Author: admin

I met two of my chief deputies, who had been on leave when I arrived.  This will be the start of some beautiful collaboration.   We have at our priorities aligned.  I also got a new team member who did his PhD work on the soils of Iraq.  How much better can you get?

My two deputies already know the county and the region.   We talked about making a lasting impact.   Among the projects we discussed are internet hot spots and a solar village.   These dreams seem far fetched for the Iraqi desert, but they are no mirage.  My colleagues have been talking to local authorities about projects of mutual interest.   I asked them to talk harder and find the places for these projects. 

Re solar – energy is expensive in Anbar, but this fact is obscured by the ostensibly nearby pools of black gold and Texas tea.  Oil, however, has a world price.  It does not matter if it is locally plentiful.  A barrel of oil here costs around $80 in direct and opportunity costs just as it does everywhere else.  In fact, in Anbar it costs more because of the problems with delivering the fuel.   Some of the communities here are perfect for solar.  They are isolated from the fuel distribution lines and the sun shines here just about all day, every day.  I have been tacking on solar to other projects, but now the team will actively seek a demonstration project where we can solarize an entire small village.  When it works, it will encourage imitation.  I think it will be sustainable because it is fairly easy to maintain AND they have opened a vocational school in Al Qaim which is training electricians.

The Internet hot spot sounds even more hare brained, but also make sense.  There are many Internet cafes and a pent up demand.  Some of the local people have the skills to run such an operation. We do not want to compete with the private sector Internet café providers.  Working with them, we can help provide wide area coverage for a densely populated downtown.  We already have a village in mind for this.  The progressive mayor has identified the problem.  We hope to work with him to provide a solution.

The soils guy was also inspiring.  I talked to him about the legacy of the CCC and WPA and told him that in 80 years I wanted our contributions to still be creating value and beauty.   We may be able to provide solar powered irrigation pumps.  This is also a great place for solar.  The need for pumping is important, but never urgent.  It can be done when the sun is shining.  He also mentioned the efficacy of French drains in countering salinization of the soils.  He told me that such low cost and low tech improvements could probably sustainable double the productivity of some fields.  I was also surprised to learn that, while it took centuries to ruin the soil, proper treatments can restore it to acceptable form in only three years – providing there IS soil.  Some places it has eroded away.

One thing we need to do this week is help get seeds to farmers who will plant them.  Farmers here are not like those in the U.S.  They have to learn to be more self sufficient.  In Saddam’s time they were told what to do, so they still do not have the resources to go it alone.  The wheat season is already started.  They know what to do; they want to do it.  They need seed.  They will not get a harvest unless they get something in the ground soon.  The seasons do not wait for our bureaucracy.  I believe our flattening some obstructions will help at least some people get a harvest in the spring.  I made that our new Ag guy’s most urgent priority.

We also talked about date palms.  Like John the Translator, he knew about dates.  He told me that Iraqi dates are know worldwide for their sweetness.  It results from particular combinations of soil and climate.   One of the things the coalition did that I do not like is that they knocked down many date palm plantations.  They had good reason.  Insurgents hide among their dense vegetation.  But now that most insurgents have either gone to ground or are below it, I think we need to make up for that.  We can help restore not only roads and buildings, but also the living landscape.  We can help make it better than before.

There is no other job I can think of (at least not one I could get) where we can dream such dreams and have a reasonable chance of making them a reality.   We have access to quite a pile of money.  We either use it for sustainable projects, or we do the popular ephemeral things like picking up garbage, OR the money gets wasted someplace far off.  We need to do some of the ephemeral things too in order to support today’s quality of life.  I funded the creation of eight soccer fields for example, but I want to think farther into the future.   I am a forestry lover after all who knows that the last generation planted for us and it is our turn now.

Will all this work?  Probably not all of it, but dreams drive behavior and I think we will make some of them reality.  If not us, who?  If not now, when?  Those who want to laugh at my windmill tilting plans can do so now.  I enjoy the dreaming and I will post pictures after some of the projects are in place and working.

