Governor Perdue Visiting Troops in Iraq

Governor Sonny Perdue and three other governors are visiting American soldiers serving in Iraq today (November 10), as Veteran’s Day approaches this week. Governor Perdue is in Iraq as part of a delegation with Governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming and Ted Kulongoski of Oregon.

“I am very encouraged with the progress that has been made in Iraq,” Governor Perdue said. “I have been able to visit troops from across Georgia and it is clear that the strength and courage of our soldiers have made a real difference here.”

The governors were able to attend a cookout today in Iraq with soldiers from each of their states.

“I am especially honored to be with our soldiers as we all prepare for Veteran’s Day tomorrow,” Governor Perdue added. “I encourage all Georgians to do all they can to show our veterans how much we appreciate their service and commitment to our great country.”

On Monday, the governors received a briefing in Washington D.C. by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials. They also visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center to meet with wounded soldiers.

Governor Perdue last visited Iraq in November 2005. On that trip, he also visited Qatar, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

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Iraq War Correspondent to Present UGA’s 30th McGill Lecture October 15

A young woman who’s been dragged from her room by police and pinned down by gunfire in a shrine will present the 30th annual McGill Lecture at the University of Georgia.

Reporter Hannah Allam, Middle East Bureau Chief for McClatchy Newspapers, will speak on “Bullets, Budget Cuts, and Why We Must Preserve Foreign Reporting” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct.15, in Room 102 of UGA’s Miller Learning Center.

Sponsored by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the lecture is free and open to the public. A reception follows the lecture.

Allam was just 25 years old when Knight Ridder, later acquired by McClatchy, asked her to become its Baghdad Bureau Chief after the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Over the next two years, Allam and her 16-member staff became what one observer called “a major force for Iraq War coverage.”

A profile of Allam in Editor & Publisher described her tenure in Baghdad this way: “In the 18 months since her first Iraq assignment, Allam has been dragged from her room in the middle of the night by Najaf police, spent a night under attack in a shrine, and scored the first Western interview with a major insurgent leader.” E&P senior editor Joe Strupp noted, “Three of her closest Iraqi friends have been killed in the past year, and she had to help her translator escape Iraq after three members of the woman’s family were executed.”

In 2006, the Overseas Press Club honored Allam and two of her Baghdad Bureau colleagues with the coveted Hal Boyle Award for the best newspaper reporting from abroad for “Iraq: America’s Failing War.” The judging committee said the team was “way ahead of other news organizations in recognizing that the deadly infighting between Shiites and Sunnis could turn into civil war.”

One of those colleagues was University of Georgia and Grady College journalism alumnus Tom Lasseter (ABJ ’99), who now works as McClatchy’s correspondent in Moscow.

Allam was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2004. She is on leave this year from McClatchy to study as a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.

The Middle East is familiar territory for Allam. The daughter of an Egyptian father and American mother, Allam was born in Oklahoma, but schooled in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The family returned to Oklahoma in time for Allam to graduate from a public high school and enroll at the University of Oklahoma, where she majored in journalism and was editor of the student newspaper.

Fluent in English, French and Arabic, Allam interned for the Washington Post, then joined the reporting staff of the St. Paul Pioneer Press from which she was recruited to assist with, and later lead, coverage of the Iraq War.

For nearly 30 years, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to honor Ralph McGill’s courage as an editor.

McGill, while editor and publisher of The Atlanta Constitution, was regarded as the “conscience of the South,” using the newspaper’s editorial pages to challenge segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. McGill was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1958 for “long, courageous and effective leadership.”

Established in 1978, the annual lecture series addresses major issues impacting the American press.

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Timeline for Iraq Drawdown Would Be Dangerous, Mullen Says

Setting a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq would be "dangerous," and troop reductions there should continue to be made based on security conditions on the ground, the nation's top military officer said today.

President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week agreed to set a general "time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday," but he added that to his knowledge, the agreement does not include specific dates. "I think the consequences could be very dangerous in that regard," he said.

The admiral stressed his view that troop-strength decisions must be conditions-based, but said he wants to see more U.S. forces come home. "I think the strategic goals of having timed horizons are ones that we all seek," he said, "because eventually we would like to see U.S. forces draw down and eventually all come home," he said.

Though he said he worries that a "rapid" movement of U.S. forces out of Iraq could create instability, Mullen said he found during a trip there two weeks ago that security conditions were better than he expected they would be, and that could mean more troops can come home if the trend continues.

"If conditions continue to improve, I would look to be able to make recommendations to President Bush in the fall to continue those reductions," Mullen said.

With the return home this month of the last "surge" brigade, commanders will spend the next several weeks assessing post-surge conditions in Iraq, including political and economic progress, before making their recommendations concerning future troop levels.

"We're engaged very much right now with the Iraqi people," Mullen said. "The Iraqi leadership is starting to generate the kind of political progress that we need to make, [and] the economy is starting to move in the right direction."

The admiral said he doesn't know if that means more troops could be home by the end of this administration in January. Logistics and other security details would factor into that, he explained.

"There is a physical challenge with respect to moving troops around," he said. "You just can't do it overnight."

Asked about recent struggles in Afghanistan, Mullen said safe havens across the border in Pakistan are allowing extremist groups free movement into the region.

"[It] is big challenge for all of us, and it's having an impact on our ability to move forward in Afghanistan," he said.

A "syndication" of various extremist and terrorist groups in the region is creating a more intense internal threat, the chairman said, and recent attacks have become more serious and sophisticated, such as the attack last week on an outpost in which nine U.S. soldiers were killed. However, he said, commanders on the ground say that forces are making progress and moving into villages and territories previously out of reach.

Mullen acknowledged that progress has been mixed, but he said he is "not concerned at all that we are losing at all in Afghanistan."

Concerning Iran, Mullen said he is "encouraged" by talks between Iran and the European Union yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, and that the international community needs to continue its pressure on Iran's nuclear weapons development program.

"I fundamentally believe that they are on a path to achieve nuclear weapons in the future," he said. "I think that's a very destabilizing possibility in that part of the world. We don't need any more instability in that part of the world."

By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

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