expected to begin in the coming weeks, and a flight to London from Basra or Baghdad is on the cards for late September or October.

"The expansion is going very well," Captain Ali al-Bayaa, chief executive of the airline and a former pilot, said on Thursday as he oversaw operations at Baghdad's airport, possibly the most heavily defended airfield in the world.

"We should have a flight starting to Cairo in the next 10 days, which will be very popular," he said.

For 18 months after Saddam Hussein was toppled, the country remained too dangerous for commercial airlines, with insurgents occasionally firing shoulder-fired missiles at aircraft.

Then Royal Jordanian began a regular service to and from Amman, employing South African pilots and air crew to fly the route, which involves a dizzyingly tight spiral take-off and landing in Baghdad to avoid the threat of rocket attack.

Now, two and a half years after Saddam's fall, there are half a dozen airlines jetting in and out of Baghdad, supplying a rapidly growing demand for air travel. At the same time, travel agencies are opening up again after years of inactivity.

The first international airline flight to land in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 15 years arrived here yesterday [22 August] receiving a warm welcome from local officials. A Sharjah-based Phoenix Air Boeing 747 arrived from Dubai with 22 passengers on board.

The company will begin two flights a week between Dubai and Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, officials said. "Hopefully flights to Iraq will increase from the region and the world," said Basra's governor Mohammed Al Waili at the airport while greeting the arriving passengers. Since the U.N. imposed economic sanctions in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait, no foreign airline has flown to Basra.

Ninety-seven railway stations have been renovated by the Facilities & Transportation (F&T) Sector of the Project & Contracting Office (PCO). The $42 million railroad program has 28 more stations to complete.

Forty-one of the completed stations are in northern Iraq throughout the governorates of Salah al-Din, Ninewa and Tameem...

Reconstruction work included electrical work; plumbing, sanitation and water delivery system upgrades; roof repairs; installation or repair of air conditioning units; and interior renovations such as painting, plaster and tile work.

There are two main types of railway stations under renovation: five-room crew stations used only by railway workers, and nine-room passenger stations for use both by railway passengers and railway workers, according to the PCO. Of the 97 railway stations to be worked on by the PCO, approximately 22 are passenger stations; the rest are crew stations only.

Currently the railway works out to be about 30 percent passenger use and 70 percent freight use.

The railway stretches from southern to northern Iraq, approximately 1,260 miles of track, with railway stations appearing about every 15 miles.

One of the major stations under renovation is Baghdad Station, currently scheduled for completion by early December 2005. Other projects currently under construction include train maintenance and repair shops in Kirkuk, Al-Samawa and Baiji, with another one planned in Baghdad.

Station renovation work is a joint effort between PCO, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Iraqi Republic Railroads (IRR) and local Iraqi workers.

As of October 1, works would start on rehabilitating what has been destroyed, during the bombing with American planes and rockets, of the telecommunication building and tower in Al Ma'moun region, west of Baghdad, or what has been known as "Saddam Tower" before April 9, 2003.

An Iraqi company would be in charge of the reconstruction, while a European company from Luxemburg would set the new designs for this building, which is considered as one of the most prominent landmarks of Baghdad, according to Javan Ma'sum, Iraqi telecommunications minister.

The minister added that the cost of rehabilitating the building and the tower reaches 20 million dollars, which are designated from the US aid to Iraq. She pointed out that a celebration would be held in Baghdad on this occasion, where the start of works that would totally depend on Iraqi expertise, would be announced.

Ma'sum noted that the design of the building and tower would be totally changed, where modernization and touches that reflect the Iraqi prospective of the project are domineering.

She said that the whole telecommunication building in Al Senk region, on Al Rasheed Street in Baghdad, would be knocked down, to be rebuilt later this year. This is due to the fact that the ministry experts found out that the overhauling and rehabilitation of the building would be more expensive than rebuilding it.

She noted that Spain has promised to provide with the necessary finance for establishing a new exchange, with a high capacity to serve subscribers, in Al Diwaneya province (170 km south of Baghdad).

Rakan Ahmed Al Allaf, director of the general municipalities' administration in the ministry of municipalities and general works said, "Al Wehda municipality has lifted 1800 tons of garbage, 1400 m3 of debris, 100 tons of wastes and has filled up 150 m3 of swamps.

He added Al Zohur municipality has lifted 840 tons of garbage, 500 m3 of debris and 40 tons of wastes, and has paved streets, filled up swamps with earth and finished the municipality building." He pointed out, "Al Jisr municipality has lifted the garbage and debris, which were accumulated in (101, 102, 103, 104 and 105) sites and Al Ta'mim district. It has lifted 1750 tons of garbage, 350 tons of debris, and 40 tons of wastes. It has also pulled the still rain water. Al Yousefeya municipality has lifted 125 tons of garbage and 30 m3 of debris, and has cleaned 2500 meters of roads. In Al Rashedeya municipality, the districts of Al Zahra and Al Bad'a districts have been cleaned in addition to Al Naheya region. Gardens, parks and platforms have also been maintained."

Al Allaf pointed out, "These municipalities managed to collect the rents of its real estate, lifted many violations over its lands, committed dust and stone operations in various districts to Iraqi contractors and companies to execute them."

