Fallujah Reconstruction Funds Await Restored Security
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 26, 2004 -- Millions of dollars in reconstruction projects
are available for Fallujah once security is re-established in the troubled
Iraqi city, a Combined Joint Task Force 7 news release reported today.
Marines in Fallujah met with the city's mayor and awarded contracts to move
humanitarian assistance supplies throughout the city. Several hundred tools
were stored at the Fallujah Liaison Team building - including shovels, picks
and wheelbarrows - which will be used for future street-clearing and debris
removal projects, the news release said.
A Marine government support team also signed a contract April 25 for an initial
$6,400 payment to the Al-Yam publishing company for adult literacy program
textbooks. The new textbooks will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of
teaching programs geared toward adults, officials said in the news release.
The task force also reported that Marines in Ramadi checked on the progress of
three of their street improvement projects today. Improvements to road
conditions in the city now allow easier travel and eliminate raw sewage from
running into the street, the news release said, and several similar projects
there are still ongoing.
A new class of 88 Iraqi police officers graduated recently from the Ramadi
Police Academy, the news release reported. The new Iraqi police were trained in
handcuffing procedures, first aid, communications, building clearing techniques
and weapons training, officials said, and graduates were issued uniforms,
flashlights and pistols.
"It's an honor for us to become policemen and to help make peace for our people
and their property," said Iraqi Police Lt. Col. Rafea Muhmoud Mustafa, the
class's honor graduate.
Marines visited police in Karabilah April 25 to deliver helmets and hydration
systems, the task force reported. Marines and Iraqi police there conducted
joint patrols on the first day of work for another recently graduated class of
Iraqi police.
Another CJTF 7 news release reported more than $300,000 will be pumped into
eastern Baghdad neighborhoods, as a variety of coalition civil affairs projects
get under way. The projects include trash and debris removal, publication of an
English and Arabic newspaper, and renovations of a middle school said Army
Capt. Brian Donnelly, a civil affairs adviser for units in eastern Baghdad.
These projects will continue, he said, and as more money begins to stabilize
the economy, more projects will be turned over to the Iraqi people.
Improvements to marketplaces and other business areas are planned, he said.
Modernization of Iraqi municipal systems, such as sewage and roadways, also is
a priority for civil affairs, Donnelly said.
"We continually assess the needs of the Iraqi people through the neighborhood
advisory councils and work to match their needs with available local
resources," he said. "There is an abundant supply of quality labor. The
majority of our projects are designed to employ that work force. It allows
Iraqis to make Iraq better for themselves, and gives them pride in their
accomplishments."
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