Infrastructure in Iraq

As the introduction says, I am a career Foreign Service Officer who recently returned from a year in Iraq leading a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) embedded with the Marine Regimental Combat Team in Western Iraq. 

PRTs are an old idea made new.   My assignment was to help rebuild Western Iraq, a task much bigger than me.  I had a team of seventeen (17) experts to help.   I also had the cooperation of the Marines and other U.S. military stationed in Iraq and most importantly I could ride on the energy, talent and hard work of the Iraqi people in Anbar.   I think we were successful.   I feel a little like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise, however.   I arrived in Anbar at the inflection point when the war-fighting stage was largely over and the rebuilding was beginning.  The people of Anbar, with the help of the Marines and my team members, made great strides during that year and I was privileged and proud to work among them.

Let me tell you a little about how I would like to handle this talk.  I propose to lay out general principles and then fill in some examples. This won’t take very long.  After that, I would like to address your specific questions and concerns.  A disclaimer.  I am not an engineer.  Leading a team called a provincial reconstruction team implies building and engineering.  This is not the case.  I cannot talk re specifications, materials or building methods. 

What I can tell you is what I saw in Iraq with my own eyes.  What I have seen may indeed make more sense to you when I describe it than it does to me.  Your training gives you insights I don’t have. My eyes and your expertise may create synergy.

Our PRT was tasked with helping rebuild – or in many case just build – infrastructure in Iraq.  Infrastructure is broader than roads and buildings.  You know that.  Infrastructure includes all those things that make a prosperous modern society possible.   

Roads, Bridges etc.

We start with the obvious things like roads, bridges and railroads.   W/o these things prosperity is not possible.  Then we move to factories mines and office buildings.  In Iraq, they had significant agricultural infrastructure in the form of irrigation and water projects.  All these things are clearly classified as infrastructure and can be built almost anywhere.  But there is more. 

Institutions

One of the hardest tasks in any developing country is the infrastructure of institutions.  We Americans often forget this because we have had a functioning country with rule of law, more or less predictable political system and functioning government bureaucracies for hundreds of years.  Iraq was lacking all those things.  W/o institutions, you can build all the physical infrastructure you want and still not create a modern prosperous society.

Societal Strength

Which comes first, a strong civil society or civil society institutions?   I don’t think you can really determine cause and effect.  They strengthen and support each other or pull each other down.   A key ingredient is trust.  Most of our transitions are based on trust, even those we think of as determined by law.   A prosaic example is when you go into a restaurant.   Your waiter trusts you pay for your meal and leave an appropriate tip.  You trust him not to tack on unreasonable charges and supply decent service and food.  Imagine if each transaction required you to check references and proactively defend your interests.  Trust in Iraq had been sorely tested and ripped apart by Saddam Hussein, his capriciousness and his wars.   The level of trust is still low and a society with a low level of trust is a weak society.   You cannot build a strong society directly.  It takes time.

Below – Iraq geography is like the moon with more gravity.

Environment

We often take environmental services for granted.  It is like good health.  You don’t miss it until it is gone.   In the U.S. we suffered through the dust bowl years when we abused our environment beyond its capacity.   There are other examples, but the dust bowl is appropriate because that is what Iraq suffers.  Dust storms are part of the natural arid environment, but the fantastic dust storms I saw are the result of long term human degradation.  We started to help rebuild this infrastructure.   

Human Capital

The most important part of infrastructure is human capital.   These are the technical skills, work habits, managerial capacity, entrepreneurial dexterity and even the good health of the people themselves. 

Human capital is harder to build and more important than physical capital.   My father was in the Army Air Corps during World War II.  They bombed German cities to rubble. When I went to Germany as a student, he asked me if they had rebuilt.  It seemed to me like a silly question, but it wasn’t.   Many countries that were underdeveloped twenty years ago are still underdeveloped today. Germany was completely devastated in 1945, yet ten years later the western half at least was among the world’s most prosperous countries.  People build and run things.  That simple fact is often overlooked by those who think they can just buy or give prosperity.