USAID's Community Action Program (CAP) helped a community in Maysan Governorate rehabilitate its sports stadium. The 15,000 person stadium was built in 1959 and regularly hosted soccer and track and field competitions. However, during the war between Iraq and Iran, the stadium was used as an Army arsenal and was severely damaged during a bombardment, resulting in the closing of the facilities. CAP contracted the rehabilitation and the community association organized sports tournaments among the surrounding schools as part of its contribution towards this project. The stadium was handed over to the Directorate of Youth and Sports in May at an opening ceremony that drew many spectators and participants. The project is expected to benefit over 2,000 people.

A Baghdad area kindergarten was rebuilt with CAP assistance. The kindergarten was in a state of complete disrepair, making it almost impossible for teachers to gauge the educational and emotional development needs of the children. Classrooms were dark and damp and all furniture was broken. Parent and community association members in the area stressed to USAID the need to improve the facilities. The project was completed on May 4 and included the complete rehabilitation of the premises. The classrooms are now well lit, clean, and equipped with modern equipment. This project will benefit 204 pre-school children.

CAP helped a community in At Tamim governorate pave its sidewalks around the town center. Most of the roads are not paved in this town in the southwest of the governorate causing flooding and muddy conditions. With paved sidewalks, people can move freely in their town and a heavy rainfall will not cause a local catastrophe.

In coordination with a number of humanitarian, Baghdad health department has established medical centers and camps in some poor districts in Baghdad to offer medial assistance for the residents of these regions, which suffer from the spread of epidemics and diseases, due to the contamination of water and the lack of health services.

Dr. Ahmed Al Zubeidi confirmed that these centers offer examinations and medical supplies for poor modest families in the regions of Al Dawra, Al Amel district, Al Baya', Sowaib, Al Radwaneya, and other regions, where there are no centers or hospitals for treating patients, and epidemics and diseases have spread due to the poor health services. He added that the mobile medical center includes more than five doctors of various specialties, who offer their medical services to patients. Each center or clinic can accommodate more than 600 patients. He pointed out that the majority of cases received in the center are children's and elders' diseases, in addition to the wounded.

The government will today [25 August] invite the private sector to compete with the NHS for a contract to help rebuild the health service in Iraq.

About 50 medical teams will be invited to come to Britain over the next two years to update their skills. But, in a sign of the times, ministers think this assistance need not necessarily be provided by the flagship hospitals of the NHS.

They publish tender documents today for a "suitably qualified organisation or consortium" to arrange the clinical training at an expected cost of up to £5m. Aid for healthcare in Iraq has been directed at rebuilding hospitals and clinics. But discussions with Iraqi officials have identified upgrading skills as the most productive assistance.

The teams that come to Britain will be expected to become "change agents" to spread reform on their return.

More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan province when school starts this fall. This week, renovation on the Al-Eethnar Mud School was completed, and the Al Eethar Mud School was replaced at a cost of $87,000, benefiting 500 students who attend classes there.

Eight newly built schools in Wassit and Babil provinces are receiving new furniture before the start of the school year. Each of the school projects will receive office desks and chairs, file cabinets and new student desks. Collectively, 400 three-student desks will be proportionally divided among the schools, based upon the number of students.

A fifth Iraqi archaeology student has arrived at the State University of New York's Stony Brook (SUNY/SB) campus. His English skills are in need of significant improvement but should improve during English training in the summer and fall semesters to be able to progress into the M.A. program in Archaeology in the Spring 2006 semester...

On July 2, the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) at DePaul University's College of Law and the School of Law at a northern Iraqi university hosted the opening of newly renovated law library facilities...

A soil sciences laboratory has been set up at a central Iraqi university with the assistance of the HEAD program's Al Sharaka partnership, a cooperative effort between five Iraqi Universities and a consortium of American universities led by the University of Oklahoma...

Three boxes of learning materials arrived recently for distribution at two Colleges of Agriculture and Forestry at northern Iraqi universities.

More reconstruction projects in Sadr City started this week, including a $13 million electrical distribution project. When the project is complete, an estimated 128,000 more people will have a reliable source of electricity. The project includes installation of power lines, 3,040 power poles, 80 transformers, 2,400 street lights, and power connections to individual homes, complete with meters.

Construction started on the $3.8 million Al Rayash Electricity Substation project in the Al Daur district of Salah Ad Din province, located between Tikrit and Bayji. The project, expected to be complete in early December, will provide reliable service to 50,000 Iraqi homes and small businesses. An electric distribution and street lighting project in Daquq was completed on Aug. 17, providing new overhead distribution lines and street lighting in the community.

Tomato farmers are harvesting higher yields thanks to improved technologies learned under the Open Field Tomato Demonstration initiative of USAID's Agriculture Reconstruction and Development for Iraq (ARDI) program. For the demonstrations, ARDI established plots in Baghdad, Diyala and Babylon governorates on which they introduced drip irrigation, black plastic mulch, and fertilization. With the Ministry of Agriculture, USAID representatives monitored the plots and helped participating farmers control tomato pests...

A new sustainable fodder project in Wasit governorate will help livestock breeders improve the health and productivity of their sheep flocks. The project, which is sponsored by the ARDI program, focuses on farmers who tend flocks of 30 to 150 head of sheep, providing them with fodder for temporary relief and training in fodder production...

An ARDI program to improve buffalo calving rates through hormone treatments is showing positive results. The program is being implemented in Baghdad, Muthanna and Dhi Qar governorates where buffalo sometimes do not enter estrus during the hot season because of climactic stress, and may not successfully mate or produce milk.

Hundreds of honeybees swarm around the 3-foot-high wooden hive in the suburban backyard at 33 Kettle St.

