Tag: foreign service

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. 

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.

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.

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.