[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7909-7913]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    ALBERT EISELE'S ARTICLES ON IRAQ

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, when I went to work in the Washington 
office of then-Senator Walter Mondale from Minnesota as a young, 
beginning legislative assistant in 1975, Al Eisele was a Washington 
correspondent for the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press, Duluth 
Herald and News-Tribune, and other Knight-Ridder newspapers. In 1976, 
after Senator Mondale was elected as Jimmy Carter's Vice President, he 
named Mr. Eisele as his press secretary and senior adviser, a position 
that Mr. Eisele held for the next 4 years.
  ``He previously covered me as a Washington correspondent for 
Minnesota newspapers during my 11 years in the Senate, so I obviously 
know him well,'' Senator Mondale later explained. ``He was one of the 
most well-respected and knowledgeable reporters in Washington, with a 
reputation for even-handedness, incisive reporting, and personal 
integrity, which is why I asked him to join my staff.''
  After the Carter-Mondale administration, Mr. Eisele helped found the 
Center for National Policy in Washington; was a fellow at the Institute 
of Politics at Harvard; served as an assistant to Mr. William C. 
Norris, the founder and chief executive officer of Control Data 
Corporation in Minnesota; and started his own literary agency and 
international consulting firm, Cornerstone Associates.
  For the past 10\1/2\ years, this native Minnesotan has been 
instrumental in the success of The Hill, a nonpartisan, nonideological 
newspaper covering Congress, that he helped found. Indeed, the April 
27, 2005, issue of The Hill includes the 500th column Mr. Eisele has 
written since the newspaper's inaugural issue of September 21, 1994. In 
addition, he has acted as a mentor for more than 50 young journalists 
whom he helped train and who now work for many major newspapers, 
magazines, and broadcast organizations.
  Last month, Mr. Eisele traveled to Iraq to get, as he wrote, ``a 
firsthand look at what the American military is up against in this 
greatest projection of American power since Vietnam.''
  With his customary dedication, he did not just visit Iraq; rather, he 
traveled throughout the country for 10 days and interviewed everyone, 
from generals to privates, high-ranking Iraqi officials to ordinary 
citizens, visiting Members of Congress, fellow journalists covering the 
war, and private contractors involved in rebuilding Iraq's 
infrastructure.
  His subsequent articles and columns in The Hill provided many 
compelling accounts of personal realities there, as well as very 
valuable insights.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those articles be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Senators Encouraged by Progress in Iraq

       Baghdad, Mar. 23, 2005.--Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid 
     (D-Nev.) led a bipartisan Senate delegation to Baghdad 
     Tuesday and left little doubt that the Senate will soon 
     approve an $81 billion supplemental appropriation passed by 
     the House last week, most of which will go to pay for 
     rebuilding Iraq's war-torn economy and countering insurgent 
     violence.
       Reid and his six colleagues held a news conference at the 
     end of a whirlwind one-day visit during which they met with 
     top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Iraq and 
     leaders of the three internal factions competing for control 
     of the government being established in the wake of the 
     January elections.
       Reid, who was making his first trip to Iraq, said the 
     Senate will take up the supplemental appropriations bill when 
     it returns after the Easter recess, and indicated there is 
     little real opposition to it. He stressed the need for 
     continued U.S. support for reconstruction efforts, along with 
     training Iraqi security forces to replace U.S. military 
     personnel and help bolster the Iraqi economy and political 
     structure.
       ``Everyone understands that reconstruction is an important 
     part of the U.S. mission here,'' he declared.
       Reid and his colleagues, who included four Democrats and 
     two Republicans, all indicated they are encouraged by signs 
     of progress in carrying out the three-pronged U.S. strategy 
     of support for bolstering Iraq's security forces, economy and 
     political system.
       ``One of the people we met with today called Iraq `an 
     infant democracy,' and we can't leave this infant alone,'' 
     said Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). ``I believe what we 
     are seeing here is good.''
       Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) compared this visit with an 
     earlier visit he made last year. ``I find a quiet optimism 
     instead of a cautious optimism,'' he said. He added, ``I 
     think that the elections and the strengthening of the Iraqi 
     security forces have given us hope that the seed of democracy 
     has been planted here. There's still a lot to do and we still 
     have a lot to worry about, but the signs are more optimistic 
     now than before.''
       Even Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who has been a leading 
     critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, seemed 
     upbeat about the future of the new Iraq government.
       Declaring that the success of Iraq's future stability 
     ``greatly depends on the training of Iraqi security forces,'' 
     she said, ``we got a very, very upbeat report'' from the top 
     U.S. military officials, including Gen. George Casey Jr., who 
     commands the multinational coalition forces, and Lt. Gen. 
     David Petraeus, commander of the NATO training mission here.
       She added that it's essential that the new government, 
     which will be put together in the coming months, include all 
     elements of Iraqi society, especially women. ``I think it's 
     fair to say that all of us today gave that message'' to the 
     leaders of the three main ethnic factions in Iraq, the 
     majority Shiites, the minority Sunnis and the Kurds.
       However, Boxer also indicated after the group's meeting 
     with the man who is expected to be Iraq's next prime 
     minister, Ibriham al-Jaafari, that he is not as upbeat about 
     the quality of the Iraqi police and security forces.
       ``My sense was that he was certainly in no rush to hand 
     over security to his new police force,'' she said.
       Other members of the Senate delegation included Patty 
     Murray (D-Wash.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and freshman Ken 
     Salazar (D-Colo.).
       Salazar, who was making his first visit to Iraq, said, 
     ``This trip has enforced the enormity of the challenge in 
     Iraq and the need to help the Iraqi people.''
                                  ____


