Month: February 2008

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Enough Experience for Several Lifetimes

Above – we have enjoyed the sheik’s hospitality on many occasions, but I never really knew the host.  

The old sheik spent twelve years as a prisoner in Iran.  He lost most of his teeth and much of his hearing.   Before it was home to Iraqi prisoners, the place where he was held had been used to house enemies of the Islamic Republic, but not for very long.  The Sheik said that they would literally find pieces of people, at least the parts that didn’t rot quickly such as bones and hair.  Sometimes, he said, they would find whole hands.  The horrors he described were unimaginable.  He remained a prisoner long after the war between Iraq and Iran was ostensibly over and finally got out in a prisoner exchange.  His family thought he was dead after not hearing from him in twelve years and when he returned home nobody recognized him at first because he was so gaunt and worn down.

Back in Iraq, he assumed the duties of tribal sheik, since it was sort of the family business. During the insurgency, he worked with neighboring sheiks to root out the insurgents and bring peace and security back to this part of Iraq.  He is still fighting a blood feud with AQI and says he still cannot sleep safely more than a couple of hours.  He carries his AK with him when he goes to the bathroom, he says. 

I did not know any of this about the man, although I had met him on several occasions at goat grabs at his home and in a variety of other venues.  He seemed like a pleasant enough old man.  That was the extent of my assessment.  Of course, the broad outline of his story is not unique around here, but the time spent in Iranian captivity is unusual, i.e. unusual that he both spent the time in Iran and is still alive to tell about it.   But most people around here have war stories or insurgent tales to tell and most local leaders still have a well-founded fear of retribution at the hands of the bad guys should the situation ever go bad again.

The old sheik loves the Marines, who he credits with saving his own life and those of his family.  He fears a U.S. pullout and who can blame him.  If we pull out too soon, we get to go home; he dies along with his family and a lot of other people he knows.

I talked to Chrissy today and she asked me if I had seen anybody killed.  I have not.  I was lucky to come just as the “most dangerous place in the world” was calming down to an almost tedious, if heavily armed, normality.   This is good.  I have no need nor do I want the kind of experience so many here have had.  I have learned as much as necessary from their stories.  I do not yearn for any of my own.

Americans wonder why Iraqis seem afraid to take initiative; Iraqis wonder why we fearlessly embrace risk.   It comes from our respective experiences.

We Americans are a blessed people.  We live in a land of opportunities where hardships don’t long prevail.  Few of us have ever experienced any real deprivation and most of us have never personally experienced war.  In Iraq, war has dragged on for almost thirty years and even during the brief interwar moments they were ruled by a capricious dictator who might decide to kill or displace thousands.  Most Iraqis are under that age of thirty so few Iraqis are old enough to remember anything except war, hardship danger and deprivation.   I can well understand why the people we meet are so resolute in their hope that this time the peace will hold; this time the stability will be enduring; this time prosperity will return.  In spite my sojourn in a recognized war zone, I still count myself in that happy group that has not personally experienced war and it is my fervent hope to keep it that way.

When we asked the Sheik how he felt about Iran today, he approached the subject obliquely, explaining that it is the duty of good Muslims to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.  Then he told us that if Mecca was in Iran, he would not go.  He would prefer to go to hell rather than back to Iran.  I guess as far as he is concerned it is hard to tell the difference between the two locations.

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A Million Here … A Million There

When I was a kid, I used to play in the abandoned industrial area near the RR tracks.  It kind of looked like this, except in Milwuakee we had tall grass, bushes and trees.

The K3 refinery and pump station can produce 16,000 barrels a day when it is working, but it is not working and it does not immediately impress the visitor with its orderliness or its up to date technologies.  The British built the installation in 1948 and did not use even the cutting edge technologies available in 1948.  After that, it was not always managed to high standards; the refinery was run flat out during the last years of Saddam Hussein with minimal maintenance and it has not been in operation at all since September 2005, when a shortage of crude oil shut it down. 