I mean that seriously.  This morning is sunny and pleasantly cool.  This afternoon will be sunny and pleasantly warm.   This evening will be warm with low humidity.  There is a sign over some dust that says “stay off the grass.”  I thought it was a cruel hoax, but now I see that grass is starting to come up.   Birds have returned in great numbers.   At night, bats scoop up insects.   The place is coming alive. 

In Wisconsin, life hunkers down over the winter and burst forth in spring.  You just stay inside and wait it out.  Here it is the opposite.  Fall is spring around here.
I can’t complain.  I hope to leave today to go back to Anbar, where it is as nice, but I expect the weather will be similar (a little cooler).

I got promoted today.   This is a good thing.  I am a little surprised.  I assessed my chances at 15%.  On the plus side, I will get better treatment with transportation and helicopters.  My new rank has a protocol equivalent of a brigadier general.  The Marines take rank very seriously, so unlike Rodney Dangerfield, I will get some respect.

BTW – it was also a beautiful day in Baghdad before I got the news about the promotion.  I wrote the first paragraphs before I opened email, so my assessment of Baghdad’s charms was not influenced by my personal mood.   It is a nice day here.

I have been talking a lot about events w/o ever addressing the existential question, such as why am I here?  What am I supposed to do in Iraq?  Let me give my quick explanation.

First I suggest you look at the new publication AID put out re PRTs.  If  you look at the map, my PRT is called West Anbar. 

They tell me that the PRT concept originated in Afghanistan, where we realized that just chasing away the bad guys would not ensure success if we did not leave behind a viable civil structure that would allow for peaceful development.   It seems to me the concept is a lot older than that.  Everything from a Roman aqueduct in Spain to a WPA shelter or the pine trees planted by the CCC in one of our National Forests are monuments by “provincial reconstruction teams.” 

Prosperity cannot come before security.  This is a step you cannot skip no matter how enthusiastically you sing the song of peace.  And security must be established by force and violence.   Coalition forces have established reasonable security in Anbar.  This is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for progress.  Now it is the time for us of the softer hands to do our part.

It just makes sense that if you address a problem but leave in place the conditions that created it, you have not addressed the problem.  I have no delusions of grandeur that my small team can solve the problems of Iraq, Anbar or even one of the provincial cities, but I figure if we all do our small parts, eventually – through mere accretion if nothing else – something big may result.

The heartbreak of Iraq is not that it is poor and disorganized.  The real tragedy is that it does not have to be that way. Everybody knows it has oil, but it is also rich in terms of water, agricultural potential and people.   Saddam mismanaged and misappropriated Iraq’s wealth for more than 25 years and leadership was not all that good before either.  Iraq’s misfortune results from more than mismanagement and it cannot be addressed by replacing bad guys with good ones (if that were even possible).   The problem was/is systemic.  Iraq was run as a centralized state.  Decisions and resources came from Baghdad with virtually no consideration for or from the people affected.  This was exacerbated by the “curse of oil”.   The government floated on oil.  It did not need to get the consent of the governed to raise revenue.  Instead it could make all Iraqis dependent on the oil financed “largess” of the central authority.  That, coupled with the real danger of taking any action that might anger the central power and what they tell me is an ancient Mesopotamian pessimism, made the population very passive. 

So maybe our PRTs are peeing the ocean and waiting for the flood, but it seems to me that the recent events in Iraq have created conditions for radical change.  The coalition military has bought the opportunity.  It is the direction of the change that is in flux.  If left on its own, the tyranny pattern of the past will reassert itself.   At this time of maximum leverage, maybe our little pushes will help make the future different from the past.

My team, and the others like mine, is working with the local people: tribes, municipal government, private sector initiatives and other to overcome the over centralization of the past.   I am personally excited about the new push in agriculture.   I just (yesterday) got a new staff member, a guy from Department of Agriculture who has experience rebuilding soils that have been ruined by the salinization that comes with too much irrigation for too long.  I think we can do some good here.  It certainly is worth the trouble of trying.