Flying in and out of narrow slits in the box-like structure, they form a buzzing cloud around Andrew Cote, who is trying to avoid being stung a seventh time.

"Mother of God," he says, his deadpan voice belying the pain of the sixth sting.

Cote has at least two stings on his underarms and one on his lower back, areas not covered by the mesh hood he donned minutes ago, as the bees became more agitated. "I got twice as many stings today as I did in two months in Iraq."

The 34-year-old Norwalk native returned on Aug. 11 from an aid mission to Iraq, where he spent the summer sharing his knowledge of bees and pollination with Iraqi farmers and beekeepers.

During the trip, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, heavily armed guards swarmed around him as he traveled from city to city in a convoy of armored vehicles.

With estimates that as much as 80 percent of everything humans eat depends on pollination by bees, Cote said, restoring and improving agriculture in the war-ravaged country depends heavily upon the men, and a few women, who Cote helped train during his 10-week trip.

Ministry representatives met to discuss the progress of the Strategy for Water and Land Resources in Iraq.

All participating ministries are collecting data relevant to water and land use, including hydrologic and hydro geologic information, water quality and crop-water requirements. This data will be used to analyze specific interventions and strategy priorities...

The Strategy for Water and Land Resources in Iraq will serve as the first inclusive planning document for Iraq’s water sector since 1982. Through the planning process the Iraqi government will determine the availability of water resources. The strategy will then enable coordination between ministries and governorates to allocate those water resources. The strategy will also provide a foundation for continued restoration of the Southern Marshlands, and provide the Iraqi government with a strong position when negotiating international water treaties with its neighbors.

The Iraqi water minister Abd al-Latif Jamal Rashid has given the go ahead to an ambitious plan to build modern villages around the lakes in the south of the country and turn them into tourist areas. Announcing the plan, the ministry's spokesman told Adnkronos International (AKI): "the ministry has confirmed the start of work on different projects in those areas, with the financial and technical support of the US government in the context of the donation made to the Iraqi government," amounting to 450 million dollars.

It follows an announcement last week by the water ministry that the Treasury had agreed to increase the money earmarked for the relaunch of the marshlands in the south of the country to 300 billion Iraqi dinars (one US dollar is roughly the equivalent of 1,470 Iraqi dinars). This money will also be used to carry out the projects to develop the lakes, which will be re-filled using fluvial channels.

The ancient Iraqi marshlands drained by Saddam Hussein as punishment against their occupants are back to almost 40 percent of their former level, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Wednesday.

In a rare good news story for Iraq, Nairobi-based UNEP said latest satellite imagery showed a 'phenomenal' recovery rate for the southern marshlands, back to almost 3,500 square km after dwindling to just 760 in 2002...

UNEP said the marshlands totalled almost 9,000 square kilometres in the 1970s – one of the world's largest wetlands with rare species like the Sacred Ibis bird.

While satellite images showed wetland cover back to nearly 40 percent of that in August, the figure was closer to 50 percent back in the Spring thanks to winter rains and snow melt in the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, UNEP said.

'The new satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover over the last two years,' it added in a statement. 'While more detailed field analysis of soil and water quality is needed to gauge the exact state of rehabilitation, UNEP scientists believe the findings are a positive signal that the Iraqi marshlands are well on the road to recovery.'

Toepfer, however, warned that full reflooding would still take 'many years' and must be carefully nurtured.

A Lab Technician training course to be held in Amman, Jordan, in early September is being planned for technicians from Iraq’s five regional Environmental Health Education Resource Centers (EHERC).

The course is being sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Higher Education and Development (HEAD) program which supports a partnership between the State University of New York at Stony Brook (SUNY/SB) and several Iraq universities to build capacity for teaching and research in environmental health...

Workshop topics include training on equipment for soil, water, and lead testing; and the operation of air pollution monitoring equipment.

Support to Vulnerable groups - A total of 21,576 mt of commodities (7,781 mt High Energy biscuits, 5,791 mt wheat flour, 3,166 mt vegetable oil and 4,838 mt pea/wheat blend) have so far been dispatched into Iraq under WFP's current emergency operation 10360.0.

Distributions so far amount to about 14,946 mt of the total dispatched commodities benefiting 1,324,740 beneficiaries. The present security situation continues to affect the overland transport of food into Iraq.

Food for education - Preparations are underway to preposition the High Energy Biscuits and vegetable oil for the children when the schools re-open in September after the end of the summer holidays.

During the last school year about 8,886 mt ( 7,781mt of HEB and 1,105 mt of veg. oil) have been delivered into various schools in Iraq with approximately 5,201mt of High Energy Biscuits and 806 mt of vegetable oil distributed under school feeding activities benefiting 806,558 school children...

Vulnerable Group Feeding - A total of 12,690 mt of various commodities including Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil and Pea-Wheat blended food have been delivered into Iraq with 8,939 mt having been distributed to 518,182 beneficiaries.

Free Wheelchair Mission recently shipped a container of 550 wheelchairs to the port of Shuwaikh, Kuwait in a momentous humanitarian mission to aid Iraq's disabled and poor. United States Military Major Glenn Rubalcava, Public Health Officer stationed in Kuwait City, coordinated the compassionate effort through the Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC) located in Kuwait.

Both the Iraqi and Kuwaiti governments waived import fees for all the humanitarian aid that involved the HOC. The wheelchairs were convoyed from Kuwaiti to Iraqi military bases and then were picked up from the military bases by civilian contractors. The civilian contractor transportation companies then delivered the wheelchairs from the military bases to their final destinations throughout five geographical locations in Iraq. Wheelchairs were distributed to camps, hospitals, clinics, and orphanages throughout the country.

