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Dear Raider Tribe,
The biggest Iraqi Army success to date, the deaths of AQI top two leaders in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri was made possible by Iraqi units we partner with. An Iraqi Army Soldier working a checkpoint recognized a face off a most wanted poster. He and his fellow Soldiers detained the man and from this arrest, IA intelligence officers were able to develop several leads. These leads, coupled with tips from local citizens, lead to the operation south of Tikrit that resulted in the deaths of the AQI leaders. Even more important than that was the discovery of documents, computers, and other materials that have lead to successful operations against AQI commanders in Ninawa, Baghdad, and Anbar, crippling the organization.
To further develop the growing partnership with the Iraqi people, my partner Staff Maj. Gen. Ahmed, the 6th Iraq Army Division Commander has committed to work with the Sheiks of Abu Ghraib. On April 22, he hosted a historic security summit with 70 sheiks representing the 17 tribes of the Abu Ghraib Qa’da. The 17 tribal leaders all signed a document stating that the sheiks and influential leaders would assist the security forces in protecting the people to institute security and eradicate the criminal and terrorist threats. This summit shows commitment by all parties to bring peace to the area and allows for the continuation of the nearly 352 million dollars of economic and government projects in the area from U.S. Army, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and USAID.
These projects have been coordinated through the local governments, Iraqi ministries and tribal leaders to ensure they meet the needs of the people. They have included medical clinic repairs, schools, solar lights, drinking water pumps, sewage treatment plants and business grants. One area that the American agencies will be focusing on heavily over the next few months is agriculture; yes Raiders are now in the farming business. We are now growing opportunity and economic prosperity verses terrorism.
Over the next few remaining months, we plan to spend 3.5 million of the U.S. Army’s dollars and half a million dollars from USAID and the Embassy. The money will help training farmers on new techniques from growing crops in greenhouses, to more efficient irrigation techniques that use half of the amount of water currently used. Demonstration farms will be established to facilitate this training and show local farmers the benefits of these methods. Nearly 200 farmers have been identified to receive greenhouses, seed and fertilizers. Bee keeping classes have been very popular and provide honey to local markets help pollinate the crops of farmers in the area.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate the many Raiders, officers and NCOs recently selected for promotion to next higher grade and who reenlisted for continued service. Each of these selections is significant and indicates the potential and the talent that we have in the brigade. The brigade had 12 officers selected for promotion to Major, 82 first lieutenant’s selected for Captain, 1 CW4 and 2 CW3 selections, 5 NCOs selected for Master Sergeant and 18 selected for Sergeant First Class. Additionally I would also like to highlight that we had several Raiders selected for battalion command, MAJ Sam Fiol our brigade S2, LTC Schmitt 6IA DIV MTT Chief, LTC Watters 22 IA BDE MTT Chief and LTC Nichols on the alternate list. To date, 595 Raiders have reenlisted for continued service to our Nation. Congratulations to all of our Raiders who were selected and reenlisted. Well deserved.
As you know we are beginning to transition to stability operations. Operations Iraqi Freedom will come to an end and this brigade will officially be the last combat unit to depart Iraq. The Commander in Chief has set the benchmark of September 1, there will be less than 50,000 troops in Iraq, advising and assisting the ISF. However, there are a number of factors that still need to happen to make this possible. The Iraqi Government needs to peacefully form and a parliament needs to be seated. This is a political process and not one that we can influence at our level. While this process unfolds, the Raiders will continue on to the objective and advise and mentor our partners until the mission is complete.

Col. John Norris
Commander
4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division

"To The Objective"