I am stuck in Baghdad.  My flight was “rolled” a day, but now I learn that I will not go back to AA right away.  Instead I have to go to another city to meet a delegation from mother State Dept.  Following good OPSEC (operations security), I will say no more.  The Marines tell me that every time someone violates OPSEC, God kills a kitten.

Baghdad is nicer than AA anyway.  You could forget you are in a war zone if not for the choppers flying overhead and the odd bang heard off in the distance. We have not suffered any attacks on the compound for around three months. Good.  Those who were here in the bad times tell me that it was no fun.  Most of the injuries were from people ducking and covering with too much enthusiasm, but a couple people were killed.  This is an experience I do not need. 

I had supper near the pool.  You can see what it looks like from the picture above.  The picture is a little misleading.  The surface that looks like grass is actually just dust, but in general it is pretty. The cans (below) are located among the palms.  It is sort of like Florida with sandbags.  (The sandbags, BTW, are covered with tarps because they are made of an eco-friendly substance that decomposes in the sun.)  You see, I am doing my part to entice colleagues to come to beautiful Baghdad.  There is a lot of stress and a lot of work, but it is not all terrible all the time.  You can find places & moments of significant beauty and tranquility.  It is important to enjoy them.

Take a look at this from “The Onion” Not So Horrible Thing Happens In Iraq, for some reference.

The problem (besides the war) is that there is no place to go.  I walked around the Green Zone.  The picture below is the nicest, most normal, place I found.  Actually Baghdad is like a Club Med in that you are essentially on an island and you cannot leave w/o flying.

Today we are in Baghdad hearing from important people that the jobs we are doing are important.  I am just trying to learn how to do it right.  All the PRT team leaders are here.  There are about 20 of us from around Iraq.   Most of the conference has been insider stuff, interesting to me but only because I need to know it.  I will not go into detail.  Suffice to say that we have big jobs to do, big enough to scare me. For probably the first time in my career I am getting (at least promised) most of the resources needed to do the job, so if I mess it up it will be my fault.

Baghdad looks different to me now.   When I got here a couple weeks ago, I though it looked dry and brown.  Now it looks green and lush.   It all depends on your point of view. Coming from green Virginia, it is indeed a desert.  Coming from dusty Anbar, it is a well watered wonderland.   It is cooler now.   The weather has changed and it is actually very pleasant most of the time.

Our complex is on the grounds of one of Saddam’s palaces and the embassy is in the palace itself.  It is a very impressive place, now cut up by us into office space.  Saddam spared no expense on his own living space and the place has interesting marble work, complex ceiling etc.  In our meeting room I feel like the old State Department worker again, thinking the big thoughts and discussing the big events.   When I have to try to do something on the ground, those discussions are sometimes useful (not always).  

We had a talk by the director general of the FS.   He thanked us for our service and listened to our complaints/comments.  He assured the group that those fat-cats currently sitting in comfortable offices will soon be asked to do their part.   (And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap…sorry it just seemed appropriate)   State Department has up till now managed to staff its Iraq positions with volunteers, but it is getting harder.   There are only 6500 Foreign Service generalists and the director says that 20% of us have already been to Iraq or Afghanistan.   Neverthelesss, some of the people who volunteer do not have the needed skills and some of the people with the needed skills do not volunteer and since there are no very many of us in general, staffing is an issue.

