Debunk this chain letter please

[lyrical di]

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing)

-Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
-Over 400,000 kids have up to date immunizations.
-Over 1500 schools have been renovated and ridded of the weapons that were stored there so education can occur.
-The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off loaded from ships faster.
-School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
-The country had it's first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
-The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.
-100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed compared to 35% before the war.
-Elections are taking place in every major city and city councils are in place.
-Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
-Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
-Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
-Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.
-Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
-Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
-An interim constitution has been signed.
-Girls are allowed to attend school for the first time ever in Iraq.
-Text books that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many many people from Iraq that want us there and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. So If you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion

[SoCalDem]

1. Just delete crap like that

:)

[dpibel]

7. But wait! I've seen the light!!!

All I needed was to read the real true truth one time, and the scales have fallen from my eyes!

It's just like finding a Jack Chick tract in a phone booth.

Praise!!

[lyrical di]

2. further info

Besides getting it in emails, I have seen it here:
http://www.idgop.org/news.asp?PID=611

Additional info on one of the emails:
To verify authenticity, I was able locate this unit after first calling Information for National Guard unit in Denison. Young gentlemen there told me the 234th Signal Battalion was in Cedar Rapids, IA. With another information number [phone], I talked to a Specialist Martin who confirmed that Reynolds had been home on two week leave and recently was redeployed back to Iraq. So all does check out, though I don't know how
Denison got in the picture. Denison struck me at first because growing up in eastern Nebraska, we used to drive though Denison to go fishing in Minnesota in the summer time.

http://cgibin.rcn.com/fillmore.dnai/cgi-bin/forum.pl?read=7477
http://cgibin.rcn.com/fillmore.dnai/cgi-bin/forum.pl?read=7479
http://www.command-post.org/oped/2_archives/011853.html

My head is spinning....
How can I email back with facts?

[TN al]

10. I think you may have left something unclear...

...I have received the same email and the authenticity verification is in the e-mail. To me and perhaps others it seems like you have authenticated it with a phone call. I repeat authentication was claimed by the stinking liar who wrote the e-mail not by lyrical di who needs this debunked.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Change all the numbers to something depressing and forward it.

LOL!

[teach1st]

4. Empire Notes 4/24

http://www.empirenotes.org/

Scroll down some..

"Of course, anyone can have fun with this. Girls could, of course, attend school in Iraq before the war (the person who sent this to me knew this one and must have removed the "for the first time" part -- or someone in the chain that sent it to him did). Every major city in Iraq had sewer and water lines before the war -- as does every major city. Iraqis knew how to wash their hands before the Americans came. Some of them even knew how to do brain surgery, which requires extensive hand-washing. Telephones were working before the war; now, many aren't. There's no way a soldier could know of his own knowledge that "100%" of hospitals in the whole country are fully staffed and open, or that 35% were before. Either he made it up or someone fed it to him. In any case, I imagine that thd 35% is not even close to being accurate -- if anything, it's more likely that hospitals are closed now, because of security problems or deliberate actions by the coalition. Plenty of kids had up-to-date immunizations under Saddam. An Iraqi history textbook that doesn't mention Saddam is leaving out a hell of a lot. RTI, the North Carolina company that is bringing "democracy" to Iraq, often prefers to appoint councils rather than having them elected. And so on. "

[lyrical di]

5. not my choice

Don't think for a second that I want to spend my Saturday on Idaho Republican sites. Gag! I need to go take a bath after that experience. I am hoping that someone else has already debunked so I can feel clean again.

[nostamj]

6. one lie

Girls are allowed to attend school for the first time ever in Iraq.

that's a flat out lie. Iraq was secular. this was true of Afghanistan, not Iraq.

it's all garbage though.

[DarkPhenyx]

8. Textbooks don't mention Saddam?

Are we practicing revisionist history in Iraq?

[SoCalDem]

9. and one more thing

[BlueEyedSon]

11. OK, just to cherry-pick:

-100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed compared to 35% before the war.

I recently saw some footage of an Iraq hospital on TV, it was disgusting. Depending on what I was suffering with, I'd almost rather take my chances at home. I'll bet that the hospitals that are open and functional are packed with casualties of OUR making.

-Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

If thats true, it's because they were bit BEFORE we got there. There hasn't been time for that kind of civil works project for a country of 25 million.

-The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

Yeah, the locals are using the same as before and the profligate foreigners (the CPA and Coalition forces) at under 200k persons are using the rest.

Anyway, verifying the existence and identity of the alleged letter-writer does nothing to validate his claims. Did he VISIT every hospital and school? Or did someone TELL him these things?