Or think of the more pop example. In the old television show MacGyver, the lead character would go into a situation with almost no tools.  He would make what he needed out of simple kitchen ingredients or thing he found lying around.   This is the power of human intelligence in real (Germany) and fictional examples. 

Iraq suffered mightily from the destruction of its human capital.  Millions of its best and brightest citizens fled the country during the decades of Saddam’s tyranny.  Many more never acquired the skills of a modern society because of the mismanagement and underinvestment in the education system and lack of opportunities.  Iraq during the dictatorship went from being one of the most skilled and literate countries in the region to being one of the worst.   Finally, the recent war and unstable conditions made refugees of millions, many have still not returned.   This is the longest term and most difficult problem that must be addressed.  Money can buy the beginning of a solution, but only time can bring it to fruition.

Let me give you some specific examples of each of the categories.   I want this part to be conversational.  Please feel free to ask questions as I talk.  

Backgrounder on My ePRT

This blog entry goes with my talk this week re building Iraqi infrastructure, what we did on the ePRT, and how civil-military cooperation worked in my experience.   I have included relevant links to other places on the blog that I believe illustrate various aspects of the work.   If you are reading this before the talk, I look forward to your questions.   If you are reading this after the talk, I hope this fills in some of the blank spaces and/or questions raised.   In either case, please feel free to post questions of comments.

Why I volunteered to go to Iraq

Getting used to being at Al Asad

Notes on our ePRT

·         Evolution of the Western Anbar ePRT

·         Our team 1

·         Our team 2

Infrastructure in Western Iraq

Embracing local culture (goat grab)

Prospering in spite of the politicians

Achieving success in Iraq

Western Anbar progress report

Sanctions, mismanagement & lost opportunities

We did what they said couldn’t be done (can we use the V-word yet?)

Come safely home

The Marines and me

Pixelated

I recently was asked about how I adjusted to life in Iraq.  State Department even has a course we have to take when we get back re adjustment.  They worry about our mental health in a high stress environment and they want to figure out how our experience can help the next group.  I don’t know how much my experience can help others.  Each experience is unique and I was lucky in my timing and my place.  I arrived in Anbar just as the violence was ebbing.  Given the extreme pessimism and scary stories in the media, I was ready for a horrible experience.  Instead there was steady improvement and strengthening peace.  It is much easier to adjust to better than expected conditions than the opposite.

Luck was also on my side in my decisions and the couple of hard decisions that turned out well.  For example, after a few successful attacks against Coalition Forces in Anbar and another PRT that resulted in deaths, some members of my team were feeling a bit skittish about all the travel we did outside the wire.  I determined that the successful attacks were just a statistical cluster and did not represent an actionable trend, so I put on the mask of certainty and told my staff that we would trust the ability of the Marines to keep us secure and continue our activities w/o pause.  We kept up our busy schedule and nobody got hurt.  Now we all feel brave and it was the right decision, but if it had turned out differently it would have been hard to take.  I respect my military colleagues, who often must make decisions that WILL result in people dying.    

There were not many heroic decisions I had to make.  Mostly I had to deal with the more prosaic problems of dirt, uncertainty and discomfort.   A lot of the same problems we have everywhere else, we have in Iraq.   I think being away from family and familiar surroundings is the hardest for most people.  It was hard for me.  There is a special sort of isolation in a place like Iraq.  I felt doubly away from home because there were few trees.  Everywhere else I have ever been I have always found ways to walk in the woods.  It is how I relax.  Not in Iraq.

You are reading one of the best things I did to adjust to isolation.  Keeping this blog and sharing my experience kept me feeling in touch and helped me in concrete ways. I could give my blog URL to people asking questions about Iraq.  Writing also helped me keep my own experience in perspective.   You take a different role when you try to explain something in writing to others. 

When reading the biographies of great individuals, I am always impressed by how much information there is about them in the form of letters, diaries and journals.  I am beginning to think that the relationship is casual in both directions, i.e. people who do important things keep journals and because they make the writer think through his ideas, journals help make people important. I have always kept journals, but never regularly.  I started to keep the blog because I thought that my experience in Iraq might be important enough for others to want to see.   I found that it helped me a great deal in the way I mentioned above and it made my thinking clearer and my actions more effective.   I recommend it to all.

