Rebuilding Iraq

Soldiers are doing more in Iraq than keeping roads safe and fighting off Insurgents Part of making the country more peaceful is rebuilding Iraq from the ground up Donnell Preskey joins us with more Donnell You can rebuild a house a business but how do you rebuild a way of life That s the challenging part And North Dakota soldiers are helping Iraqi s do just that Sewage knee deep in streets no electricity and water too contaminated to drink That was then in Iraq this is now Dale Adams mission is to do reconstruction throughout country of Iraq Not because of damage done from the war necessarily but because of the neglected infrastructure under Sudams regime 45 North Dakota National Guard soldiers are under the U S Army Corps of Engineers They re split up around Iraq rebuilding the country Installing new sewer systems water treatment plants and electricity Adams Today 80 of all iraqi s have more electricity than when the war started Moszer A lot of missions i dealt with were school refurbishment Which was very fulfilling mission You could get school open kids off the street getting a quality education Iraqi s are also getting needed health care Soldiers have rebuilt 142 clinics nationwide Adams Designed to accommodate only 100 patients a day those that are open to the public are seeing more than 350 patients a day They ve built courthouses and witness protection facilities so a justice system can return to Iraq Adams The reconstruction mission is more than bricks and motar - what really doing is helping them establish a governance learning how to function as government that people respect and is pure of wrong doing That means getting Iraqi s involved showing them how to do the work and how to run their city and country Iraqi s are partners on many of the projects Getting them off the streets and giving them a paid job means they are less likely to take money to help insurgents Adams If want to have Iraqi s embrace democracy and learn that our way of life is a better way of life then the way you do that is to give them benefits of our democracy and competitive business environment You can t just tell them you have to show them Give them a jump start Since 2003 The U S Army Corp of Engineers has completed over fourteen thousand projects The U S has spent Billions of dollars for the work Spending that much somewhere else draws criticism Colonel Adams fires back with this Adams What s a better alternative you can t just disrupt a country and leave on own without assistance While Iraqi s can see the change going on not everyone wants the U S there They fight insurgents at the same time they reconstruct the country JP Folks have asked me since I ve been home Do the Iraqi people appreciate us They do And for soldiers like Moszer the appreciation and gratitude makes the job of rebuilding the country important JP Interesting to see that kid - 5-8 years and see that kid who s gone to the school we reconstructed drinking potable water and has electrical power and see what he thinks of us Donnell When will soldiers be finished rebuilding Iraq Col Adams says there s no timeline but he says withdrawal has to be conditions based not time bound He says we need to make sure the investment we ve made whether it s money or soldiers who ve been our wounded or killed is not for nothing Another interesting point when soldiers first started rebuilding in Iraq over 90 percent of the contractors were large international firms they weren t using Iraqi labor 4 years later 80-90 percent of all the contract work is being done by Iraqi s Tomorrow night one soldier from the 34th infantry division has returned home to work on rebuilding himself after being injured in Iraq Donnell has his story