200 wheelchairs were distributed to the British and Polish sector (southern Iraq), which includes An-Najaf, Ad-Diwaniyah, An-Nasirayah and Al-Basrah. 300 wheelchairs went to the Iraqi Assistance Center (IAC) in Baghdad. They will distribute to Civil Affair units in Fallujah, Ramadi, Baghdad, and Samarra.

A small girl, not much older than 6 or 7, struggled with a math lesson at her school northeast of Baghdad, Iraq.

The subject was not the reason for the girl's frustration; she was equipped with only a broken pencil and a few pieces of paper.

A U.S. soldier visiting the school in the Diyala province of eastern Iraq saw the students' dilemma and decided to do something about it.

"I was very sad for her because she reminded me of my daughter, and I wanted to do as much as I could to help these children," said Army Spec. Steven Wilkerson.

The young soldier, a member of the Army's "Battle Boar" 1st Battalion, Googled for help.

EZ School Supplies, based in the Denver West Office Park in Golden, popped up on the Internet search engine. In May, Wilkerson e-mailed the company to see if it would donate some school supplies.

"The local schools do not have funds to purchase supplies, as they are very impoverished," Wilkerson wrote for his commander, Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier.

Officials of EZ School Supplies, a company formed just two years ago by a 2000 graduate of Golden High School, were excited by the request.

EZ partners with the Learning Legacy Foundation, which specializes in providing supplies to underprivileged students.

Tapping into that connection, EZ sent 35 packs of pencils, paper, erasers and folders to the 1st Battalion's 30th Infantry, which is serving a 12- to 14-month tour in Iraq.

Students who received the first shipment got "very excited and are extremely happy," wrote Wilkerson, who responded by sending photos of smiling schoolchildren.

A request for assistance for children in Iraq sent home from a 36th Division soldier has generated overwhelming response, according to a member of his family.

"The response has been almost overwhelming," Charles Snow, the grandfather of SPC Adam Gregory, said Thursday. "We are extremely grateful for all the donations."

Gregory's letter was quoted in a Brownwood Bulletin story published Aug. 6.

A deadline of Friday, Aug. 26 has been set for the donations so they can be boxed for shipment to Iraq.

Gregory has been stationed in Iraq since January, and he said he has a special feeling for the children.

Snow said some donations of adult shoes have been received, but children's items are especially sought. Even used shoes are acceptable, if they are clean. Cash donations will be used to pay postage for shipping.

In bringing a young Iraqi to this country for a critically needed operation, Tulane University's medical center and Louisianians serving in Iraq are showing that this country has a big heart.

An 8-year-old Iraqi boy will undergo surgery at Tulane to repair a hole in his heart.

Operation Mend a Heart was inspired by one of our own, Lt. Col. Mark Matthews of Denham Springs, who recently returned from a nine-month tour of duty in Iraq.

Earlier this year, Matthews, while stationed at U.S. Central Command in Qatar, helped arrange for a 5-year-old Iraqi girl and her father to be transported to this country so she could undergo heart surgery at Maine Medical Center in Portland. The surgery was completed successfully in February.

Matthews' wife, Toni, a surgical nurse, nicknamed that effort "Operation Have a Heart to Save a Heart." It's now evolved into a joint project of the U.S. military, Tulane Hospital and Clinic and Tulane Health Sciences Center.

"It is a project of the heart," Mark Matthews said.

Ali Ayad is only 9, yet he wears a colostomy bag and has a heart filled with holes. He lives in Baghdad in a single room of a small house shared by 16 other people. He arrived Monday at O'Hare Airport after 25 hours of travel. Yet, many could learn something from Ali, who refused a wheelchair as he walked onto American soil for an operation that could change his life...

Ali and Masuma Hmod, 11 months old, both from Iraq, are in Chicago for surgeries to correct a congenital heart defect known as tetralogy of Fallot...

Ali and Masuma are being sponsored by the Rotary Club's Gift of Life program. It helps bring children from developing countries to modern health-care facilities, said Dr. George Harris, a local Rotary official and a pediatrician at Advocate Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, where the two youngsters' surgeries are to be performed.

The Iraqi-American Association of Illinois was a primary donor for the children's trip. Other donors include Rotary Clubs in Hinsdale and Orland Park and 10 Roman-Catholic churches.

Rotarians donated nearly 500,000 frequent-flier miles to buy tickets for the children and their companions: Ali's aunt, Nadia Murzoq; Masuma's mother and two Iraqi physicians who are accompanying them, Abdul Raheem Daoud and Mohammad Jassim Hassan Ali Nassir.

Next month, an international medical team consisting of 60 specialists in cardiac surgery and the technology of operations' equipments would arrive in Iraq for erecting a field station to conduct such surgeries for several Iraqi citizens who are suffering from heart diseases and the current events are hindering executing such operations.

Sheikh Ali Al Ka'bi, director of the Emirati Red Cross in Iraq, said in a statement that the team would include global surgeons from all over the world and specialists in equipments and anesthesia. The field hospital would be established to execute heart operations in Ibn Al Bitar Hospital in Al Karkh region in Baghdad.

Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry, Task Force Liberty are working with the people of the Diyala Province to build schools, improve the water supply, pave roads and rebuild their local government.