I did other things experts recommend, such as keeping regular habits.  I would advise anyone living in a climate like Iraq’s to wake up at or a little before dawn during the summer months.  That is the time of the day when the weather is pleasant.  I like to run.  At 0530 running is good.  By 0800 it is already too hot and somebody who woke up at 0700 and did not get moving until around 0800 would only see experience the blistering heat and have that impression of Iraq.   You are smarter to change habits in winter.  In December it is cold in the morning, but nicely warm in the afternoon.  In that season it makes sense to wake up a little later and do your outdoor activities later in the day.  Actually nature gives you the directions.  The sun comes up later in winter, so if you just get up around dawn all the time, you have a good general schedule.   Iraq does not have daylight savings time, BTW. 

You don’t have to be in Iraq to be TOO busy.  Many people are too busy.  They brag about it, but it is no virtue.  I hate it when people claim to be too busy to read books or exercise regularly.  Nobody is that busy on a consistent basis.  They are just bad managers of their time.  I am not saying that there are not periods when you have to just work constantly, but if you do that too often it is like trying to sprint through a marathon race.  It is a losing strategy.  In Iraq, as everyplace else, I have carved out time to read and run.  People who don’t read don’t learn.  They end up wasting their time because of their bad judgment.  And people who don’t exercises slow down and/or die young.  Reading and exercise are investments, not expenses.  “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” calls such activities sharpening the saw.  It is harder and more effort to cut wood with a dull saw.  Taking a little time to sharpen saves time and energy. 

Finally, I think it is important to find the good and the fun in all situations and to learn from them.  There were so many interesting people & things in Iraq, so many things to experience, that it almost had to be an enriching experience.  Much depends on your attitude.  I always pity people who are too anxious to get away from or get to something.  They think that if they can just get somewhere or something different everything will be great.  This is rarely true.  No matter where you go, you have to take yourself along and if you are not happy with that who you are it won’t help to change your scenery.  In other words, if you are unhappy you probably should work on yourself before you work on other people or things. 

Anyway, what I said from my first days in Iraq remains true.   I am glad that I volunteered to go to Iraq and I am glad to be finished.  Both things were and are true.   I will add that right now I am glad to have the free time (State gave me fourteen working days of home leave) but I will also be glad to get back to regular work.  Nothing too much. 

Iraq: After the Dust Washes Off

It is always like this when I come back from an overseas post. One day you are in the midst of a place, its events, culture and environment. It seems like the whole world. Then you are not. Iraq is like that, only more so, because being in Iraq is so unusual and so intense. You work long hours every day of the week, and you are immersed in it always. It gives you a special feeling of uniqueness, insulation and security. When I think back on the experience, it almost seems like I am remembering the events and details of somebody else’s life. But I know it was me, because I still have Iraqi dust on my boots.

For a year I was surrounded by Marines and team members who knew me or at least knew about me.   We were all members of one team, working together to accomplish a worthy goal.  We thought about HOW to overcome obstacles and achieve our purposes.  It never occurred to anybody to ask if we COULD do it. I miss the sense of purpose and the honor of being part of something big.   Back home people all have their own different problems.  Iraq has dropped off most of their radar screens. 

I never expected people to pay attention to all my stories.  I understand that I can talk longer than most people can listen.   But I am surprised at the general lack of interest in Iraq, which used to be and still is a big deal.   At first most people approach me sympathetically.  They thank me for my service and commiserate about the hardship of my ordeal.  They are a little disappointed when I explain that it was less exciting and not as bad as they heard.  And some seem almost offended when I tell them about the transformation that has taken place and the success we have achieved.   They really don’t want to hear about it.  I don’t think they believe me. 

