Mark Kennedy: “Our soldiers are doing a fabulous job. They are rightly proud of the great work they are doing, and they are not alone.…”

“Our soldiers are doing a fabulous job. They are rightly proud of the great work they are doing, and they are not alone. We have long known that the British have had a region of the country around Basra. But while we were there, down in Babylon, also in southern Iraq, they were preparing to turn that region over from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which came in with the initial assault, and turn that over to a Polish-led division, and that has happened. The Spanish are helping them, and just recently this week the remaining portion around Nasref was handed over to the Spanish, which was with that Polish division. So two of the six regions of the country are already being administered by our allies, by a group of almost 30 countries that are providing 20, 25,000 troops; but the gentleman is absolutely correct. The solution here is to have Iraqis protecting Iraqis, and while we were in Baghdad we met with the police academy; and Bernie Kerik, the former police commissioner from the city of New York City, is there on the ground in charge of helping to train these Iraqis.”