Coalition Soldiers are providing Iraqis with money to improve their way of life and, in order to ensure projects in the Diyala Province are progressing on schedule, Soldiers conduct routine checks of these sites.

The work the Soldiers are doing is helping to rebuild the city services, said 1st Lt. Jeremy Krueger, civil-military operations officer for Task Force 1-30, and native of Pensacola, Fla.

"I think the projects in our [area of operations] are important," said Krueger. "What we are doing is improving the infrastructure for this whole area that has been torn down over the last several years. It’s helping the population immensely. It is providing new schools for them, new roads, new water projects, water supplies that they have never had and also some of the projects are businesses that are going to provide some revenue for the area."

The unit is still working on developing more projects in order to better the area, said Sgt. Maj. Matthew J. West, civil-military operations sergeant major for Task Force 1-30 and a native of Dallas, Texas.

We have 83 projects that have been submitted or are currently underway, West said.

Reconstruction is seeing some "amazing" progress, Lynch pointed out.

"Last November, there were significant military operations in (Fallujah)," he said. "By this November we will have completed 438 projects totaling $71.3 million and will continue the progress with an additional 19 projects worth over $65 million after the elections."

The people of Fallujah, he said, have reliable access to electricity and water, and can send their children to one of the 49 schools now open. Fallujans also will soon have their own TV and radio station.

In Iraq, where even water that comes from the tap could be contaminated with chemicals or sewage seeping into the ground, clean water is the most basic need of people throughout the country.

While there is an adequate supply of bottled water, water for cooking, cleaning and bathing is a precious commodity. In many cases, wells have not been dug deep enough to go below the contaminated ground water.

Under the $18 billion Iraq Reconstruction Program, 184 public works and water projects are planned, including 158 water treatment facilities, two sewage treatment plants and 11 water resource projects. The Corps of Engineers and Project Contracting Office program contracts the work out to local laborers, with the Corps of Engineers Gulf Region District overseeing the construction.

Officials from [Iraq and the United States] also signed a charter to detail plans to bring much-needed projects to the people of Husseiniya, an agricultural town north of Baghdad whose population boomed during the previous regime. Coalition Forces are working with the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works to build storm drainage projects, water-quality improvements, and most importantly, sewage treatment facilities. The Husseiniya Charter is the first of its kind in the area, and will serve as the test-bed and guide for other projects in impoverished areas in and around Baghdad...

Iraqi workers in Baghdad finished the $3.6M Al Amari Water Distribution project this week. The project can produce approximately 250 cubic meters of potable water daily and service about 2,000 families in the Al Amari and 9-Nissan areas of Baghdad.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region South District (GRS) has been working on modern asphalt roads in Najaf to facilitate agriculture sales and to provide better routes to village schools and hospitals.

“GRS is currently managing the construction of two village road projects in the Najaf Province,” said Art Bennett, GRS Transportation and Communication Sector project manager. “The roads serve small villages and local industries – in this case, cement and gypsum plants. The second project, or segment, parallels the Euphrates River.”

Bennett said that segment one – the Alhaydariya village road - is about 15 kilometers long and costs $1.2 million. The contract was modified and extended to move power poles away from the shoulder of the road, and to create that shoulder. The modifications also included the shoring up of water pipelines that were unsupported off the side of the road. The additional money is $18,000. He added that the project is 40 percent complete. Total cost of the project with the modifications is $1.3 million.

Segment two, the Al-Cement factory village road, is about seven kilometers long at $337,697. Also modified because of power pole and water pipe issues, the additional allocated money is about $12,000. It is about 38 percent complete. Total cost of the project is about $348,000.

“The intent of these projects is to provide paved roads for everyday use by the local population,” said Bennett.

Three governorates will be receive upgrades in treated potable water, according to an announcement August 18 by a team of Iraqi and U.S. government entities.

From the $18.4 billion allocated for the total Iraq Reconstruction Program, about $3 million is budgeted for bringing treated potable water to approximately 25,000 Iraqi citizens in the Dahuk, Babylon and Wassit Governorates. The projects will upgrade 15 systems, each including water wells, compact potable water treatment plants and pumps.

The contracts were competed and awarded to local Iraqi contractors, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) providing quality assurance oversight. Each of the 15 sites will employ approximately 20 Iraqi laborers on a daily basis.

The work will also train local operators on site in the technology and maintenance of the water systems. Completion dates for the 15 projects vary, but all are scheduled to be finished by January 2006.

The weight of their body armor combined with the strain of having to lift a jackhammer over their heads makes their arms quiver like jello. Sweat pours down their faces and burns their eyes, but they won’t stop now. They can’t.

One after another, they connect four-foot stainless steel rods together and drive them further below the surface of the earth. Thirteen rods and 52 feet later, the rods refuse to be driven any further.

The engineers assigned to Multinational Corps-Iraq then cover the exposed tip of the rod with a custom access cover and insert a fluorescent orange sign to indicate the location is ready to be surveyed.

The team of U.S. and British Army geodetic surveyors has successfully established another reference point along the road to reconstruction in Iraq, one of many in the first Iraqi Geospatial Reference System that identifies geospatial locations using names or numeric coordinates.

Coalition and Iraqi engineers use the data collected by Iraqi Geospatial Reference System to create accurate maps of Iraq and safely rebuild the country’s roads, bridges and pipelines.