Many Americans formed their impressions of Iraq based on the dicey and hard conditions on the ground in late 2006.  Rethinking their opinions in light of the vastly improved situation in Iraq hurts their brains.  They just want Iraq to go away and the possibility of success smacks of continued effort.  I am an intrusion into a comfortably settled belief pattern, as unwelcome as the skunk at a barbeque.

It will take a while before the significance of our success in Iraq sinks in and even longer for us to identify and explore all the options it opens and the challenges it creates.  Iraq will difficult and dangerous for a long time to come.  Changing long established conditions is hard and it takes time, but the trends are definitely positive.  Real change creeps up on little cats’ feet and we are often surprised to look around and see that things are not what we thought. 

Matel-in-Iraq

This blog records my experiences as a Provincial Reconstruction Team Leader in Al Al Asad, Al Anbar Province, Iraq 2007-8. My comments may be delayed several days. I invite your questions & comments. If you are reading for the first time, please refer to the first entry – John Matel Goes to Iraq – for background.

Above is the original intro to this blog. Below is my flight out of Iraq. The planes are big inside.

This blog had more than 20,000 visitors in September. I know that some are repeat customers, but it still shows some interest.   It is a record I will probably never again reach.   Being in Iraq was exotic; I am now going prosaic.

I tried to give an accurate picture of what was happening in Iraq.  It was not as scary or dangerous as I expected and certainly not as bad as we read in the media.  I was lucky to arrive at an inflection point, when violence was down and when we really started to win.

The Marines and our military in general are very impressive.  I ambcertain that there has never been a better military force in the history of the world.  They are fantastically disciplined. For example, our military personnel are not allowed to drink alcohol while deployed in Iraq and as far as I saw they didn’t.  

How amazing is that?  Our purpose was to respect Muslim customs.  I saw our Marines do that repeatedly in many ways.  They risked their own lives rather than risk the lives of Iraqis.  This is something special in the annals of war. When I tell people about this, I know some don’t believe me.  It is hard to believe.  

Sometimes people are just mistaking our military for their own prejudiced stereotypes.  Many Americans these days have no direct contact with the military, so they get their impressions from old TV shows like “M*A*S*H* or from the likes of Oliver Stone or Michael Moore.  Just say no to these things.  They are fictional accounts not designed to be fair or accurate.

I cannot blame the average guy.   Before I went to Iraq, I believed a lot of things that were not true.  In fairness, much of the bad news was true before the surge.  As I try to explain, the bad news is not wrong, it is just old and outdated. 

I learned a lot in Iraq about the military, the Iraqis, war, peace, leadership and myself.   It was a great experience.  I am very glad that I volunteered and also glad to be finished, but it is finished.  I will continue to write the blog.  It helps me understand when I write.   This will be the last “Matel-in-Iraq” entry.   And this entry serves as the official ending marker.  I will put a link to it in the intro to the new blog page.

If you are looking for “Matel-in-Iraq” just do back from this page.  If you are looking for “World-Wide-Matel” go forward.

Advertising

I am going to give a talk re infrastructure in Iraq. I include the advert in the interests of shameless-self-promotion. Please come if you can.


Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Section Meeting. Sponsored by the Younger Members’ Forum, John Matel, leader of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) for Iraq’s Western Al Anbar Province, will give a presentation on the successes and continuing challenges of rebuilding Iraq’s government and infrastructure. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq began establishing PRTs in 2005, and they are now a key element in the strategy for stability in Iraq by strengthening the Iraqi government’s ability to provide basic services and to construct roads, water and sanitation projects, electric power infrastructure, and other public works. See more information in the November E-Update newsletter. Where: Sheraton Crystal City (Metro: Blue/Yellow lines, Crystal City) is located at 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington, VA (one block from the Metro). Registration and networking begins at 6:00 pm with the dinner at 6:45 pm, and the program from approximately 7:30 to 8:30 pm. Reservations can be made by e-mailing reservations@asce-ncs.org. Please RSVP by close of business on November 12, 2008. The cost is $30 for members and non-members and $5 for students, which includes a buffet dinner. No free parking is available at the hotel for the meeting. However, free parking is generally available on the street.

