Frederica Freyberg:
And this week marks the formal withdrawal from the troops from Iraq cities. Wisconsin National Guard has 3200 members in Iraq at seven locations. They are providing base security, guarding detainees, training prison guards and providing other supports. For more on the troop pull-back and what it means for the 32nd, we are joined by Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs Officer, Lt. Col. Tim Donovan in Iraq with the brigade. And Colonel, thank you for joining us from Baghdad.

Tim Donovan:
It's our pleasure, nice to be on again.

Frederica Freyberg:
What have you seen and what have our soldiers seen in the midst of the U.S. troop pull-back?

Tim Donovan:
Pull-back of combat forces from the cities will not have much direct effect on Wisconsin
National Guard troops here in Iraq. None of our troops are combat forces operating in cities. We do have some troops involved in base defense, for example, at some of the forward operating bases but these are well outside the cities. Here in Baghdad, which obviously is a city, we are involved with the Iraqi security forces. Our job in the international zone is to administer the IZ provide security for the IZ, and as such, we deal with the Iraqi security forces every day, but we are not combat forces so we are not directly involved.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the mood amongst our troops serving with the withdrawal from the cities. Are you on higher alert for potential insurgency?

Tim Donovan:
I think the mood is hopeful. We are hopeful, the people of Iraq are hopeful this will all work. Our troops are all contributing in some large ways and some small ways, but every single one of our 3200 plus Wisconsin National Guard troops is part of this effort. And we are all hoping that it's successful. But no, we are not on any higher alert.

Frederica Freyberg:
What, if you could detail for me, please, some of the specific roles that your members are serving. I know as you say you are in the international zone. You are guarding detainees at Camp Cropper. Give us a sense of the work that is being done there.

Tim Donovan:
Sure. Well, we have over 3200 Wisconsin National Guard troops, all members of the 32nd Brigade combat team. And they are located all Iraq really, from Camp Buca, in extreme southern Iraq, to Camp Cropper and Fob Future, near Victory Base, a large complex near the Baghdad International Airport. Camp Cropper is a detention facility, theater internment facility, as is Camp Buca, and Fob Future is where the future of Iraq's correctional core will be created and we have troops training future Iraqi correctional officers on how to do their jobs to international standards, treating people with dignity and respect and humanely. A little bit north of Baghdad at Camp Tadji is another internment facility with several of our units and we also have units at joint base Balad, a little north of Baghdad and at several other locations around Iraq. Everybody contributing to the overall efforts in Iraq, and we are 3,200 soldiers among the 130,000 U.S. troops based here in Iraq right now.

Frederica Freyberg:
Overall, how would you describe the danger level there at this time?

Tim Donovan:
Well, the Iraqi security forces have made remarkable progress to get to the level where they were on June 30, just two days ago, three days ago now, they took over responsibility for securing their own country. I'm talking to you now from the center of Baghdad and as you can see, I'm not wearing any body armor and I don't have a helmet on. And I think that speaks to the relative safety of at least the international zone. This is still a combat zone, and it's not the safest country in the world to be living and working. But it's, it's not the kind of a place where we live in constant fear for our personal security. It's a place where instead we get up every morning and we work as hard as we can, do as good a job as we can do, but we are not overly concerned about our safety but we certainly take security as seriously as it demands to be taken.

Frederica Freyberg:
As for that personal safety, what is the nature and number of casualties among the 32nd?

Tim Donovan:
The 32nd brigade has had one, one of our soldiers lost his life in a non-combat incident. That happened toward the end of May, very shortly after we all arrived here in-country. But that was not a combat-related incident.

Frederica Freyberg:
Your commander, Colonel Steven Bensen said of this mission that it will not be easy. How right was he?

Tim Donovan:
Well, he's always right.

Frederica Freyberg:
Of course.

Tim Donovan:
And he was certainly right when he said that. It's not easy for a number of reasons. Everything here is hard. This is hard work. Doing America's business in a military uniform and a combat zone is inherently hard work. But most of us from the 32nd Brigade are working well outside anything we were conventionally trained to do. We have people here in the international zone where I work who are responsible for managing very complex property transitions as we are turning property over from the U.S. military forces to the government of Iraq. That's not in any military handbook. So many of the jobs we have come here to do are jobs we have never done before. We have trained field artillery soldiers to be guards in theater internment facilities. Some of the few people actually doing their normal military jobs are me and my public affairs team.
That's fairly rare. Most everybody else is working in something entirely new to them. Now they train for it and prepared for it, and when we got here we were all well able to perform these new missions, but it's all new work and it's hard work.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are your hopes and fears for your work there?

Tim Donovan:
Well, we hope we are making a difference. That's my biggest hope. For me personally, my team and I think all of us in the 32nd Brigade. We want to make a difference for the security of our nation, for the security of Iraq. We want to leave Iraq a better place than we found it. When it's time for us to pull stakes here and come home, and that will be some time in the winter, after the first of the year, we want to leave Iraq a better place than we found it when we got here in May. That's our hope. We hope Iraq is successful, we hope the U.S. is successful and we hope that we come having contributed to the success and accomplished all of our missions.

Frederica Freyberg:
What have you experienced or seen while on active duty in Iraq that has changed you?

Tim Donovan:
I don't think anything has really changed me, except when you, when you get here you do get a sense of all of the people who were here before you, and for the 32nd brigade, that goes back to World War I. I'm not quite that old, but we think that we are standing on the shoulders of giants who wore red arrows on their uniforms long before any of us were born. We think about the soldiers who slogged through the terrible terrain in New Guinea in 1942 and 1943. And the Wisconsin National Guard troops who have been mobilized, called here to Iraq and Afghanistan and done the hard work before we got here, and some of them, of course, couldn't come home, didn't come home. So we think about all of that. We think about all of them. And we want to continue making progress for Iraq and making sure that at the end of this all when we come home, our service and their service will have made a difference. That's what I'm hoping for.

Frederica Freyberg:
As we mark this Independence Day here at home, how will you and others there mark the day?

Tim Donovan:
Well, this was Iraq's day, it wasn't ours. And it's a day they deserve to have here in central Baghdad, not a mile from where I'm standing, the government of Iraq held a national sovereignty day celebration that consisted of the very senior officials of the government of Iraq and just a handful of U.S. military officials, and that's as it should have been because this is their day, not ours. It was a day for them to celebrate the really remarkable achievements and remarkable progress Iraq's security forces have made, and it's a way to tell Iraq that the United States of America honored its commitment to withdraw combat forces from the cities by June 30. That's what we promise today do, and that's what we did.

Frederica Freyberg:
And lastly, what was the temperature there today?

Tim Donovan:
It's cooled down a little bit, Frederica. It's 113 as I'm talking to you now, and it's down a little bit from 116 that it was yesterday. Before we are through, it's going to get up into the 120s and 130s, I'm told not to be surprised if it hits 140. But we are not there yet.

Frederica Freyberg:
Col. Donovan, thank you very much for joining us.

Tim Donovan:
Always a pleasure, Frederica.