                  ``Translators Are a Special Target''

       Baghdad, Mar. 25, 2005.--After 38 years in the United 
     States, Paul Oraha is back in his native Baghdad and working 
     only a short distance from the neighborhood where he grew up. 
     But he's not about to look up any old friends who might still 
     be around.
       ``We are a target now,'' said Oraha, who works as a 
     translator for the U.S. Embassy and U.S.-led Multinational 
     Coalition. ``Translators are a special target because many 
     Iraqis feel we are traitors because we're working for 
     Americans against Iraq.
       Oraha, 65, left Baghdad with his family in 1966 for 
     Detroit, where his father, a Mercedes Benz parts supplier, 
     found work in the auto industry. While his personal history 
     is different, Oraha's situation is the same as thousands of 
     other Iraqis whose lives are at risk

[[Page 7910]]

     because they work for, or cooperate with, the Multinational 
     Coalition.
       Many Iraqi civilians, as well as military and security 
     personnel, government officials and civic leaders have been 
     killed or wounded by Iraqi insurgents and foreign Islamic 
     extremists since the March, 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam 
     Hussein.
       Oraha, who later moved from Detroit to San Diego and served 
     in the U.S. Navy, returned to Iraq in July, 2004, now works 
     and lives in the heavily guarded international enclave in the 
     middle of Baghdad known as the Green Zone. A nearby bridge 
     that commemorates the bloody 1958 coup in which Saddam's 
     Baathist Party took power links the Karada neighborhood 
     across the Tigris River where he grew up.
       And even though there are constant reminders of the 
     terrorist threat--several mortar rounds hit the bridge on 
     Monday night but did not injure anyone--Oraha feels the 
     security situation is improving.
       ``This area used to get hit almost every day, but now it's 
     almost every other week,'' he said while smoking a cigarette 
     and drinking coffee one recent morning outside the Rasheed 
     Hotel where and he and many other Americans and foreigners 
     live. ``Security is the biggest problem here, but I think 
     we're making tremendous progress because the attacks have 
     slowed down.
       Oraha said he thinks most Iraqis ``want us to be here and 
     stay here. They're very appreciative that we got rid of 
     Saddam and they look forward to having a better life. But 
     they're very concerned about the security situation. They 
     feel if it improves, they will have an opportunity to rebuild 
     their country and enjoy the benefits of democracy.''
       However, Oraha cautioned that many Iraqis are concerned 
     that the U.S. will not take the drastic steps they feel are 
     needed to discourage future terrorist activity.
       ``They think the U.S. is not going to be tough enough in 
     dealing with the terrorists, that they're too concerned about 
     the human rights of terrorists who are blowing up people. 
     They feel they will take that as a sign of weakness and 
     operate with impunity.
       He added, ``As an American, I believe in the Constitution 
     and its guarantees of the rights of those accused of crimes. 
     But I agree with Iraqis that we have to be tougher with 
     terrorists. Many Iraqis think some of these people should be 
     executed and the world should know about it.''
       However, Oraha predicts that the new government that soon 
     will be elected ``is going to get tougher on terrorists 
     because they're going to have to answer to the Iraqi people, 
     who are tired of terrorism.''
                                  ____