Come Safely Home

My year is finished.  I have accomplished all that I will and I have come safely home.   So … how did we do?

It is always hard to judge one’s own success and I am not sure I can tell.  I am also not sure ANYONE can tell.  So many factors were at work and my role was so small.  If I crow about the successes achieved in Anbar, it will be a lot like the rooster claiming credit for the sunrise.   But if I just pass over the whole thing as though my efforts meant nothing, I am denying reality and denying the whole concept of free choice.  It is almost my metaphysical duty to brag on our achievements.  I did only what others could have done, but most others did not do them.   What a person could do, what he can do and what he actually did are often not strongly related.

I made a difference to the extent of my capabilities for Western Anbar and the security of the United States.  The environment is now more hostile to insurgents and terrorists because of the efforts of my team.  (The Colonel told me that it is easier for his Marines to eliminate “f-ckos” because my team has made it harder for them to survive among the people.  I consider that great praise indeed.)  Conditions are better for the people of the province. I cannot separate my personal achievements from those of the team, so what I am most proud of is that I created the conditions for team members to thrive and that I motivated and empowered them to do a great job, but as a result of this THEY did of the heavy lifting.   That is as it should be.

The better the team, the more the leader can & should act as a catalyst rather than a directive manager.   Being a catalyst for positive change is a good thing, but a catalyst by its very nature is never actually part of the transaction.   To the question, “What did you personally do?” I would have to answer, “Almost nothing.”  But if they asked, “What did you enhance or make happen?” I could answer, “Almost everything the team did.”

I learned that from forestry, which I have been sort of practicing since I planted my first trees back in 1966.  A little leverage and patience creates great things, but you never can point to a precise moment of accomplishment and you have to understand that everything depends on the synergy of forces, many of which you do not control.  

If I look at my early post re going to Iraq, I think you can judge if I met my own vaguely stated goals.  I like vagueness.  It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.   There are things you just cannot predict or measure precisely.   Most big things are like that.

I consider it achievements that I have come safely home, that my team will continue to do its good work w/o me, that our activities made things better in Iraq, created confusion among our enemies and enhanced the security of the United States.   When we all do our small part, big things get done.  I am proud that I won the respect of the Marines and my team member colleagues.   Nothing else matters too much if you have those things.

Back safely home in Virginia, watching the gentle rain fall on green leaves.

John Matel

PS – I wrote some posts during the journey home and will post them here.  I will then archive this blog and continue on with more prosaic postings.  I will call the blog Matel-in-America.  If some of you want to come along on that trip, you are welcome.  If not thanks for coming along so far.

Electricity in Iraq: Explaining Shortages

CNN ran a report highlighting the failures in Iraq.  It is not hard to find troubles and even easier to imagine various things that COULD go wrong.  I suppose that is the job of journalists, but that is one reason why people are always anxious.  Most of the bad things predicted don’t happen, but by then the journalists are on to the next big potential disaster.    

Below is an Iraq village from the air.  Same scene as Hamurabi could have seen (if he could fly).  Notice the electrical lines are not down.  There never were any.  Some things take time.

I am getting sick of hearing about electrical shortages in Iraq.  Let me give you the ground truth that evidently escapes our intrepid CNN colleagues.  

Iraq will NEVER be able to supply electricity 24/7 until it does something fundamental – charge money for it.   Journalists never mention – maybe they don’t know or care – that electricity from the government grid is usually essentially free.   Even when it is not free, there is rarely a variable price.  No surprise then that electrical demand has skyrocketed.  Saddam didn’t worry about demand.  It was nearly impossible for people to buy new appliances or luxuries.  Since the fall of Saddam, the Iraqi people have installed thousands of air conditioners.  You see big screen TVs in the markets.  People have computers with internet.  All these things drain electricity.   

