Today's good news from Iraq

Our Leader's been complaining about the lack of good news being reported out of Iraq. He has a good point. As I surf around the Francosphere, I see Juan Cole writing about 69 Iraqis killed yesterday, Lafayette reporting that the Iraqis are upset about a church massacre, and Allbritton writing about death squads.

I'm going answer Our Leader's challenge and report some good news. Actually, it's more than good news; it's great news--news so fantastic, CENTCOM featured it in their Good News News:

The direct repair of tractors is currently underway; the program will return to service at least 5,000 tractors. To date, 1,437 tractors have been repaired in workshops located around Iraq.

Repairing 1,437 tractors might not seem like as big a deal as death squads and mosque massacres, but you have to put it in its proper perspective. The old Soviet version of Pravda was big on writing good news stories about tractor production. They would have killed for a story about 1,437 repaired tractors. It looks like 1000 was the best they could do during wartime:

The personnel of the plant [M. I. Kalinin Tractor Plant, in Rubtovsk] mastered the production of the ATZ-NATI (Altair Tractor Plant Institute of Motor and Tractor Scientific Research) caterpillar tractor in record time and produced the first thousand tractors as early as December 1943.

Sure, the M. I. Kalinin Tractor Plant was building them from scratch and we're only repairing them, but they were fighting something called the Great Patriotic War while we're engaged in the ultimate struggle for world freedom. We don't have time to build tractors, but I bet our repaired ones can outplow the crap out of the commie ones.