           Improvised Explosives Becoming More Deadly in Iraq

       Mosul, Iraq, Mar. 28, 2005.--They're one of the worst 
     nightmares for American military personnel or anyone 
     traveling with them on the dangerous roads of Iraq, even if 
     you're surrounded by tons of armor plate and moving at high 
     speed.
       They're called IED's, military speak for Improvised 
     Explosive Devices, and they're the devil's own invention.
       These fearsome homemade weapons are responsible for many of 
     the more than 1,700 deaths and 15,000 plus casualties 
     suffered by U.S. and coalition forces since the invasion of 
     Iraq two years ago this month. And they're getting more 
     deadly and numerous.
       ``They've gone up exponentially in number and they're 
     getting more powerful all the time,'' said Lt. Col. Michael 
     Kurilla, whose 24th Infantry Regiment's First Battalion 
     patrols the western half of this northern Iraq city that has 
     the highest number of attacks by insurgents of any city in 
     Iraq.
       Col. Kurilla was among some 50 Army officers who briefed 
     Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf 
     region, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) on the military situation 
     in Ninevah province on Easter Sunday at a coalition base near 
     this city of two million, the third largest in Iraq.
       Afterwards, the tall, handsome West Point graduate from Elk 
     River, Minn., explained the challenge these devilish devices 
     present to his 800-man unit.
       When his battalion arrived in Iraq last October from Fort 
     Lewis, Wash., it didn't find a single IED while patrolling 
     the streets of Mosul. But in November, it found three, 
     followed by 15 in December, 50 in January, and 134 in 
     February. One of his soldiers was killed when one of his 
     unit's heavily armored Stryker vehicles was destroyed, and 
     many more have been injured.
       ``We're still getting plenty of detonations, it's almost 
     constant,'' said Col. Kurilla, whose battalion has already 
     earned 182 Purple Heart medals, given to those injured in 
     combat.
       Sgt. Loren Kirk, a member of the 25th Infantry Division's 
     First Brigade Stryker combat team, described the constant 
     danger posed by the IEDs.
       ``We go all over Mosul and everybody gets hit, even in the 
     nice neighborhoods,'' he said. ``We can go a week without 
     getting hit. It just depends on where we are. We drive side-
     by-side with cars on the street. They tend to give us a wide 
     berth, and because of VBEDS [Vehicle-based Explosive 
     Devices], we try to keep them at least 50 yards away.''
       Kirk added, ``It's all timing. We could roll down the road 
     and drive by an IED and a minute later, a vehicle behind us 
     will get hit.''
       Kirk, 37, took his unit's commander through the city's 
     crowded streets to the briefing from its base about 15 
     minutes away. ``Our mission is to get him where he needs to 
     go, safely, escort troops or check on soldiers at a 
     checkpoint.''
       The heavily armed 36,000-pound, eight-wheel vehicles were 
     first introduced to Iraq in 2003 as a replacement for the 
     1980s era Abrams tanks and the less well-armored Hummers, 
     which many units are still using while they wait for Strykers 
     to be delivered.
       Every one of the Strykers in Kirk's battalion has been hit 
     by an IED at least twice, according to Specialist Seth 
     Christie, who rides in a partially exposed position atop 
     Kirk's Stryker.
       So what's it like to take a hit from an IED?''
       It scares the s--- out of you,'' said Christie, 24, who was 
     slightly injured when his vehicle was hit by an IED in 
     January and he was knocked back into the vehicle. ``You feel 
     it in your chest, you feel it in your teeth. Your lungs fill 
     with smoke and everything goes black.''
       Christie's buddy, Specialist Donald Armino, also 24, agrees 
     that IEDs are more numerous and powerful than a few months 
     ago. ``They're getting a lot bigger and a lot more 
     sophisticated,'' he said, often concealing them more cleverly 
     and magnifying their power by tying a half dozen or more 120-
     mm mortar shells together and setting them off by remote 
     control, or using shaped charges that can penetrate six 
     inches of steel.
       An even more vivid description of the destructive power of 
     IEDs was provided by four young Marine reservists from 
     Chicago who were relaxing at the coalition's main base near 
     the Baghdad airport while preparing to return home last 
     weekend.
       ``What's it like?'' said Cpl. Johnny Lebron, 31, whose unit 
     driving armored Hummers found and disarmed 19 IEDs and was 
     hit by 21 during six-and-a-half months in the northern 
     province of Babil, a part of the Sunni triangle dubbed ``the 
     triangle of death.''
       ``Well, it really rattles your cage. It's an experience you 
     can't describe. For four or five seconds, time seems to stand 
     still.''
       Sgt. Timothy Jensen, 26, added, ``The explosion hits and 
     then everything goes black and the breath is sucked out of 
     your lungs. You feel like you're dead, floating in timeless 
     space. The first thing you worry about is the Marine next to 
     you. Once I know my Marines are good to go, we act on our 
     objective.''
       But Sgt. Jensen conceded that it's hard to find those who 
     place and detonate the IEDs. ``You're really not going to be 
     able to get on them because they use remote devices from a 
     distance, and they're really hard to find.''
       Unlike the Marines, the soldiers in Mosul who are equipped 
     with the heavily armed Strykers are thankful they have them.
       ``The Stryker is a fantastic vehicle, much better than an 
     up-armored Hummer,'' said Sgt. Kirk. ``We're really lucky to 
     have them. I've got a lot of faith in this vehicle.''
                                  ____


            U.S. Forces Thwart Major Escape in Southern Iraq

       Camp Bucca, Iraq, Mar. 25, 2005.--U.S. military police 
     Friday thwarted a massive escape attempt by suspected 
     insurgents and terrorists from this southern Iraq Army base 
     that houses more than 6,000 detainees when they uncovered a 
     600-foot tunnel the detainees had dug under their compound.
       ``We were very close to a very bad thing,'' Major Gen. 
     William Brandenburg said Friday after troops under his 
     command discovered the tunnel that prisoners had 
     painstakingly dug with the help of makeshift tools.
       Within hours of the discovery on the first tunnel, a second 
     tunnel of about 300 feet was detected under an adjoining 
     compound in the camp, which holds 6,049 detainees.
       The discoveries came just hours before Brandenburg, who 
     commands Multinational Force detainee operations in Iraq, 
     toured the camp with Gen. George Casey Jr., the top Army 
     general in Iraq and commander of the Multinational Coalition, 
     who was making his first visit to this remote desert camp in 
     southwestern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border.
       Brandenburg said the prisoners, who include Iraqis and 
     suspected terrorists from other Arab countries, probably were 
     waiting for the dense fog that often rolls in at night from 
     the nearby Persian Gulf before attempting their escape.''
       We get fog after midnight in which you can't see 100 
     feet,'' he said. ``I think they were waiting on poor 
     visibility and I think there was a good chance they would 
     have gotten out of the camp.''
       Brandenburg, whose command also includes the better known 
     but smaller Abu Ghraib camp near Baghdad, said soldiers in 
     charge of Camp Bucca suspected that an escape attempt might 
     be in the offing because they had found a small tunnel in 
     another part of the camp about five days ago, and had been 
     told by detainees that other tunnels were being dug.
       Brandenburg also said that in recent days there were 
     ``people outside the camp who we're not used to seeing,'' 
     which was another indication that ``something was going on.''
       Brandenburg, who was spending the night at the nearby 
     Basrah airport while waiting