The grid supplies a little more electricity than it did before the war and it will supply more soon when we and the Iraqis finish fixing all the maintenance problems Saddam left.  It is like buying an old car that is ready to fall apart and then getting blamed for the breakdowns.   But in addition to the grid, there has also been an proliferation of small generation.  Our ePRT helped pay for some of them. With all these things, Iraq generates more electrical power than ever before.  But demand bumps up 12% a year – one of the highest growth rates in the world.   Much of that electricity is free and people feel free to waste it.  

What do you think would happen in the U.S. if you paid $2 a month and there was no additional charge no matter how much you used?  Would anybody turn down their air conditioning or flick off the lights when they left a room?    Do you limit yourself to the least expensive items at the all-you-can-eat buffet? 

When Iraqis and our intrepid CNN journalists (who I did not see during the entire year I spent in Western Anbar) talk about electricity, they usually mean the free stuff.   If you drive through villages at night, you notice that Iraqis have electricity.  Some if free or comes at a low flat-rate from the grid, but some of it they pay for – just like you and I do.   This is what happens: a town might get six hours of grid electricity.  Everybody plugs in everything he owns in anticipation of this happy time.  Why not?  It is free.  When the free electricity is finished and they pay for it people are more careful with the electricity.  

It is really the worst possible system.  What do you expect when something is provided free for a limited time?  Everybody uses as much as they possible can.  

You cannot blame the Iraqis.  We all would behave like this.  If you don’t waste it somebody else will.  If any individual saves power, he just gets less.   

Only one place I know of – Anah – meters and charges for electricity the way we do in the U.S. and  most of the world.  Anah has no significant shortages.  The leaders of nearby towns dislike Anah.  It makes them look bad.  It also proves the point.   

So next time you hear about electricity shortages in Iraq, keep in mind that this is nearly completely an artificial problem caused by what started off as well-meaning and generous government policy.  Well, maybe not that well meaning.  Saddam used free electricity to bribe the people, knowing that the lack of electrical appliances would limit demand.  No reasonable amount of investment will solve this problem because in its current form the problem is not solvable.   It is easy to demand more of something you get free. 

The electricity problem is a classic “hot potato”.  We made the mistake of defining it as OUR problems and took the blame for a stupid system we inherited from the bad old days.  We cannot solve the problem.  Nobody can in its current form.  We have to toss that hot potato back to those who can address the problem in the ways that will work.  And somebody should explain this to CNN.  I suspect somebody has tried.  Not everybody is teachable.  They prefer to look earnestly at the camera and list the failures rather than explain the solution is simple, although not easy.

Why the Surge Worked

I read a great article today about why the surge worked.   Many of the opinions I read are from those who don’t know.  This is different.  Please follow the link to the original.  It is based on an interview with General Jack Keane.  Below is my block quote summary.  It is mostly from the article.  I put my own comments in italics.

BTW – Also read this article in Foreign Affairs.

Talking about the first phase of the war, just after the invasion.  

Gen. Keane. “It didn’t work. And why didn’t it work? Because the enemy voted and they took advantage. The fact that we did not adjust to what the enemy was doing to us and the Iraqis were not capable of standing by themselves — that was our major failure. . . . It took us all a while to understand the war and [that] we had the wrong strategy to fight it. Where I parted from those leaders [at the Pentagon] is when we knew the facts — and the facts were pretty evident in 2005 and compelling in 2006 — and those facts were simply that we could not protect the population and the levels of violence were just out of control.”

President Bush chooses victory over popular politics. 

In late 2006, after the midterm election debacle for Republicans, pressure rose for a quick if dishonorable exit from Iraq. Gen. Keane met Frederick Kagan, who was putting together a report on an alternative strategy for Iraq at the American Enterprise Institute. On Dec. 11, both men found themselves at the White House to push the plan. Congress, the Joint Chiefs, Iraq commander Gen. George Casey and the Iraq Study Group all wanted a fast drawdown. President Bush ignored their advice. Gen. Petraeus was sent out in February to oversee the new, risky and politically unpopular surge.

We did what they said couldn’t be done.

“It’s a stunning turnaround, and I think people will study it for years because it’s unparalleled in counterinsurgency practice,” he says. “All the gains we’ve achieved against al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency, the Iranians in the south are sustainable” — a slight pause here — “if we’re smart about it and not let them regroup and get back into it.”