“Establishing a geospatial reference system is the first and most crucial step to reconstructing Iraq,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Motaz Mostafa, noncommissioned officer-in-charge of one of six Multinational Corps-Iraq geodetic survey teams and assigned to the 175th Engineer Company, 20th Engineer Brigade, Fort Bragg, N.C.

The joint coalition team began working on the project in April, which is modeled on the National Spatial Reference System in the United States.

Geospatial reference systems have already proven to be quite effective in helping the United States and several other countries in Central and South America, Africa and Eastern Europe recover from natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. War-torn countries like Iraq require the same geospatial reconstruction, said U.S. Army 1st Lt. Kenneth Joyce, Iraqi Geospatial Reference System project leader assigned to the175th Engineer Company.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region South District estimates a Dec. 25 completion of a refurbishment and renovation project for the Najaf Maternity Hospital.

Engineers report the $8.2 million project is 30 percent finished.

The project began Oct. 25, 2004.

Renovations include a new sewage system, a new boiler for heating, ceramic tiles throughout all of the renovated portions of the facility and a new residents’ office. A reverse osmosis water treatment plant for the hospital is finished and is ready to be turned over to the hospital. An incineration system is also in the works.

Similar renovations continue at Najaf teaching hospital two kilometers away from the maternity hospital.

The 266-bed hospital continues patient care even while renovations continue.

From a bloody battlefield and one of the most dangerous places in Iraq to a safe, prosperous and growing community of over one-half million, the Najaf Teaching Hospital reflects the changes of the city of Najaf.

One year ago on August 27 the battle for Najaf ended.

A year ago the Najaf Teaching Hospital was closed. It had been looted and its medical equipment destroyed by the Sadr Militia who had used its eight floors as a military fortress. Its basement flooded, windows and walls riddled with bullet and mortar damage, to many in Najaf, the hospital looked hopeless.

Now the hospital is open, seeing hundreds of patients per day and housing 80 in-patients. It is a training hospital for 200 medical students, 50 pharmacy students, and 100 resident doctors who are looking forward to improved and expanded services.

This is a true success story brought about by a close partnership of Iraqi doctors and a U.S. team of doctors, engineers, project managers, contractors, and Soldiers and U.S Army Corps of Engineers civilians. When finished, the hospital will house a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, have computed tomography (CT) scan services, and have increased specialty surgical services including its first open heart surgical team.

The hospital will employ 1,250 people, in an area where good jobs are hard to come by.

U.S. soldiers from the 116th Brigade Combat Team’s Task Force 1-163 Infantry delivered much-needed medical care to the village of Husseinia, Iraq, Aug. 1.

The medical assistance visit was done at the remote village because of the lack of availability of medical care. Many smaller villages in the western portion of Kirkuk Province are far from hospitals and medical clinics.

“The visit was intended to be a mini-(medical assistance visit) but it turned out to be a full-blown (medical assistance visit),” said U.S. Army Capt. Jeff Westfall, the Task Force 1-163 Infantry officer. “We were expecting maybe 30 patients, but we ended up with over 100.”

According to Task Force 1-163 Infantry, some villagers may not see health care professionals for years at a time, making it tough on the community and particularly the young. The task force also credits the success of the visit to the improved security provided by an ever-growing number of Iraqi security forces in the area.

The 155th is attached to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force and operates in the Karbala, Najaf and Babil provinces of Iraq. Blanton said each unit in the brigade has adopted at least one school in its area of operations and the soldiers distribute school supplies, furniture, medicine and other goods.

The unit's commander, Brig. Gen. Augustus Leon Collins, hopes a pen pal program the unit plans to facilitate for American and Iraqi children will offer a bridge between two diverse cultures.

"I believe it is critical that we expand the horizons of not only Iraqi youth, but American youth as well," he said this past week in an e-mail to The AP. "If we are able to establish a campaign where our children are introduced to theirs, then we will remove the stigmas and bias and possibly develop a bond that will be much stronger than any military or diplomatic action."

In the Karbala Province, members of the 2nd Battalion, 114th Field Artillery of the Mississippi National Guard, which is attached to the 155th, identified a substandard facility that housed orphaned girls.

Lt. Col. Gary E. Huffman said the soldiers teamed with Iraqi security forces to rebuild the orphanage and delivered 50 beds and mattresses, bed linens, clothes and toys.

"The work is continuous and through cooperation, mutual understanding, and robust work efforts Karbala will grow and achieve the success that the citizens and leadership seek," Huffman said.

Collins said projects to rebuild schools and orphanages are imperative because "the future of this nation lies in its youth. What direction this country takes will be determined by them."

Local forces being trained by Australian troops in southern Iraq were close to taking over responsibility for security in the area, the new head of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said...

Air Chief Marshal Houston told the Herald Australian troops training Iraqi security forces in the province of Al Muthanna had been very successful and the Iraqis would be ready to take over responsibility for security for the entire province "in the not too distant future".

He also praised another group of 50 Australian soldiers who had trained 750 Iraqi logisticians.

The Australian soldiers in Iraq had an impressive ability to work with the Iraqis because they were "classically Australian", Air Chief Marshal Houston said.

"It's really a very successful model for how successful you can be in training the Iraqis.

"Our ability to engage them man to man - it was very much a male-dominated environment I have to say … It was classically Australian; we weren't carrying any baggage and we had established a very good relationship with them."

