By: Jim Rosenberg American soldiers in Iraq read the Tuesday edition of
Stars and Stripes on Tuesday, thanks to an arrangement with Baghdad's al Sabah printer, which churned out eight black-and-white pages at a time in four passes, collating the broadsheets on a bindery machine and manually inserting remaining sections of each 32-page copy.
Not that there was anything else to do in the occupied city in the wee hours after the print runs. "They have a curfew there," said
Stripes Publisher Tom Kelsch. "So they can't get out of the building."
The plant ran 5,000 copies Tuesday and plans to boost the press run to 15,000 -- the number now coming out of Kuwait. Citing the paper's representative in Iraq,
Stripesreported the next day that the higher figure would be enough to reach 80% of U.S. troops in the country. It said trucks and airplanes will transport copies from Baghdad International Airport.
Kelsch told his paper that its news matters most to troops in tough times, and that printing as close as possible to them enables timely delivery.
Until now, color-printed editions were shipped from Kuwait, where they are printed on a Harris press by a well-trained crew. The new arrangement, supervised by Thomas Bowman,
Stripes' assistant print plant manager in Germany, "cuts a week to 10 days off the delivery time," Kelsch told E&P Online from
Stripes headquarters in Washington. Page files are transmitted to Baghdad by satellite.
The Baghdad plant's KBA Compacta press is capable of printing color, but the curfew and the lack of adequate prepress equipment make color production impossible right now, according to Elisia Radgowski, assistant to
Stripes Production Manager Ron Garcia. Radgowski said color is tentatively expected to appear beginning Nov. 2, when the night curfew is lifted for Ramadan, and prepress staffers will be able to leave the plant to process color separations at another site. Al Sabah Technical Manager Najem Saadoum told
Stripes that required prepress equipment is expected to arrive via Jordan.
Calling Kuwait "about 10 years ahead of Iraq's printing capabilities," Radgowski said that "Iraqi pressmen are just now getting the chance to develop their skills." Sabah also prints other newspapers for Iraqi readers.
Photo caption: 'Stars and Stripes' Production Manager/Europe Ron Garcia (right) with al Sabah Technical Manager Najem Saadoum. Photo by 'Stars and Stripes.'
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