[[Page 7911]]

     for Gen. Casey to arrive from Baghdad Friday morning, said he 
     was awoken at 1:30 a.m. by an officer from Camp Bucca who 
     said, ``Sir, you won't believe what we've found.''
       When Brandenburg and Casey arrived at Camp Bucca, they were 
     shown the tunnel's exit point, which was outside the chain 
     link fence and concertina wire that surrounds the camp's 
     eight compounds, each of which contains more than 600 
     prisoners, and several smaller compounds.
       The prisoners had used a cut-away five-gallon gas can 
     attached to a 60-foot-long rope to haul the sandy soil out of 
     the tunnel. They apparently used makeshift tools to dig and 
     reinforce the tunnel, and covered the entry point inside the 
     compound with a false floor made from wooden slats from their 
     beds, which in turn they concealed under two feet of dirt.
       The detainees disposed of the dirt they had dug from the 
     tunnel by flushing it down their latrines, which gave camp 
     officials another clue that something was amiss when workers 
     emptying the latrines complained that the filters on their 
     trucks were getting jammed.
       Col. James Brown, the commander of the 18th Military Police 
     Brigade that is in charge of Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib, said 
     two detainees tried to escape 10 days ago but were caught. He 
     said the latest escape attempt was clearly planned to allow 
     more than 100 prisoners to flee the camp.
       Brown said it is reasonable to assume that other tunnels 
     will be discovered in other parts of the camp.
       Col. Brown said he made his troops view the movie, ``The 
     Great Escape,'' starring Steve McQueen, about a group of 
     American prisoners in a World War II German POW camp, so they 
     would think like people who were bent on escaping from his 
     facility.''
       It's a great movie,'' he said. ``The trouble is we tend to 
     view life through the lens of who we are and not who somebody 
     else is. There are a lot of good lessons for us there.''
       During Casey's tour of the camp, thousands of the prisoners 
     watched silently and sullenly as he and his entourage walked 
     past them, and as he climbed a watchtower for a panoramic 
     view.
       As Casey walked past the compound where the second tunnel 
     was discovered, a soldier drove a large backhoe into the camp 
     and began digging up the tunnel.
       Camp officials also showed Casey a large collection of 
     makeshift weapons taken from the detainees, including knives, 
     slingshots, and even a fake flak jacket made from Muslim 
     prayer shawls that resembled the real thing.
       ``I am never amazed at what I see,'' Brandenburg said of 
     the ingenious technique used by the detainees in their escape 
     attempt.
       At the end of his tour, Casey presented a special medal to 
     the young woman soldier, Specialist Lisa Wesson of Asheville, 
     N.C., who discovered the larger tunnel during a routine 
     investigation.
       Camp Bucca is almost twice the size of Abu Ghraib, which 
     was the scene of last year's prisoner abuse scandal that has 
     prompted widespread changes in the handling of detainees. 
     There are 3,243 detainees at Abu Ghraib, and another 114 
     after a camp near Baghdad International Airport, where Saddam 
     Hussein and members of his deposed government are being held 
     pending trials for crimes against humanity.
                                  ____


