Soldier says Iraq a place of great progress

With the marking of Iraqi Liberation Day today, three years have passed since the end of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, and on April 9, clapping Iraqi citizens were shown in a Journal photo as a giant statue of Hussein was toppled in downtown Baghdad.

A Little Rock, Iowa, native now studying law at the University of South Dakota, Joel Arends, 29, is a member of the Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission organization. "I do remember that moment," Arends said, "seeing the statue come down, and I remember the Iraqis putting up a brand new Iraq flag up there. Something amazing had occurred because of the heroic efforts of American service men and women."

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission was formed by former Iowa Republican Party chairman Chuck Larson, who also was a major serving in Iraq, to honor fallen soldiers and to ensure that the good news of troop accomplishments in Iraq makes it to the media. "I have a pretty unwavering obligation to go out and speak on college campuses, high schools and local organizations," Arends said.

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission ties together Gold Star families who have lost soldiers in the war, Blue Star families with relatives now deployed and returning veterans like Arends.

Arends enlisted in the National Guard at age 17, and served in Iraq with the Arkansas National Guard from February 2004 to April 2005. He left his USD law school studies with the deployment, and is now back at school, just eight months from his degree.

In Iraq, Arends was part of the 1st Cavalry Division, and "essentially we were terrorist hunters" in Baghdad, he explained. "We lost several soldiers due to car bombs," Arends said.

When the division was first conducting street patrols, he said usually only one or two out of 10 tips from the Iraqis turned up insurgents. But after the young American troops gained the trust of the locals and won "their hearts and minds," Arends said, "six out of 10 tips were leading us to terrorists." He said because American soldiers "were able to find terrorists and leaders of terrorists, and got them out of the way, we opened up a major thoroughfare" in Iraq, a mile-long artery that is now one of the busiest roads in Baghdad.

Among the other "successes we are achieving in Iraq and Afghanistan that you normally don't hear through the national media," he said, are democratic elections, more infrastructure, 3,000 schools remodeled and Iraqis taking back their country.

"Three successful elections occurred in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, each time more and more people voted. What you saw was 50 million Arab people liberated from tyrannical regimes," he said.

With some describing a breakout of civil war in Iraq in 2006, an estimated 3,010 Iraqi security forces and civilian deaths have occurred since Jan. 1, including 1,100 in March. The U.S. still has the strongest coalition presence, and more than 2,300 Americans have died fighting in Iraq during 37 months.

Arends, who unsuccesfully ran for the Iowa Senate while living in Sioux City in 2000, said, "14 out of 18 provinces are considered relatively peaceful. The violence over there is more and more contained and more localized."

An AP-Ipsos poll of Friday showed the war in Iraq has pulled President Bush's popularity to a new low of 36 percent. Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, also a new low for his presidency on that question, and down from 9 points a year ago.

Arends said "the American public is influenced by what they see in the national media," which is different than "what returning soldiers like myself are saying." Arends contended "America's security shouldn't be left up to opinion polls. We know where the terrorists are and we are going after them. ... This is the right fight."

Listen to the Talk Show America 4/19/2006 Podcast on this subject here >>>