This is the part I really think is true:“I have a theory” about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, Gen Keane says. “Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it.”

This is what I saw in Anbar. This is what I think was important for us. This is why w/o the surge, our friends would be dead and the terrorists would be getting ready to take the war to us someplace else.  The U.S. came “within weeks or months” of defeat in Iraq in 2006, he says. The consequences of that were “unacceptable” for the region, “not to speak of an institution that I loved.” And what about the military chiefs who thought the extra battalions and extended service tours would be too much of a strain on American forces? “When people talk about stress and strain on a force, the stress and strain that would come from having to live with a humiliating defeat would be quite staggering.”

Right!  Do read the whole article.

Almost Out

I am in Baghdad completing my check-out and getting ready to fly back to America.   I don’t expect ever to be in Iraq again.   I actually do have some fond memories of the place and I expect that they will improve over time, as the hardships fade and the good times are enhanced.  The mind works that way.   I made lots of friends in Iraq and I will miss them.  Already I am thinking how fast the year went.  I remember not thinking that at the time, but that is also the way the mind works.

It is quieter in Baghdad now, or maybe that is just my impression.  It may be because whenever I have been here before it has been part of some kind of conference, so there were always other transients around.  I have the luxury of a “wet” trailer (i.e. one with a bathroom) but I sort of miss Al Asad. With its Marines and its austerity, Al Asad is like Sparta.  Baghdad is more like Babylon.   

Frem og tilbake er like langt, but it really does make a difference which way you are going.  Last year when I was going into Iraq, I was a little fearful and apprehensive but excited.  Now that I am going out, I feel satisfied that my part of the job is done but still vaguely apprehensive.  

For almost a year, my life has been ordered by the mission and the interesting conditions of being in Iraq.  We worked every day.  I often forgot the day of the week.  I lived and worked with the same people.  We shared a purpose and a duty.  All that is finished.   

I return to home to an America that has largely forgotten about Iraq.  The economy is issue # 1 in the election.  I don’t think it should be.  The economy is a big deal, but the decisions of the president have limited impact on the economy.  

If you look at a long term graph of economic factors, you see the waves are long and the incumbent president makes not much difference.   (This chart is ADJUSTED for inflation, BTW, and it is the MEDIAN, so it doesn’t show that just the rich got richer.)  An economic upturn began in 1982 and more or less continued until today.  The terrible conditions of the 1970s are forgotten and we have not suffered anything like the turbulence of the decade following 1973.  The economy went down a little in 1991 and recovered in 1992.  GHW was president for both.  It grew a lot in the 1990s and turned down in 2000.   Bill Clinton was president for both.   It recovered in 2002, grew a lot 2003-7 and then turned down last year.  GW Bush was president for both.   What did the presidents do to cause these things?  Not much.  They reflected worldwide trends.  Presidents don’t manage the economy.  They just get credit or blame.  And the candidates mislead the American people about what they are going to do; like roosters promising to make the sun rise, if they crow long enough eventually they are right. 

What happens in Iraq, on the other hand, depends on presidential decisions to a much greater extent. Foreign & security policy is where presidents have a dominant role.   That is how our system works. Maybe it is better that people don’t think so much about Iraq.  They usually get it wrong.  They either think it is a terrible meat grinder or a place we can just leave at our choosing w/o consequences.  Not many appreciate the work and sacrifice that brought us this far and the danger that all could be lost.   They even think this result could have just happened by itself.  People have their own affairs and I cannot really expect anything else.   I will answer the questions of anybody who asks, but try not to impose on the others.  It will be a challenge.   You can see how hard it will be.  I started to talk re being in Baghdad and drifted to this.

Anyway, I have not taken part in any of the luxuries (i.e. beer) available in Baghdad.  I figure I will wait a few more days until I clear Iraq.  I have a layover day in Frankfurt.  I bet I can find some good beer there so I don’t need it here.  And back home I can engage in the world’s ultimate luxury – being an American in America.