Civilian Contractor Reveals the "Bad News In Iraq"

Don't go away mad... and DEFINITELY don't go away! This post is not what you think it is. It is a very well-written piece, albeit titled a bit sarcasticly. It's time someone who really knows about what's going on "over there," tells someone in the MSM (once again) just exactly what IS the "bad news" in Iraq.

(Reprint permission received by letter's author, Mike Barrett, on 10/14/05 - photos added from defendamerica.mil)


Bad News In Iraq

Subject: Bad News In Iraq

To: Mr David Brown, Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW dbrown@tribweb.com

I spent 20 months in Iraq, from December of 2003 until August of 2005, as a civilian security contractor. We guarded huge convoys of bombs, artillery shells, mortar rounds, rockets, tank rounds, missiles and the whole range of the weapons and ammunition that was in the possession of Saddam in the more than 120 Ammunition Supply Points located throughout Iraq. We provided this security for USA Environmental, an EOD contractor operating under the Corps of Engineers. Sometimes these convoys would include as much as 30 16 wheeler flatbed trucks loaded with about 20 tons apiece. These shipments of bombs and weapons ammunition would reach as much as a mile in length and would travel only as fast as the slowest flatbed in the convoy, often only about 40 MPH. They were slow moving big fat targets. We never lost a bomb. Nor did we lose any of our protectees, the men and women who would gather up these shipments and blow them up inside other ASPs which we would secure 24/7.

We never had the help of any US military formation or unit. We guarded our posts ourselves and even served, in some cases, as sergeant of the guard to Iraqi National Guard units based on or near the ASPs. Nobody supplied us with a single round of ammunition for the M 16s, M4s and SAW machines guns we used on this job. We scrounged all our resources and ammunition from friendly US armories.

I served in almost every part of Iraq to include the Mosul area, Baghdad, Falluja and Baji. I have been ambushed near the Iranian border and along MSR One Tampa near Baji and Taji and also in central Baghdad and have transported high explosives and personnel of the US Army and Marine Corps to the Syrian border regions. I have been in convoys attacked with IEDs as well as the follow up small arms fire. I have been in a convoy formation that came to the aid of a formation of 3 US Army Humvees which were under attack, one Humvee destroyed and a poor soldier boy laying dead in the middle of the road.

I say all of this to you to present my bona fides, shall we say, as one who has traveled all across Iraq and watched, from the up-armoured side door of my Ford F-350 pickup truck, the tremendous change that took place in the nearly two years I was there along these routes. Housing starts are the incredible thing. So many hundreds of new or remodeled homes. And then there are the schools and the heretofore unusual scence of an actual school bus picking up and transporting children. You should see how eagerly these children embrace the opportunity to learn.

There are so many Iraqis eager to embrace economic opportunity as well. One man from the town of Ha' tra, south of Mosul, supplied a small fleet of flatbeds for the support of an ASP near that place. The bad guys kidnapped one of his sons and told him that if he continued to work for the Americans they would kill him. He replied "I have many sons". They did indeed kill his son but this old man continued to supply trucks and drivers for the efforts of the EOD operations in the area.

Another Iraq opened what we would call "a hadji shop" which he named "7-11" and put up a huge sign in front just like the ones in the USA. His name is Makmoud and he served as a Colonel in the Iraqi Air Force under Saddam. He worked as a translator for the US Army as well. Makmoud, like thousands of other Iraqis, used this money to improve his house in Mosul.

It was my experience that for every "insurgent" (which we merely called murderers, rapists, blackmailers, kidnappers and strong arm bandits) there are 100 other men who work hard, keep the peace and raise their families with the hope of a better future now clearly within their grasp. But they do live in fear and this cannot be denied. However, they are willing to pitch in and often help in identifying these "insurgents" in their midst and their sons who serve in the Iraqi Army are also eager to do battle with the "insurgents" which threaten their homes and families.

Anyway just thought I'd write and add my voice to those who are mystified by the coverage I see on the news broadcasts in the USA.

Mike Barrett

Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Guys, I gotta ask this, even though it's a rhetorical question. Why DON'T we see reports like this in the MSM? Oh yeah, that's right.. if it makes Bush look good, it's not "news." I will say this, though. It's stories like Mike's that are driving the viewing masses to write their local news affiliates about why they're not hearing stories in the news that match what they're hearing from their loved ones & friends who are return from the battlefields of the Middle East.

Thank you, Mike, for allowing me to post your letter... (and thanks, Viper, for bringing it to my attention).

MsUnderestimated

PoliticalTeen has link.

Stop the ACLU also has it.