Italian troops stationed in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, will provide 125,000 dollars for the restoration of the local museum which has been looted and vandalised since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. "Work will be carried out by an Iraqi company under the surpervision of the Italian military," the museum's director, Abd al-Amir al-Hamdani, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"Restoration will include the building's first floor, with seven separate exhibition halls, including prehistoric, Sumero-Babylonian, Assyric and Islamic sections, as well as exhibition space on the second floor and the museum's library and the administration offices," al-Hamdani explained.

Italian police are holding a training course in Nasiriya for Iraqi guards who will be in charge of safeguarding their country's museums and archaelogical sites.

An overwhelming number of Iraqis say there is no justification for attacks on Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces or Iraqi public service infrastructure. A total of 94 percent of Iraqis say there is no excuse for attacks on Iraqi security forces, 97 percent say there is no justification for attacking civilians, and 97 percent are against attacks on infrastructure.

The percentages slip when it comes to disapproval of violence against Iraqis working with the coalition and attacks against coalition personnel. A total of 81 percent of those polled are against attacks against Iraqis working with the coalition, with 12 percent saying there is justification for the attacks and 7 percent with no opinion.

Iraqis are proud of their security forces - a sea change from the way most regarded the forces under Saddam Hussein. The poll shows 75 percent of Iraqis say their security forces are winning the fight against anti-government forces. Iraqis regard the security forces as representing the nation and not just one group (77 percent), and 73 percent of those polled believe the Iraqi police and military work within the law and respect the rights of the people.

Almost 80 percent of those surveyed said the sooner that Iraqi forces maintain security, the sooner coalition forces can leave.

The poll showed some Iraqi misperceptions, officials said. A total of 64 percent of those surveyed said anti-government forces come mostly from other countries. Coalition officials said most anti-government terrorists are Iraqis.

Finally, 62 percent of the Iraqis surveyed said the security situation in Iraq has gotten "much better" ( 16 percent ) or "somewhat better" ( 46 percent ) in the past three months. Twenty percent of those surveyed said the security situation was "somewhat worse" and 14 percent said the security situation was "much worse" than three months ago.

Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said. The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of six American soldiers.

Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.

The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. The postings ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city of more than 200,000 in the area called the Sunni Triangle. The order to leave within 48 hours came in retaliation for alleged expulsions by Shiite militias of Sunnis living in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq.

"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds."

Patrols by U.S. and Iraqi Army Soldiers have resulted in safer streets for the citizens of Sadr City.

The once hotly-contested area is now patrolled by troops from B Company, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

On July 28 the Soldiers performed a neighborhood patrol designed to allow the Soldiers to become acquainted with their new neighborhood.

“It’s a lot of work, getting to know a new sector – we gather intel on terrorist operations, assess how receptive the locals are to our presence and develop informants,” said 1st Lt. Jason Schwab, platoon leader. “We try and impress upon them that it’s in their best interests to help us, because the people who kidnap and extort them are the same ones planting bombs in the roads.”

During the patrol, Schwab stopped at the Al-Kanasa Police Station and spoke with a warrant officer about the neighborhood.

“The people we talk to in the neighborhood have been pretty helpful and want things to get better in Sadr,” said Sgt. Lee Minyard. “They’re starting to realize we’re here to help them.”

Minyard pulled security throughout the patrol, which took the dismounted infantrymen through the streets and alleys of Sadr.

“We tell people that it’s up to them to make a difference in their communities,” said Staff Sgt. Christopher Brisley, section leader. “They’re so used to relying on one leader to make all the decisions, but they’re gradually taking the initiative.”

Soldiers called it the "Street of Death" and "Purple Heart Boulevard," a 3-mile-long residential corridor in central Baghdad that had become a shooting gallery for insurgents. In 2004 alone, Haifa Street, once a coveted address for the middle class, was the bloody site of more than 400 attacks on American and Iraqi security forces. Many residents on the most troubled blocks fled their homes, some of which were promptly commandeered as rebel sniper roosts.

An American-Iraqi military campaign begun last year to retake the street seemed to bear fruit as insurgents were captured, killed or driven out of the area. And on Feb. 6 the American command handed over a cut of north-central Baghdad, including Haifa Street, to the 1st Brigade, 6th Division, of the Iraqi army. This transfer made the 1st Brigade the first and only Iraqi army unit to have control of its own battle space and put it on the leading edge of the Bush administration's plan to have Iraqi forces take responsibility for the country's security.

The good news for American officials, in a war where territorial gains have been elusive, is that the Iraqi troops have not lost ground on Haifa Street. Since the 1st Brigade took control, there have been only three terrorist attacks along the street, and those came in the first three weeks, commanders say.

The Italians have overseen about $50 million worth of projects in Dhi Qar province, most of them related to water or medical services because the hospital is one of the most important in southern Iraq.

The lesson from Nasiriyah, [Lt. Col. Danico] Presta and [Capt. Fabio] Pacelli said, is that things can change for the better in Iraq, and can seem to do so all at once. The improvement happens when security is good enough that reconstruction can take root and the people can see improvement in their life. That begets more cooperation, and more willingness to turn in spoilers and therefore even more security. It's a formula that is being attempted all across Iraq with varying levels of success.

Iraq's reconstruction is not progressing on a linear path. It is a delicate balance that once achieved and allowed to mature, can yield results. The trick is lining up all the components.

One of the unique components in Dhi Qar was the establishment two months ago of a 17-member reconstruction committee separate from the political leaders in the province. The committee comprises university professors, health care professionals, sheiks and engineers. No improvement project is undertaken without the permission of the council, which sets the priorities. Presta believes that sense of local control is a key to success.