                Embed Cavallaro Sees War From the Inside

       Baghdad, Mar. 31, 2005.--After four trips to report on the 
     war in Iraq, no one understands the pluses and minuses of 
     being embedded with the U.S. military better than Gina 
     Cavallaro.
       On the one hand, the former congressional aide and staff 
     writer for the Army Times knows it would be impossible to do 
     her job without relying on the military for logistical 
     support and protection in the dangerous combat zones she 
     routinely visits.
       At the same time, she knows that the bonds she forms with 
     soldiers and Marines make it more difficult to be an 
     objective reporter, especially when one of them is killed or 
     wounded.
       So it's not surprising that the 45-year-old Hillary Swank 
     look alike was still trying to come to grips last week with 
     the death of a 20-year-old soldier who had become her 
     ``buddy'' and ``little brother.'' Spc. Francisco Martinez, a 
     forward observer in a field artillery unit, was killed by a 
     sniper the day before while she was standing a few feet away.
       ``I haven't processed much of it yet,'' she said, 
     struggling with her emotions as she prepared to return to 
     Washington after nine weeks in Iraq.
       ``It's very difficult to write about. When we go out on a 
     patrol, I feel that I need to get on the ground with the 
     soldiers, and I have done that dozens of times, knowing it 
     was dangerous. But I always know I'm here voluntarily, and 
     the last thing I wanted to see was a soldier getting 
     killed.''
       But Martinez, who was with a Second Infantry Division 
     brigade combat team that was transferred from Korea last 
     September, wasn't just another soldier.
       ``There's always one gregarious soldier who hangs out with 
     reporters,'' she said. ``He was my buddy, my shadow, my 
     escort. He was like a little brother. He stuck by me to make 
     sure I was safe. He was so young and so outgoing, and so 
     proud of what he was doing.''
       She added, ``I only knew him for a couple of days, but we 
     had a lot in common. We both grew up in Puerto Rico, and when 
     you are with someone in a combat environment, it doesn't take 
     long to get to know them.'' The two often conversed in 
     Spanish and talked about life in their native Puerto Rico.
       Cavallaro had spent eight days with Martinez's unit in 
     Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent resistance 75 miles west of 
     Baghdad in an area the soldiers call the ``Wild West.'' While 
     she was there, an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) killed 
     four soldiers in an armored Humvee. ``It was huge, a big 
     bomb,'' she said. ``They are using more and more of them, and 
     they are also more snipers. I have to admit, I felt in danger 
     out there. I felt I was also a target.''
       It was a routine patrol on a Sunday afternoon as Alpha 
     Company searched a dangerous neighborhood for a sniper who 
     had killed three soldiers and wounded several more. Cavallero 
     was taking a photograph when she heard a shot, very close by.
       ``I was probably six feet in front of him,'' she said. ``I 
     turned around and was horrified to see him lying on the 
     ground.''
       Martinez was wearing body armor, but the bullet seemed to 
     go under it, on the right side of his back. He was bleeding 
     heavily and told her he couldn't feel his legs.
       Medics quickly put Martinez in an armored Humvee and took 
     him to an aid station only minutes away. Cavallera rode with 
     him, holding his hand and pleading with him in Spanish to 
     keep breathing and not fall asleep.
       The medics told her Martinez probably would make it and she 
     watched as a medical evacuation helicopter took him to a 
     field hospital. But a few hours later, she learned that he 
     had died.
       ``It was a little bit more of an exclamation point to this 
     trip than I wanted,'' she said. ``It just hurts when you lose 
     a friend. It really hurts.
       For Cavallero, who visited Iraq twice in 2003 and once in 
     2004, it was a brutal reminder of how much more dangerous 
     Iraq has become for both soldiers and embedded journalists.
       ``Absolutely, it's become more dangerous,'' she said. 
     ``When I first came here, the IED's hadn't started and the 
     insurgency didn't exist in any substantial way. I may be out 
     of line saying this, but I agree with the military that only 
     a small percentage of people are disrupting things here, but 
     they're doing a pretty good job of it. There's never not a 
     combat patrol. Whenever you go on patrol, it's always a 
     combat situation.''
       Cavallaro, who writes for a predominantly military 
     readership, has mixed feelings about journalists being 
     embedded with troops.
       ``I don't know,'' she said when asked if it affects how she 
     and other journalists report on the military. ``I just think 
     it makes it more difficult. I find the media is afraid to get 
     around on its own in Iraq, and rightly so. They're relying 
     more on the military to get them where they want to go, and 
     as a result, the military is getting smarter about getting 
     its own story told. It almost seems like a little bit of quid 
     pro quo.''
       She added, ``I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing. 
     The military will get you around but it always wants to show 
     you its new sewage plant.''
       Cavallaro was a reporter for the San Juan Star when she got 
     a job as press secretary to then-Del. Carlos Romero Barcelo 
     (D-P.R.), but decided her heart was still in reporting and 
     answered an ad in the Army Times.
       She says she still hears complaints from soldiers about 
     negative coverage of the war. ``The most frequent question I 
     get is, `Do people back home care about us? Do they know 
     we're still here?'''
       Asked for her view of how the war is going, Cavallaro says 
     she's ``not in a position to judge, but I do see the concept 
     of Iraqi security forces being the key to what happens 
     here.''
       However, she added that ``there are some really impressive 
     Iraqi army troops and some really shoddy ones. But I've seen 
     some American soldiers who get it. They're taking the Iraqis 
     by the hand and showing them what the right looks like.''
       If there's one aspect of war reporting that Cavallaro is 
     critical of, it's television. ``I don't know why it is, but 
     most soldiers tend to get their news from TV. Images are so 
     strong. They are projected in chow halls all over Iraq, but 
     it takes a dedicated effort for a soldier to look up news on 
     the Internet.
       And when Cavallaro returns to her newspaper's Springfield, 
     Va., office, what will she be thinking about her last 
     assignment?
       ``How much I hate leaving those soldiers behind,'' she 
     said. ``You can't be here and be embedded with soldiers and 
     not care about them, no matter how hard core you are. It 
     would take a really cynical person not to see them as 
     individuals.
       ``I've seen reporters who are clearly anti-military, and I 
     don't begrudge them that. It's their right. But in my writing 
     and reporting here, I consider my readership--what would be 
     of interest to the soldiers' families and relatives? I get a 
     lot of emails from readers who want me to go hug their 
     kids.''
       When she returns home, Cavallaro will continue to 
     concentrate on the lives of the men and women in uniform she 
     has left behind. ``I see myself as chronicling their time

[[Page 7912]]

     here--their triumphs, their tragedies, their quality of life. 
     I find the military as a fascinating theme for a writer. The 
     stakes and risks are high, but it's incredibly rewarding.''
                                  ____