Still and all, this place has potential because K3 sits in a favored spot, sort of the Gettysburg of this part of Iraq, at the intersection of rail, road and pipelines as well as in the catchment point among geographical features such as the Euphrates River and Lakes Qadisiya and Tharthar.  Oil can come down from Bayji by pipeline, road or rail or up from the south.  Oil and oil products can transshipped east to international markets via Syria and Jordan or used to satisfy local demand.  

Byproducts of oil refining also have immediate local uses.  Crude from Bayji yields a great deal of pitch.  Disposing of the pitch is a potential problem, or would be except that local asphalt factories can absorb as much pitch as the refinery can reasonably produce.  This asphalt is essential to rebuild and expand the road network in Anbar and in Iraq more generally.  Another byproduct is heavy fuel oil (HFO), which is … heavy and hard to move, but would be used as fuel source for a nearby projected thermal electric station at Tahadi, immediately across the Euphrates from K3.  Iraq needs the electricity generated at Tahadi, so reopening the refinery and pump station at K3 would go a long way to addressing pressing fuel needs and crude oil either refined or transshipped could provide significant income, especially when energy prices are high. 

If this all seems too good to be true, it is.  That is why we talk about potential instead of achieved.  Oil thieves damage the pipeline in literally hundreds of locations by tapping oil and war damage rounded out the trouble.  That is why the plant ran out of crude in 2005.  Alternative methods of supplying the refinery with crude, either by truck or rail are more expensive, but viable alternatives if/when the roads and rail lines are secure. 

The logical course of action is to create enough redundancy in the system that failure in any one part will not break the whole.  According to the plant managers, the refinery has enough storage capacity to keep the operation going for 7-10 days.  K3 does not produce gasoline since it lacks the machinery to blend in the octane increasing element.  I don’t know much about these things so I trust their word, and the Marines have engineers that verify it (trust but verify.)They also say that for a small investment in repairing and replacing equipment, the refinery can begin to produce naphtha and kerosene almost immediately.  Coalition Forces have been working to get the refinery up and running again.  Our ePRT has agreed to make small funds available to jump start the process and eliminate little stumbling blocks, with the hope that once the wheels start moving and people see that it works, momentum will build to get other parts of the refinery on line and begin to expand and update operations.

Some people say that for an investment of only around $80 million everything would be working just fine, but a couple million here, a couple million there and pretty soon you are talking about real money.  Decisions about these things are made above my pay grade.  Besides, this is now an investment for the Iraqis to make.  It is their oil after all.  The jobs and income from the refining itself and all the related activities could be significant and go a long way toward stabilizing the region, so we all hope the right decisions are made. Getting this thing going again has been the subject of much discussion since I arrived in Iraq and people tell me before that too.  I do believe that something will finally be happening at the plant by next week.  It is a small step forward, a down payment on future success, and I hope the start of something big.

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Ghosts of Vietnam

The Hueys we flew in today were the same ones they used in Vietnam.  They are small and very maneuverable.  I was a little afraid I would fall out.  My brain knew that the chances were small.  I knew and felt that when the helicopter banks, you are pushed down into the seats, not out of the helicopter.  My body didn’t believe it, however.  When my brain instructed my hand to let go of the seat to take a picture, my hand didn’t always get the word, so I missed some cool bank shots.  In defense of my fortitude, take a look at my seat.  You may be able to understand my dilemma.

We were doing reconnaissance of the battle space with the Marines and an Iraqi colonel.  They understood the terrain much better than I did.  I was glad that I got to go along.  When they pointed out the important features, I could understand the logic, but I admit that I was mostly thrilled by the views and the adventure.   

Above is Lake Tharthar.  The little ripples are birds flying off the water.  It was like watching a nature show.  Below is an isolated farm.

Flying in the Huey gave me greater appreciation for the courage of the men who served in Vietnam.  I could hardly imagine flying this platform into a battle where committed guys on the ground were shooting at you.  The Vietnam Vets deserved a better welcome home than we gave them.

