Marines buy cows for widows in Fallujah

Marines trying dairy diplomacy around war-torn Fallujah
Cow purchases may help rebuild industry in Iraq
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times / January 18, 2009
ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq - As US forces work to revive Iraq's tattered farming economy, they seem to have found an effective new weapon: cows.

At the suggestion of an Iraqi women's group, the Marine Corps recently bought 50 cows for 50 Iraqi widows in the farm belt around Fallujah, once the insurgent capital of war-torn Anbar province.

The cow purchase is seen as a small step toward reestablishing Iraq's once-thriving dairy industry, as well as a way to help women and children hurt by the frequent failure of the Iraqi government to provide the pensions that Iraqi law promises to widows.

The early sign is that the program is working.
click link for more
linked from
http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx