Iowan says things are getting better in Baghdad

An Iowa soldier who’s serving in Baghdad says things in the city are better than what’s portrayed in the American media. Sergeant Ray Reynolds, an Iowa Army National Guardsman from Denison, says lately, the days have been pretty quiet.Reynolds says it’s been “really boring.” During November, things were a bit tense, but now he’s feeling “pretty fortunate” because things have been pretty quiet for a month. Reynolds says Baghdad is slowly being rebuilt and modernized. Reynolds says Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed many things on the way out because “they wanted us to fail.” Reynolds says electric and water supplies had been “cobbled together.” Reynolds says Americans are rebuilding the sewer system; all the nation’s hospitals are open, 15-hundred schools have been renovated; and the people of Baghdad are drinking clean water for the first time. Reynolds says the progress in Iraq is “probably one of the best kept secrets around.”