While most mainstream media highlight as truth the erroneous statements of Presidential wannabes about how the Bush Administration is “losing” the war in Iraq, a majority of these so-called “news” sources are also conveniently omitting the positive results piling up in major proportions in Iraq. So here are a few statistics to open the eyes of those who may want to see clearly:

Progress Most Mainstream Media Omit
Sent by YNCS Don Harribine, USN (Ret), NCPOA

President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 2003. Since that time, the following progress has been made:

• The first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
• More than 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
• Almost all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.
• Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
• On October 6, power generation hit 4,518 megawatts - exceeding the pre-war average.
• All 22 Iraqi universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
• By October 1, Coalition forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than their target.
• All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
• Doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
• Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing - to 700 tons in May - to a current total of 12,000 tons.
• The Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s children.
• A Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq’s 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms, creating jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
• We have restored in excess of 75 percent of pre-war telephone services and 67% of the potable water production.
• There are more than 4,900 full-service utilities connections now in use, with an expected 50,000 by January 1, 200.
• The wheels of commerce are turning again. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
• Ninety-five percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily. Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses. The central bank is fully independent.
• Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
• Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
• Satellite dishes for Iraqi citizens are now legal.
• Foreign journalists are no longer on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for “minders” and other government spies. Now they are free to come and go.
• There is no “Ministry of Information.”
• There are more than 170 active newspapers in publication.
• A nation that had not one single element-legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does. In Baghdad alone, residents have selected 88 advisory councils. The first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
• Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
• Twenty-five ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq’s history, run the day-to-day business of government.
• The Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in at least 24 international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and the Islamic Conference Summit.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced reopening of more than 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
• For the first time in 35 years, in Karbala, thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
• The Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
• Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to his zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq’s soccer players for losing games, murdering critics, etc.
• Iraqi children are no longer imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
• Political opponents aren’t imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
• Millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
• Saudis will hold municipal elections.
• Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
• Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
• The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian — a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.

As Commander in Chief of the U.S. Military, President George Bush has made the above possible - either by direct participation or influence. People tend to forget this at times… some conveniently.

These brave young men and women of our Armed Forces, doing a great job, are making it possible to accomplish these happenings in the name of freedom and human decency.