The British Royal Marine in charge of coalition operations in southeastern Iraq is optimistic about ongoing efforts there to train Iraqi army and police forces to eventually assume security duties.

"We have been able to force ahead with the main effort, which is security sector reform," Maj. Gen. Jim Dutton, commander of Multinational Division Southeast, told Pentagon reporters via a video link from Basra.

Dutton's 13,000-plus-troop multinational command is made up of 7,900 British troops, 3,000 Italians, 640 Australians, 622 Romanians, 562 Japanese, 388 Danes, 97 Czechs, 33 Lithuanians, five Norwegians, and two Portuguese.

Those troops, along with Iraqi army and police forces, are charged with providing security for four southeastern Iraqi provinces, which make up an area half the size of Great Britain. Dutton's area of operations contains the cities of Nasiriyah, Basrah, and Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port...

The general said he remains "confident that southeastern Iraq will continue to develop."

"There is a real enthusiasm here for the democratic process, and there was a very high turnout" for the January 2005 election, he said.

Dutton said there is "no shortage of volunteers" who want to join the new Iraqi army, noting there are now about 5,500 Iraqi soldiers in his sector. That number is expected to increase to 9,000 soldiers next year, he said.

The new Iraqi police are receiving good training at academies in Jordan or Baghdad, Dutton said. There are about 25,000 police in southeastern Iraq, he said, more than 14,000 of whom have received training.

Progress is evident in that more than 60 election registrations sites have opened on time. That has been possible through the combined efforts and partnership of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, provincial governments and Iraqi security forces, [Army Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of Multinational Force Northwest and Task Force Freedom] said.

Gains also are being made despite the insurgents' ongoing attempts to accomplish their objective of "destroying the Iraqi nation and the people," he said. Since the election held in January, for example, 62 mid- to high-level terrorist leaders have been captured or killed in Nineveh province alone, including 44 since early May...

Insurgents' attempts to use improvised explosive devices to their advantage also have been reduced, Rodriguez said. Over the last three months the number and effectiveness of insurgent IEDs is down by about 20 percent, he noted. The general attributes this to Iraqi and coalition forces' better operations conduct, disruption of insurgent senior leadership, less complex IED devices and more local tips. The seizing of several large caches of bomb-making materials also has contributed to that decrease.

"I believe that Iraqis will save Iraq," he told CNN in an interview and said the United States has helped Iraqis help themselves.

"I think that over the course of the past 15 months or so there has been enormous progress in doing just that," he said.

He said Iraqis and the Americans need to work together.

"There's a great deal still to be done," he said, "and it is a long-term endeavor that will require persistence, patience and resilience because the enemy is going to do everything that he can over the next several months to derail the constitutional process and then derail the elections in mid-December."

Petraeus has said more than 110 Iraqi police and army combat battalions are "in the fight" -- a total of 178,000 trained and equipped forces -- a vast increase since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

Pentagon officials, quoted in an August news article on the Defense Department Web site, said "this time last year, only one battalion was trained and equipped well enough to assist coalition forces."

While $2 billion has been invested in bolstering Iraqi security force infrastructure, more needs to be done, Petraeus said, such as establishing logistics and combat service capabilities and building an air force.

The first Iraqi soldiers to be trained for the country's new security force by the British Army in the UK have taken part in a passing-out parade.

Thirty-five National Guardsmen spent the last three months at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon, mid Wales.

They have been trained in military planning and strategy in the hope that Iraqis will eventually take over the Allies' peacekeeping role.

The guardsmen will start to instruct other Iraqi recruits on their return.

The course, based around British Army junior leadership training, took place in both Arabic and English and was said to be tailored for the demands of working in Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Durgar Jassim was a member of the Republican Guard's 10th Armoured Division, which fought against the British south of Baghdad. Yesterday, two years later, he was on the parade ground with his former enemy as one of 35 junior officers and non-commissioned officers from the Iraqi army who had completed a training course at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon, central Wales.

Capt Jassim, 29, a soldier for 12 years, said that training with men he had once fought was not a problem. "We are not political persons; we are military professionals," he said through an interpreter.

The newly-qualified instructors, who marched to Arabic commands at their passing-out parade, will return to Baghdad at the weekend to train the new generation of security forces.

Now the site, 375 km southeast of Baghdad and once Saddam Hussein's centre of air operations against Iran during the 1980-1988 war - is home to Air Force Squadron 23 and its three C-130 Hercules transport planes.

The US-donated planes are the backbone of Iraq's new air force, which also includes a dozen light reconaissance planes and another dozen helicopters spread across the country. Officials are vague on numbers for security reasons.

Currently, 109 Iraqi students - all air force veterans with years of experience - are learning how to maintain and fly the Hercules fleet. The youngest trainee is 30. Others appear twice that age.

The U.S. military has achieved major success in developing and training an Iraq Army battalion.

U.S. officials said the success in the training and deployment of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Brigade was demonstrated in operations in the Mosul area. The reconstituted battalion, part of the 3rd Iraqi Army Division, has operated its own personnel, intelligence and logistics sections.

"This battalion is undoubtedly one of the best in Tall Afar," Capt. Greg Mitchell, a U.S. company commander, said. "It can maneuver on its own without American support. If it's going to take control of the city, they'll require more training and assistance, but they've made great progress."

The success of the battalion was cited for the unraveling of the Al Qaida network led by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. Since May 2005, Iraqi forces such as the 1st Battalion have played a major role in capturing senior Al Qaida commanders in the Mosul area.