                   A Second Triangle Is Built in Iraq

       Baghdad.--Much of the violence that has plagued Iraq in the 
     two years since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein has been 
     planned and carried out by insurgents and terrorists based in 
     the Sunni triangle north and west of this city of seven 
     million people.
       But another triangle, which had its origins in a chance 
     meeting in Washington last June, appears to be paying off for 
     the Bush administration's effort to create a fledgling 
     democracy in Iraq, after Sunday's election of a prominent 
     Sunni Arab as speaker of the newly elected national assembly. 
     The meeting between the two men who were preparing to take 
     over as America's top military and diplomatic officials in 
     Baghdad set in motion a three-pronged strategy involving the 
     U.S.-led coalition forces, the American Embassy and the Iraqi 
     government.
       The men are Gen. George Casey Jr., the Army vice chief of 
     staff who had just been named commander of the multinational 
     forces in Iraq, and John Negroponte, who was about to trade 
     his job as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for that of 
     U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
       Casey spoke about the meeting late last month. He was 
     returning to Iraq after a short vacation that ended with him 
     briefing President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald 
     Rumsfeld at the White House. Casey flew back to Iraq aboard a 
     12-passenger C-37, the military version of the business jet 
     favored by corporate CEOs and celebrities.
       ``Right after I found out I was going to Iraq, John was in 
     town and we agreed to get together,'' Casey said. ``He stayed 
     over on a Saturday, and we met in the morning at the 
     Pentagon.''
       The purpose of their meeting was to develop a plan to build 
     on the Jan. 20 national assembly elections that would restore 
     a measure of stability, allow the Iraqis to create a post-
     Saddam democratic government and begin to rebuild their 
     devastated economy and infrastructure. They agreed to focus 
     on the elections as the organizing point for their plan.
       When Casey arrived June 28 at Camp Victory, the sprawling 
     coalition headquarters base outside of Baghdad, the first 
     thing he and Negroponte did was put together a ``red team'' 
     composed of top aides from Casey's staff, the U.S. Embassy, 
     the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency and 
     its British counterpart.
       ``We felt we had to have a firm understanding of the enemy 
     and the war we were fighting,'' Casey said. ``I had our staff 
     working on a plan that focused on the same basic questions, 
     the nature of the enemy and its capabilities and intentions. 
     After about 30 days, we both came up with a product and we 
     merged them together and they pretty much reinforced each 
     other.''
       The end result, Casey explained, was a plan that consisted 
     of four elements.
       First, it was decided that ``the greatest threat, apart 
     from the insurgents and foreign fighters, was people hoping 
     for a return to Sunni dominance'' of the Shiite majority and 
     Kurdish minority. But it was clear that threat couldn't be 
     eliminated by military force alone.
       ``You don't win a counterinsurgency [war] by military 
     means,'' Casey said. ``You win by integrating the political, 
     economic and military to produce a common outlook, by cutting 
     off the insurgents from popular support.
       A second element was to build up the Iraqi security forces, 
     which called for creating 27 Iraqi Army battalions. The first 
     phase of that plan, ``a huge training and equipping operation 
     that is still going on,'' Casey said, was completed last 
     month, and the next phase, creating the Iraqis' own command 
     structure, is under way.
       ``We felt we had to bring the insurgency to a level that 
     could be contained by Iraqi security forces while we helped 
     them build a sufficient capacity to deal with it. But it was 
     clear that Iraqi security forces were not ready to do that.''
       The third part of the plan was aimed at rebuilding Iraq's 
     ruined economy.
       ``On the economic side, we inherited a hugely complicated 
     and bureaucratic--I don't want to use the word `mess,' but I 
     guess I will. There were so many different [U.S.] agencies 
     that had their fingers in it, we felt we had to get ourselves 
     organized to deliver on the $18 billion aid package'' 
     approved by Congress. ``I'm not being critical of these guys, 
     but they put the package together in Baghdad without 
     consulting the people in the field.''
       The Casey-Negroponte plan increased the 230-plus economic 
     aid and reconstruction projects that existed in June, 2004 to 
     more than 2,000 last month, and Casey predicts projects to 
     spend all $18 billion will be in place by this fall.
       The fourth part of the plan was a two-part communications 
     strategy. ``One was to drive a wedge between the insurgents 
     and the population, to demonstrate that the insurgents and 
     terrorists have nothing good to offer for Iraq,'' Casey said. 
     ``The other part was to try to change the image of the 
     population toward the Coalition.
       ``People always want to know, are we winning the hearts and 
     minds of the Iraqi people, and I say, `No, that's not what 
     we're here to do.' The people of Iraq will never welcome an 
     occupying force. What we need is their consent.''
       Casey added, ``All four of these lines of operation are 
     working together in an integral way between us, the embassy 
     and the Iraqi government. That triangle--we actually have a 
     triangle in our plan--has the Iraqi government at the top, us 
     at one corner and the embassy at the other.
       But while Casey said he is encouraged by early progress in 
     carrying out the ``triangle strategy,'' he cautioned that 
     success is far from certain. Casey, who earlier commanded the 
     1st Division in Kosovo, said he asked his predecessor, Lt. 
     Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, to compare the two countries.
       ``He said Iraq is 10 times harder.''
                                  ____