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Riverworld Riveron Redux

Western Iraq is riverworld.  Very little of any significance exists very far from the river.  The distance we are talking about is often not much farther than a strong man can pitch a baseball and certainly within visual and shooting range.   So patrolling the rivers and reservoirs of Iraq makes a lot of sense and that is what the U.S. Navy is doing in Iraq.  They interdict the bad guys and stop them from crossing the river, using it as a highway or hiding in the weeds and reeds on the shores.  The insurgents thought they were safe on the little islands and in the marshes.   They were mistaken.

According to the commander, Riveron duty in Iraq is a much sought after posting.  I can understand why.  There is the proper mix of action, adventure and call of duty.  This is not the first time The U.S. Navy patrolled rivers in far away places.  We had swiftboats in Vietnam and we used to run gunboats along the Yangtze in China.  Remember that Steve McQueen movie, “Sand Pebbles?”  In 1937, the Japanese attacked the USS Panay on the Yangtze. Four years before Pearl Harbor, it was the first U.S. ship sunk by the Japanese in what became World War II.  We reacted weakly, making the Japanese bolder.

Below is me on the boat.  Funny thing, I worried about falling out of the helicopter and making a Wile E. Coyote thud on the desert floor, while I worried not at all about the higher probability danger of falling in the cold water and maybe sinking to the bottom with that flack vest.  I guess I figured the water was survivable.  The life vest will deploy … in theory.

This is my second cruise on Riveron boats on Lake Qadisiya.  The seasonal difference in the water is evident both in level and composition.  Last fall, water levels were dropping after the hot & dry summer and the water was a clear aquamarine because it has a chance to settle out.  Now it is raining and snowing in the mountains in Turkey and Syria.  The runoff is increasing the river flow and filling the reservoir with water of a greenish hue, with organic matter and sediment.  

This is prime fishing season. The lake features various types of carp, eel and (to my astonishment) lake trout.  I could not find out if the trout were native or introduced.  I know that trout are cold water fish.   Although the water temperature today was a cool 47 degrees, in the summer it gets warmer than you would tolerate for a hot bath.  I cannot believe trout can take that.  I suppose there are cooler pools.  

One of the Riveron duties is to check boats crossing the lake and river.  We did that with a few of the fishing boats.   Fortunately, all the papers were in order and these guys had the rough hands and net throwing skills of legitimate fishermen. We also took the opportunity to do a little “information fishing” to find out some things it might be useful to know.  Most of the time people are happy to tell us (complain) about fuel shortages or the high prices of the things they buy. These guys complained little, evidently because fishing was so good.  They were a little unhappy that fishing near the dam was off limits.  The steady churning of air into the water creates the best fishing spots.  Fishing season lasts until April, when the lake is closed down for a month to let the fish spawn.  We wondered what the fishermen do for that month.  They get by.

Our fishermen were from the Jujhayfi tribe.  The sheik of their tribe was hosting us for a feast that evening, and these guys were visibly pleased when we told them.  Their reaction, I suppose could have been translated as Jujhayfi rule.  We gave them a couple of bottles of water and a bag of candy and went on our way.  My observation is that Iraqis are very fond of sweets.  Later that day, the Colonel passed around a big jar of chocolate covered raisins to some of the fishermen’s Jujhayfi cousins at the feast. They didn’t last long.

Below is our partner boat jumping the wake.  Why do they do it?  Because they can.  

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Charlie Wilson’s War

It is a good movie and I suggest you all go to see it.  I was particularly interested in it for a couple of particular reasons.  First of all, I started my career at the end of the Cold War; I joined the FS to help fight world communism and one of the first causes I publicized as a public affairs officer was the fight against the communists in Afghanistan. 

The end of the movie features a cautionary tale that is more relevant to me in this here and now spot. After helping the brave Afghans defeat the evil empire, we more or less walked away and largely ignored the place throughout the 1990s.   This abandoned the field to people like Osama bin Laden – the so-called Arab Afghans & their extremist local allies –  allowing them to claim that it was THEY who had won the victory, when their actual role in the fight against the Soviets was marginal at best.  Connecting my two historical strains, it was analogous to what the Bolsheviks did, showing up after others had done the heavy & dangerous work of overthrowing the Czar, convincing the world that they had done the deed and imposing their own obscene system on a devastated country.  It is a tribute to the success of their nefarious propaganda that ninety years later most people still believe the Soviet version. The truth doesn’t always win out over the lies unless it has some powerful friends.  In any case, Afghanistan slipped back into chaos; the bad guys took over and made the country into a safe home base to terrorists with delusions of worldwide struggle, while we were lulled into a false sense of security and thought that the fall of the evil empire meant and end to history.