Did they capture all the al Queda operatives who were pals with Saddam? Did they destroy all the WMDs? CAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE PAID $200 BILLION TO SEND THEM THERE FOR. MISSION NOT FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED, thank you very much!

[Ilsa]

12. Girls have been going to school in Iraq for ages.

They attend college, they are doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. Saddam even had a woman scientist in his "cabinet". This freeper must be thinking about Afghanistan.

I think the point should be made that these people were under sanctions that prevented them from getting the medical equipment they need since 1991.

But primarily, none of these things was the reason given for going to war. Soldiers didn't go to Even Paul Wolfowicz stated on MTP that humanitarian reasons might not be good enough for spilling American blood on Iraqi soil.

I don't think the line about removing Saddam from the textbooks is right, either, especially since ruled there for several decades. What do the textbooks do, lie about who was in charge all those years?

I thought Iraq had been selling oil to other countries during the last decade.

[northzax]

13. hmm,well I'm bored.

-Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq. <what about the other 25 million people? do they get clean drinking water? or did they already have it. over ten million Americans don't have access to decent drinking water, either>
-Over 400,000 kids have up to date immunizations. <nice of us, I guess, what were the immunization numbers before the war? I don't recall the WHO complaining then.>
-Over 1500 schools have been renovated and ridded of the weapons that were stored there so education can occur. <ridded? you work in a signal battalion? nice. did you know that in 1990, before the US sanctions, Iraq had the highest literacy rates (next to Israel) in the middle east? twelve years of making people choose between education and food makes for a problem>
-The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off loaded from ships faster. <data? por favor? >
-School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war. <data? c'mon, really? kids are going to school in Fallujah this week? c'mon now. I repeat that Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the region. I'm sure attendance has increased from during the war, or the months when the country was preparing for an invasion, but really, get some decent statistics>
-The country had it's first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August. <great. of course, for the past decade, they weren't allowed to export oil, so it's easy to set records. Kinda like holding a franchise record for an expansion team, nice, but not like setting a record for the Yankees.>
-The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war. <bullshit. plain and total bullshit. most electrical capacitywas destroyed during the war. a year later, rolling blackouts hit Baghdad. you are simply lying here.>
-100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed compared to 35% before the war. <bullshit. does this 100% include ALL hospitals in the country? every single building ever constructed to be a hospital? were there really abandonded hospitals in Iraq that are now open? we took emppty buildings (indlucing the ones hit by colatoral damage during the war, and made them into completely functional, staffed hospitals? with what doctors and nurses, the ones put out by the closed iraqi schools?>
-Elections are taking place in every major city and city councils are in place. <There were city councils in place before the war. most of the candidates were hand slected by the CPA and ran unnopposed. Hey, Saddam ran unopposed too!>
-Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city. <wow, in acouple of months we built a complete sewer system in all of Iraq? why here in Washington, they are on a twenty year plan to reconstruct the sewer system, but now I hear that the Army can do a country the size of California in SIX MONTHS! Wow. oh, you mean there was a sewer system in place before the war? oh.>
-Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets. <except they won't arrest anyone.>
-Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country. <except they won't fight other Iraqis>
-Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.c <ditto on the not fighting other iraqis.>
-Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever. <uh, Iraq had a completly functioning telephone system, including mobile systems, before the war.
-Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs. <ahh, how nice, we're teaching the savages how to wash their hands. What's next, how to wipe their asses?>
-An interim constitution has been signed. <and every single member of that committee will be removed from power by the US in the next two months. great job, guys!>
-Girls are allowed to attend school for the first time ever in Iraq. <this is just wrong. sorry>
-Text books that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years. <textbooks that don't mention the person who ran the country for thirty years! Do they all stop at 1968, or what?>

ok, I feel better now.

[BlueEyedSon]

14. Ok here's what Snopes has to say:

Claim: Message chroncles accomplishments in Iraq since end of major combat phase.

Status: Incomplete.

Example:

<letter omitted, but you can imagine it>

Origins: This item appears to have originated with a Coalition Provisional Authority briefing given by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. Presidential Envoy to Iraq (the highest-ranking U.S. civilian official in Iraq) on 9 October 2003. Some of the accomplishments cited in this piece were echoed in an 8 December 2003 Forbes magazine article by Caspar W. Weinberger, who served as Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration.

An Iraqi citizen whose response to this piece was published on the Voices in the Wilderness web site maintains that some of the information presented is true, but much of it is inaccurate or misleading.