          For Rhode Island's Reed, Codels are Solitary Affairs

       Kuwait City, Apr. 6, 2005.--During the Easter Week recess, 
     when three other congressional delegations, consisting of 21 
     senators and House members, were visiting Iraq, the codel led 
     by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), was conspicuous for several 
     reasons.
       First, Reed, a West Point graduate and former company 
     commander in the 82nd Airborne, was the only member of 
     Congress in his codel.
       Second, instead of traveling with a battalion of aides like 
     those with the other codels, he was accompanied only by his 
     legislative assistant for military and foreign affairs, 
     Elizabeth King; Lt. Col. Vic Samuel, an Army legislative 
     liaison officer; and John Mulligan, the Washington bureau 
     chief of the Providence Journal.
       Third, instead of flying into Baghdad for a few hours of 
     official briefings and then flying to Jordan or Kuwait at 
     day's end, Reed spent the better part of four days 
     hopscotching across Iraq, often aboard Blackhawk helicopters 
     manned by National Guard units from Rhode Island; meeting 
     with troops in some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq; and 
     questioning top U.S. military and diplomatic officials, and 
     Iraqi security forces as well.
       Fourth, Reed--unlike Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-
     Nev.)--wasn't making his first visit to this war-torn 
     country, where some 150,000 American troops and 24,000 troops 
     from 23 other member nations of the U.S.-led multinational 
     coalition are battling Muslim insurgents and terrorists while 
     trying to help create a new government and rebuild Iraq's 
     shattered infrastructure.
       And finally, none of the other congressional visitors can 
     claim to have attended the U.S. Military Academy with Gen. 
     John Abizaid, the overall commander of U.S. forces in the 
     Persian Gulf region, or served in the Army with Maj. Gen. 
     William Brandenburg, who oversees detainee operations in 
     Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
       This was the fifth visit to Iraq for Reid, a 55-year-old 
     Harvard lawyer and former instructor at West Point. All but 
     the first, in 2002, have been solo affairs. And it may have 
     been that one that convinced Reed to shun multimember codels.
       He was traveling with a half-dozen other senators to 
     Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and nearing the end of the 
     long, exhausting trip when the other members decided they 
     didn't want to get up early the next morning to visit an Army 
     special forces unit near the Pakistan border.
       But Reed insisted they go, he recalled during an early-
     morning interview here before returning to the United States 
     on Monday. ``I got a little annoyed because these troops were 
     expecting us to come.''
       Reed said he feels he can learn more about the actual 
     progress, or lack of it, by traveling alone.''
       You can see a lot of places you couldn't necessarily go 
     with others'' because of security needs, he said as he wolfed 
     down a breakfast of baked beans, scrambled eggs, fried 
     potatoes and olives. ``It helps me to be able to do it on my 
     own. You can't substitute firsthand experience.''
       He added, ``I like to characterize myself as someone who 
     comes out here on a fairly frequent basis to look at what's 
     happening on the ground and then reach judgments about what 
     we can do to succeed.''
       Reed always makes it a point to visit troops from his 
     native state. There are about 400 in Iraq, and he visited 
     many of them, including Army troops in Baghdad, Marines in 
     Fallujah, the helicopter crews and a field artillery unit in 
     Mosul, and soldiers at a remote desert base in Kuwait.
       Reed, a member of the Armed Services Committee, makes no 
     apologies for being a critic of the administration's policy 
     in Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan.
       ``My job is to be critical about what's going on and what 
     needs to be improved,'' he said, adding, ``I think my 
     criticism has been accurate, certainly in the operations in 
     the region, in that we didn't organize ourselves for the 
     appropriate occupation and stabilization'' after Saddam 
     Hussein was toppled, which happened two years ago this month.
       ``It took a long time to get the needed equipment in here 
     for our troops. We made some serious errors in terms of de-

[[Page 7913]]

     Baathification efforts, rather than trying to incorporate the 
     Sunnis, and disbanding the Iraq Army. There's a litany of 
     problems.''
       And although Reed has high praise for the military effort 
     here, he added, ``You have to understand that this is not 
     over yet, militarily. And the notion that everything's fine 
     disregards the resilience of this insurgency and the deep-
     seated political, historical and social forces that are at 
     work.
       ``I think one of the greatest errors and misjudgments would 
     be at this point, so to speak, to get out, because the area 
     has one or two months of relative quiet--this is a long-term 
     effort, and, in a way, the hardest part, even now, is to 
     revamp an economic and political structure that doesn't have 
     that many democratic tendencies.''
       Reed said Iraq has been ``brought right back to almost 
     where we began two years ago. And now we have the obligation 
     to reinforce military success with political and economic 
     progress, and the question is, do we have the resources and 
     the capability to do that?''
       Reed also said he feels that civilian agencies haven't done 
     enough to rebuild Iraq's battered infrastructure by providing 
     ``the soft power that you need to stabilize the country.''
       ``This is a major effort,'' he declared. ``We've got to get 
     it right. There are things that we're doing very well and 
     again I'd say that if we don't, if we take our eye off the 
     ball, we could find ourselves right back where we were six 
     months or a year ago. This place has the annoying habit of 
     every time you turn the corner, there's another corner. We 
     might be turning the corner, but watch out.''
                                  ____