History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes and that is what makes it worthwhile to study the patterns.  In Iraq we are not making the same mistakes. After winning the military conflict, we are staying long enough to secure the peace; at least I hope we do.  And I am proud of the contributing small role my PRT is playing in that unfolding process.

Sorry for the second in a row preachy posting.  Maybe I am just drinking the Kool-Aid, but surrounded as I am be people committed to finishing the job in Iraq, all of them volunteers, I think it would be hard not to want to be part of the team. Tomorrow and the next day I have some interesting things planned.  I promise to write something on the lighter side next time.  So please forgive my pomposity and don’t desert my blog.  Consider this as sort of the commercials in the regularly scheduled programming.

And do go to see “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

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With Malice Toward None & Charity Toward All

Deserts Bloom, Not

It rained in western Anbar, creating a unique sort of mud that is sticky, slippery and viscous all at the same time, but I have been waiting for more than a week and still I see no sign that the desert around here is going to bloom, as deserts do in some other parts of the world.   I figure all the seeds were dry roasted over the summer.  But some seeds we planted are growing and I am happy to report some success, which I would like to include in some of my posts.  We are involved in hundreds of projects.  I can include only a few examples.

Books Instead of Bombs

Our ePRT expertise and funds expedited the opening of a library in Haqlaniyah, near Haditha.  The local community provided the building and much of labor to get this up and running.  It is a project they wanted and a project they worked on themselves, so I believe it will be a sustainable success.  It has internet access and we are helping them buy 6000 books as a start.  Currently, it is a general purpose library, but we expect that it will evolve into a library serving mainly local school kids. 

The picture at the top is from the library opening.

Real Estate Booms

An unexpected (to me) success has been mapping and planning software one of our team members got free from the National Geospatial-intelligence Agency.  We have a slightly dumbed down version, not detailed enough to be a security threat, but good enough for the purposes intended.  The software and training on how to use it is getting an enthusiastic reception from local cities.  The software features GPS grid coordinates and graphic overlays of details such as district boundaries.  The ePRT further facilitated the process with QRF grants for two desktop PCs each to Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwanah to run the software, as well as Theodolite laser survey equipment. 

Urban planning and surveying is particularly important to these cities at this time, because population is rapidly growing as refugees return to these recently war torn towns and people from other areas move in seeking relatively lower land and cost of living in a more secure area.

Rising property values is a sign of success. People feel secure enough about the future to build a house and raise a family.  Iraq is probably one of the few countries not to be caught in the real estate crunch and I bet most of the loans are subprime.  

War Widows

My ePRT colleague LtCol Linda Holloway has been doing good in her own special way with war widows.  Linda is doing more good than she knows.  You can read about her at this link.

I have more stories like those above to tell, and I will be doing it in coming weeks.  They are part of a much bigger picture.

With Malice Toward None …

I think we should take inspiration from President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, when our country was on the verge of ending our greatest conflict and looking to end a time of great hatred. 

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

This is not the existential conflict Lincoln faced, and I prefer not to be melodramatic, but I will because I think the point needs making.  When you hear somebody who wants to pull us out before we have finished our jobs, think about that picture above.  We provide the security that makes this possible.  The Iraqis will be able to take care of it themselves soon, but not today.  They need us and they want us.  Think of those smiling kids involved in an insurgency or a civil war, strapping bombs to their chests instead of book bags to their backs.  And some of them would not stay only in Iraq to carry out their nefarious deeds.  We are here for their freedom … and ours.

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Trouble, Trials, Tribulations, & Travail of Travel

Above are the boots the Marines gave me, nicest pair I have ever owned.