Last updated: 10 January 2004

Link: http://www.snopes.om/pcolitics/war/combatend.asp

Snopes links to this piece: http://vitw.us/weblog/archives/000485.html#more

Just to reiterate my earlier sentiment, it would have been better to spend that money and effort at home. Are schools, hospitals, the power grid everything they could be in the US? Why are we nation building overseas? We should have finished the job in Afghanistan first if anything. Afghanistan will contine to be a failed state and breeding ground for the bad guys.

[Skittles]

15. SEND THEM THIS

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0423/p09s01-coop.html

[Devils Advocate NZ]

16. Here is one lie in that email debunked:

-Girls are allowed to attend school for the first time ever in Iraq.

This is such a blatant pile of shit that it only took a minute to utterly disprove it:

Reviving girl’s education

Rehabilitating schools and procuring supplies are both important, but these are not the only obstacles facing children who seek an education. Attending school has been especially difficult for Iraqi girls.

Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, 92 per cent of girls attended school, but by the start of the latest conflict in the country, attendance had dropped to 68 per cent.
http://www.unicef.org/emerg/iraq/index_helping_children_families.html

If there is ONE lie, they are probably ALL lies.

[papau]

17. Some parts appear likely to be true - a classic GOP/US MEDIA partial truth

I believe Bush41 stopped chlorine shipments to Iraq causing over 500,000 (based on increased death rate) children's deaths. So the saying that the 30 million population now has Over 4.5 million people who have have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq is a ... shall we say ... not the whole story.

Since we ran Iraq for the past year, I guess we can take credit for the usual yearly shots - although 400,000 kids getting a shot in a population of 30 million seems low.

Give the number of schools we destroyed, having 1500 schools back in action with the damage we caused repaired is a good thing - and indeed removing the excess weapons in Iraq that were stored in various locations was a good thing - too bad we are re-supplying weapons to 200,000 police who every few months "lose" them via selling them or via the 40% who quit and take those weapons - it seems likely there are more weapons in Iraq than ever - but they are new and are made in America - or at least by American corporations who outsources the work to China and India.

Again it is true that the port of Uhm Qasar was renovated - mainly to get water and food in after we had destroyed the capacity of the harbor to handle the need - a need we cause by taking out a bit of the water infrastructure.

A partial truth is that the School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war - of course that reflects school closings just before the war as folks waited for the bombs.

Another partial truth is the "first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August" which could not be sustained at that time and indeed a large part of the pull was put back in the ground - and we imported oil and oil products into Iraq.

And yet another partial truth is the that the country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war - seems we fixed war damage and put in new electrical in areas outside Sunni/Baghdad areas - but since even in Sunni/Baghdad areas the electrical is back to the inadequate levels they had pre-war - this one is more truth than lie.

Now 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed compared to 35% before the war is a flat out lie on many levels.

And another lie is the Elections are taking place in every major city and city councils are in place - but there have been some elections and some councils set up.

To say "Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city" is to both claim credit for work done before we got there, and to raise the question of "what is a major city".

The next part is actually an understatement - the truth is that 400,000 former police have been replaced by 200,000 - not just 160,000 - as implied by "Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets...Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country". Sadly our experience has been that when we confront bad folks, 10% JOIN the bad folks and fight us!!!!! - and of course there is that 40% drop out rate.

I do not know that we really graduated in our 30 day course not open to Sunni's in the former government 80,000 soldiers -"Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers" seems high, and the patrolling side by side we know is a lie.

But why doubt that cell phone sales may have reached 400,000 - although the "for the first time" is silly - and we have put in no new land lines.

Thank God we have taught the Iraqi folks to do hand washing - what can I say!

And the 25 folks that we more or less brought in and paid for did indeed sign an interim constitution - and it actually is a good compromise document - but I wonder if it will prevent a second Iran in Iraq - run by the US hating mullahs?

A lie - amusing because the writer confuses Afghanistan with Iraq - is of course the "Girls are allowed to attend school for the first time ever in Iraq" - but the statement makes one cry for the Afghanistan girls who have begun to commit suicide as womens rights are ended and the beatings and the ending of school for women again becomes the norm.

And Finally - A TOTAL TRUTH - -Text books that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years - worth using war and death and destruction instead of UN inspections - inspections that appear to have removed all WMD before the war - and economic sanctions - which again had Saddam in a vice - to achieve change.

[JHB]

18. Speaking of the way things are portrayed...

- Number of WMDs found: none
- Number of ties to the 9/11 attacks found: none
- Accuracy of reasons given for why war was necessary: none
- Administration predictions of post-invasion conditions which have proven accurate: none