Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
NBC
June 9, 2008
NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now we turn to Iraq, where the U.S. military says it has killed at least five suspected terrorists in an air strike on a house in northern Iraq. And tonight from an area south of the capital city, Baghdad, comes a story about what may be a turning point. While we’ve heard that before in this conflict, this time it’s Iraqis who are saying it, in this case, and some of them are backing it up with real information. NBC’s Jim Maceda is in Baghdad.
LT. CLARK: EOD, this is Lieutenant Clark.
JIM MACEDA: The hotline is busy.
CLARK: All right. No problem. We’ll get a team (spun ?) up.
JIM MACEDA: It’s another weapons cache called in to the EOD, the U.S. Army’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit. This one, 170 explosive primers and blasting caps, enough to set off 170 more IEDs, all destroyed before they could strike.
VOICE ON RADIO: Fire in the hole.
SFC CARLOS MARTINEZ [4th Infantry Division]: So what happens is we find the cache instead of finding it on the road.
JIM MACEDA: The new trend began in January. Some military analysts call it a turning point. As violence drops in Baghdad, finds of weapons and explosives have almost doubled compared to 2007, and most of them have come from tips by Iraqi civilians who increasingly want to cooperate.
Lieutenant Justin Chalko says it’s helped turned Dora, south of Baghdad, a former al Qaeda stronghold, into a bustling town.
LT. JUSTIN CHALKO: Whether it’s a call on a tip line late at night or it’s an individual that flags us down in the street –
JIM MACEDA: Dora’s market is calm. Shiite and Sunni security forces patrol together, And Iraqis, once fearful of intimidation by anyone in uniform, now mix with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the streets.
“We’re more comfortable,” says this man. “Now there’s good cooperation between Iraqis and Americans.”
Even basic services are back. We take them for granted, but banks like these are open again for business for the first time in months.
And Dora’s clinic, nearly shut down last year, now treats hundreds of patients a day. Proof, says Dr. Mohammed Jassim (ph), that Iraqis are believing in their future again.
What do they tell you?
DR. MOHAMMED JASSIM: They are more secure now. They can move more freely. They can act more freely.
JIM MACEDA: And that means these days more calls to the EOD removing those weapons that could end their fragile peace. Jim Maceda, NBC News, Dora.
June 9, 2008
NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now we turn to Iraq, where the U.S. military says it has killed at least five suspected terrorists in an air strike on a house in northern Iraq. And tonight from an area south of the capital city, Baghdad, comes a story about what may be a turning point. While we’ve heard that before in this conflict, this time it’s Iraqis who are saying it, in this case, and some of them are backing it up with real information. NBC’s Jim Maceda is in Baghdad.
LT. CLARK: EOD, this is Lieutenant Clark.
JIM MACEDA: The hotline is busy.
CLARK: All right. No problem. We’ll get a team (spun ?) up.
JIM MACEDA: It’s another weapons cache called in to the EOD, the U.S. Army’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit. This one, 170 explosive primers and blasting caps, enough to set off 170 more IEDs, all destroyed before they could strike.
VOICE ON RADIO: Fire in the hole.
SFC CARLOS MARTINEZ [4th Infantry Division]: So what happens is we find the cache instead of finding it on the road.
JIM MACEDA: The new trend began in January. Some military analysts call it a turning point. As violence drops in Baghdad, finds of weapons and explosives have almost doubled compared to 2007, and most of them have come from tips by Iraqi civilians who increasingly want to cooperate.
Lieutenant Justin Chalko says it’s helped turned Dora, south of Baghdad, a former al Qaeda stronghold, into a bustling town.
LT. JUSTIN CHALKO: Whether it’s a call on a tip line late at night or it’s an individual that flags us down in the street –
JIM MACEDA: Dora’s market is calm. Shiite and Sunni security forces patrol together, And Iraqis, once fearful of intimidation by anyone in uniform, now mix with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the streets.
“We’re more comfortable,” says this man. “Now there’s good cooperation between Iraqis and Americans.”
Even basic services are back. We take them for granted, but banks like these are open again for business for the first time in months.
And Dora’s clinic, nearly shut down last year, now treats hundreds of patients a day. Proof, says Dr. Mohammed Jassim (ph), that Iraqis are believing in their future again.
What do they tell you?
DR. MOHAMMED JASSIM: They are more secure now. They can move more freely. They can act more freely.
JIM MACEDA: And that means these days more calls to the EOD removing those weapons that could end their fragile peace. Jim Maceda, NBC News, Dora.