                     Battered Fallujah Key to Iraq

       Fallujah, Apr. 7, 2005.--This devastated former insurgent 
     stronghold west of Baghdad, where some of the worst 
     violence--and one of the grisliest scenes--of the two-year 
     war in Iraq took place, is shaping up as the key to the 
     success or failure of the Bush administration's historic 
     effort to reinvent Iraq.
       That was evident last week as James Jeffrey, deputy chief 
     of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, came here to 
     confer with the commander of the 23,000 Marines who still 
     patrol this dangerous region and to meet with some two dozen 
     local police and government officials, Arab sheiks and Sunni 
     clerics.
       ``This is the future of Iraq,'' Lt. Gen. John Sattler, 
     commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force that drove 
     Iraqi insurgents and foreign Muslim fighters out of the city 
     in an epic 11-day battle last November, told the local 
     leaders as Jeffrey stood by.
       The salty-tongued Sattler, who was reassigned to Camp 
     Pendleton, Calif., at the end of March, portrayed Fallujah as 
     a crucial test of the U.S.-led multinational coalition's 
     ability to provide security, assure political stability and 
     rebuild Iraq's shattered urban centers.
       ``If you can make Fallujah work, it becomes a status symbol 
     and the whole Arab world will be looking at what they have 
     done for Fallujah,'' he said.
       Sattler and Jeffrey also made it clear that the prospects 
     of reducing and eventually ending the commitment of some 
     175,000 U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq will be greatly 
     enhanced if Iraqi security forces can be trained and equipped 
     in sufficient numbers.
       At the same time, they said, hundreds of millions of 
     dollars must be spent in Fallujah on economic reconstruction 
     by creating jobs and restoring basic services, including 
     water, sanitation facilities and electricity.
       ``We're at the very beginning stages now,'' Sattler said. 
     He and about a dozen other senior Marine officers gave 
     Jeffrey an update on the military situation in their region 
     and, in turn, heard Jeffrey describe the political situation 
     and economic reconstruction effort before they met with the 
     local leaders.
       The meetings in Fallujah came almost exactly a year after 
     the world was subjected to the ghastly scenes of the charred 
     remains of several American contractors whose bodies were 
     hung from a Fallujah bridge. The scene was the prelude to the 
     bloody battle in November that drove insurgents from their 
     fortified and well-armed base in Fallujah.
       Jeffrey is running the U.S. Embassy until the arrival of 
     Zalmay Khalilzad, the current ambassador in Afghanistan whom 
     President Bush nominated Tuesday to replace John Negroponte 
     as ambassador to Iraq. Jeffrey gave the Marines an update on 
     the overall military, political and economic situation in 
     Iraq.
       He said coalition forces have made ``tremendous progress'' 
     toward defeating the insurgent and al Qaeda elements in most 
     areas of Iraq, although the violence directed against 
     coalition forces and Iraqis who are cooperating with the 
     coalition ``is still very worrisome.''
       And he said that 100 50-man units of Iraqi Army and 
     security forces, including local police, are in place, of 
     which about 50 are ready to be deployed nationwide. ``That's 
     a huge difference and huge investment,'' he said, with 
     between $5 billion and $6 billion already spent and about an 
     additional $10 billion committed by the end of this year.
       But it's not the money, he said, ``it's the mentoring and 
     training that are important.''
       On the political front, he said the successful outcome of 
     the Jan. 30 elections has provided important momentum, but he 
     expressed concern about the vacuum that exists until the 
     newly elected national assembly and its leaders are chosen.
       The problem, he said, is that ``the old government is not 
     willing to take action, and the new government doesn't exist 
     yet. We're a bit frustrated, but that's democracy.''
       Finally, on the economic reconstruction front, Jeffrey said 
     $100 million has already been spent on Fallujah, with another 
     $100 million in the pipeline.
       ``Let's face it: We're winning,'' he said. ``It needs to be 
     said that we are winning. This is a very, very, very 
     difficult thing we're undertaking, but we're winning and we 
     need to continue pouring resources into Fallujah.''
       Sattler acknowledged the difficulty of finding the right 
     local officials and working with them. ``There's dust on 
     everyone here,'' he said. ``So you have to go down until you 
     find somebody without blood on his hands. That's the person 
     you have to deal with.''
       But one Agency for International Development official said 
     more and more local leaders are willing to cooperate in the 
     rebuilding effort.
       ``We're beginning to see them at the table now, and they're 
     beginning to ask questions. We're shifting from one level to 
     another. We're dealing with the Iraqi mind and not the U.S. 
     mind. We're trying to deliver the goods, but it's going to be 
     a long process. It's water running into one more house. It's 
     electricity going into one more house.''
       Sattler pointed out that more than 2,000 government workers 
     showed up for work in Fallujah the day before and ``15,000 
     people came into town yesterday. There were less than a 
     thousand in December.''
       A few days later, Sattler repeated his message while 
     hosting Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in 
     the Persian Gulf region, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
       ``A year ago, we had an insurgency that operated with 
     impunity inside Fallujah,'' Sattler said. But now there's a 
     growing partnership between U.S. troops and Iraqi security 
     forces that he said bodes well for the future.
       Sattler said, ``We get a lot of visitors here, but you 
     haven't visited Iraq if you haven't visited Fallujah.''

                          ____________________