The Daily Star December 19, 2005
Iraqi elections show progress, local troops say
Two who recently returned cite better involvement by citizens
By Jake Palmateer
Indications of high voter turnout among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis were no surprise, two area men who served in Iraq in a civil affairs unit of the U.S. Army said Sunday.
"I think they’re all getting tired of what’s going on," Major Brian Perazone Sr. of Roxbury said.
Iraqi and American officials are reporting 70 percent turnout in an election to select a full-term, 275-member parliament.
Perazone and First Sgt. Gregg Pinney of Oneonta are Army reservists based out of Utica. Both work at the Sgt. Henry Johnson Youth Leadership Academy in South Kortright and were deployed in Iraq from September 2004 to June 2005.
Last week’s elections, they said Sunday, are just one indication the hard work and sacrifice of Americans are paying off.
"The country is in better shape than when I got there," Perazone, 47, said.
Army civil affairs units are responsible for trying to win the hearts and minds of the people.
In addition to mitigating civilian interference on the battlefield, civil affairs units assess the needs of the civilian population and help steer resources to them, Perazone said.
While in Iraq, Perazone was attached to the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Brigade and was stationed in the Monsour District of northwest Baghdad.
If 10th Mountain troops conducted a raid or a search for weapons, Perazone’s unit would move in afterwards to catalog any damage so civilians could get reimbursed for things such as broken doors.
"We are their eyes and ears as it regards to the civilian population and how it relates to military operations," Perazone said.
During their tour of duty, Perazone and Pinney, who was stationed at Camp Tagi, 12 miles north of Baghdad, provided support for Iraq’s January election for an interim legislature, which will be replaced by the parliament elected this month.
"The (January) elections, I think, went fairly well," Pinney, 41, said. "People were happy. They were proud that they were able to vote."
Shiites account for 60 percent of the California-sized country’s 27 million people, with the Kurds in the north and Sunni Arabs roughly splitting the remainder of the population.
During the election for the interim legislature, Sunnis won only 17 out of 275 seats even though they make up 20 percent of the population.
Most Sunnis boycotted that election, but officials said they turned out in much larger numbers this time around.
But it’s not just the numbers at the polls that show Iraq is turning a corner, Perazone said.
Infrastructure in the country is steadily improving, he said.
One of the things his civil affairs unit was asked to do was to simply keep track of how long the lights stayed on.
When Perazone’s unit first hit the ground in northwest Baghdad, that section of the city would average about three hours of electricity for every three hours without.
But by the time Alpha Company left at the end of its tour, the lights would be on for five hours, with one hour off, Perazone said.
Water and sewer lines, as well as telephone service, also improved while he was on the ground, Perazone said.
However, he said one of the biggest indications the insurgency may be losing ground is that ordinary Iraqis seem more willing to turn the insurgents in.
Perazone said a telephone hotline was established for Iraqis in the summer of 2004 for them to phone in tips about the insurgency’s activities.
"I know that calls were going up every month," Perazone said.
There were 483 tips on insurgents in March, but by August that number had grown to 3,341, according to a report to Congress authored by Globalsecurity.org, a defense policy think tank.
The Congressional report also said the country has 100 independent newspapers, 72 radio stations and 44 television stations, compared to no independent media outlets before the war.
However, when it comes to the media, Pinney and Perazone said it is the United States that may be lacking.
Both men said the media’s reporting on the war in Iraq has been flawed.
"I think they like to report all of the negative stuff that’s going on," Pinney said. "They’re not showing any of the rebuilding. I think the American public needs to know the soldiers there are doing a good job."
Perazone said most reporters in Iraq covered the war from the safety of the Green Zone.
Seeing reporters in the field with the troops was the "exception," he said, and even then they did not care about how the reconstruction efforts were going.
"They were looking for the big story," Perazone said.
However, Perazone and Pinney agreed that the insurgency still has legs.
Since the invasion began, at least 2,155 Americans have been killed and another 16,061 have been injured. Iraqi civilian casualty figures range from President Bush’s figure last week of 30,000 to more than 100,000.
"I don’t think it’s really let up any," Pinney said. "It’s very easy for them to get their 2.5 (Americans killed-in-action) a day."
Both men said they were lucky not to have any casualties in their units despite small arms, rocket and mortar fire, as well as roadside bombs, that became a "normal" part of their lives.
It’s the Iraqis, though, who are feeling the brunt of the insurgency’s tactics, both men said.
"They kill far more Iraqis than they kill Americans," Perazone said.
Pinney said he wants the rest of the country to know that American soldiers are making a difference and that Iraq is improving.
"They need to be patient and understand how long our country got going," Pinney said. "It took us a long time when we had our revolution here to get things started."
© Copyright 2005, Daily Star is a division of Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. , The Dow Jones Community Newspaper Group.
