Apr 27th, 2004, 09:15 PM
Thanks to the war....
.. the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on
active duty.
.. over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
.. nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
.. the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
.. on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
.. all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are
open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
.. by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools -
500 more than scheduled.
.. teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
.. 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 vaccinations to Iraq's children.
.. a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's
27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of
thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than
100,000 Iraqi men and women.
.. we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services
and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
.. there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect
50,000 by year-end.
.. the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite
dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major
cities and towns.
.. 95 percent of all prewar 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 worlds most growth-oriented investment and
banking laws.
.. Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
.. satellite TV dishes are legal.
.. foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and
extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and
other government spies.
.. there is no Ministry of Information.
.. there are more than 170 newspapers.
.. you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street
corner.
.. foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
.. 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.
..Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened
when the city council elected its new chairman.
.. today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and
professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the
country.
.. 25 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 over two
dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General
Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the
Islamic Conference Summit.
..the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening
over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
.. Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
.. 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
the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force
cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or
murdering critics.
.. children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree
with the government.
.. political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed,
or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
.. millions of long suffering 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.
.. Saddam is gone.
.. Iraq is free.
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