I wrote a post comparing my life to Groundhog Day.  Well, today it IS Groundhog Day and this is deja vu all over again. I was caught in Baghdad – weathered in.  First day it was dust; then it was rain and fog.  Yesterday I made it as far as TQ and at 0300 had to billet. Helicopter crashes are usually fatal and I prefer to avoid any chance of being involved in one, so I appreciate that they are careful with helicopter assets, but it is still frustrating to be grounded when you have places to go and people to meet … or just want to get home.

The biggest hindrance in job is travel and the uncertainty and delay associated with it.  A simple trip to attend a three hour meeting can easily cost three days of travel and delay.  I can embrace the suck; I can accept with resignation that this is just the way it is.  But it is hard to do my job when I can have so many unexpected days away from the office. 

My Area of Operations (AO)  is the biggest in Iraq, the size of S. Carolina.  A trip to Baghdad for consultations requires at least three and usually four days of travel time.  That consists of a couple of hours of flying and a couple days of hanging around.  Nothing I can do will change these realities created by distance, the technical capacity of machines and the reality of operating in an active war zone.  I may, however, have a partial solution to my travels at least around Anbar thanks to my new friends in RCT5.  They have a couple of Hueys (those Vietnam era helicopters we have all seen in movies) that they use for particular missions.  But the RCT has agreed that my team can use them if we schedule well enough in advance to work around their other requirements.  This may mean that maybe twice a week we will be able to make day trips to cities around our AO, i.e. go and return to Al Asad the same day.  If this works out, it will be a great development and save us literally a couple days of downtime each week. 

Few things short of a celestial choir can match the impression of arriving for a meeting descending from the sky amid the dust, sound and fury of a couple of helicopters.  I see what it does for the RCT colonel and the generals.  In Anbar “wasta” – an Arabic concept that encompasses both the appearance and reality of power – is very important.  Having wasta greatly enhances our work, facilitating meetings and ensuring that proposals are taken seriously.  Seeming to have my “own bird” is a great wasta builder.  Those who know me understand that this kind of status thing is not important to me, but I recognize that it is important to my interlocutors & so important to my effectiveness as PRT leader.  I have to be “Da man”.  That is what they expect of me and I have to get used to that kind of role, which does not come naturally.  My preference is diffidence – to act indirectly and downplay power.  Nevertheless, I do have to admit that I like the luxury of not having to overnight on an uncomfortable cot in order to make a short meeting, and – yes – I also think it is cool to have helicopters.  

I hope I am not counting my chickens before they hatch, but I am looking forward to this with great anticipation.

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Like Deja Vu All Over Again

This completely unrelated picture is Bretton Woods, NH, the place where they came up with the Bretton Woods monetary agreements after WWII.  We went up there when we lived in NH, walked part way up Mt Washington.  It is a hard climb. The picture is still on my old blog site, so I do not need to upload anything. The blog entry, BTW, is http://johnmatel.com/2003/08/23/mount-washington/

I am currently stuck in Baghdad using the computer at the Internet café. It is not bad here, but I would like to get back to Al Asad.

I have walked over to the landing zone several times, carrying all my gear and body armor.  All that stuff weighs maybe 70 lbs.  It is hard to walk up stairs etc.  You get tired just walking around. I don’t know how fat people do it.   More heroically, I do not know how our soldiers can run and fight with all that weight on their backs.  

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I can get out.  I have some work I need to do back at Al Asad. I can do some things here, but I need my files for the rest.  Besides, I am not supposed to use these machines for official business.  Even for the less official stuff, the computers at the Internet café do not have easily accessed ports for the thumb drives, so I cannot even use what I have along with me.  I would feel funny crawling under the tables to find the ports. If I stay here much longer, I may consider that, however.

I should get to bed.  It is 0300.  I had to wait at the LZ until they positively cancelled by flight. They guy told me that there was a small chance I could fly and I should wait until it went to zero.  I was not alone there.  The room was crowded with the other unfortunates.  I am better off than many, since I can come back and easily get my can back and I do not have to sleep on the floor.