We are becoming an expeditionary service.  I am not sure I like the idea of an expeditionary FS.  I came to Iraq for a variety of reasons.   The choice made sense to me.  I would not have made the same choice when my kids were younger.  Others make different choices.  This is where my particular skills are currently best employed and I am proud to serve here, but it is very possible for someone to be doing more for our great country elsewhere.  A diplomat who has become expert in Germany, France or Japan may better employ his skills in those pleasant places than in the deserts of Anbar.  (he which hath no stomach to this fight,  Let him depart) Some pleasant jobs are also very demanding and important. There is no virtue in making him come here out of some fairness principle or promoting him slower even if he shows real accomplishments.   Most of my colleagues in Iraq disagree, but what does “fair” mean?  Is it fair to get promoted just for living in a hardship?  The fact that I can withstand desiccating winds does not by itself indicate competence.  I think it should matter what you do, not where you were.   Having actually withstood those desiccating winds, even for the short time, I can say that w/o fear of being marked as a malingerer or a mollycoddle, but I think it is true.   But how does State staff these positions when we few, we happy few (be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition) are used up?

There may soon be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Foggy Bottom. 

You never know where you will end up or when if you travel helicopter in Iraq.   I had a 745 show time to go to Baghdad.  I was manifest on the impressive sounding “Invincible”.  After waiting around 1.5 hours, they called us forward to write our destinations with marker on our left hands.  You do not have tickets and nobody can hear over the sound of the rotors.  This is a good system.

When they call the flight, everybody goes outside and waits for a bus that drives around 200 meters down the tarmac where you line up and wait another hour or so. In back of me stood an Iraqi with two black garbage bags for luggage (his story later).  Our flight came and we flew to TQ.  It has a rather longer name, but I do not remember.  We flew along the Euphrates, very pretty.  It is a clear aquamarine color.  I expected it to look browner, like the Mississippi. 

We manifested in TQ learning the show time for the connecting flight was 2215.   You see in the picture the waiting room.  On the plus side, TQ has a nice chow hall, which like everything else is run by South Asians employed by Kellog, Brown & Root – KBR (more on that later).  They had prime rib and it was good.

Anyway, you hang out.  It kinda sucks, but it is not really that bad if you take the Marines’ advice and “embrace the suck”.  There is time to think, time to read, time to write and time to nap. 

The key to embracing the suck is to live in the present wherever you are. It is Zen-like – the eternal present.  We live in a communal society over here, so it really matters little where you are.  Everybody has the same stuff and you carry as little as possible because you have to carry it yourself. You do not need much, because everyplace you go you can get something to eat and a place to sleep.   Once you have embraced the situation, things are fine.

BTW – I finally got to Baghdad around 230.  The can they assigned me was very small and the bed uncomfortable, but since I arrived in the proper state of mind…I can embrace it.

The Iraqi guy I mentioned in the post below was a translator who worked for us in a nearby city.  In his garbage-bag luggage were gifts for his wife and children.  He was going to visit them.  When we landed at TQ, we had to walk around 400 meters over the dirt.   His bags looked heavy (and they were) so I helped him carry them and we got to talking.

Ironically, he called himself John.  That was not his given name, but evidently Americans found it hard to pronounce his real name, so he took the expedient of using one that was easier for the Anglophone tongue.   I told him that I did the same with my name for a similarly prosaic reason.   My father mispronounced our family name with a hard “a”, but since the toy company Mattel was better known than we were and was pronounced with a soft a,  the current generation has chosen to go with the majority.  (I thought about naming my kids Barbie and Ken, but that was just silly.  Of course, now I have to explain that I am not responsible for the lead paint in Mattel toys imported from China.) I will not include John’s real name or picture for reasons you will shortly understand.

I asked him how things were for him and he told me that they were bad. Terrorists figured out that he worked for us.  They shot his father (who survived the attack) and shot at his house.  Fortunately, his wife and four kids were not at home.  They have since moved to their native village, where the local people protect them from the bad guys as best they can and it is easy to spot outsiders like the terrorists.  It is like the witness protection program.

John’s family had been reasonably well off.  They own a date farm (orchard?).  John told me all about dates and date palms. It was a lot like Bubba telling Forest Gump about shrimp, but I was interested.  I will not repeat it all.  Date palms can live 200 years and they have a special cultural value in Iraq.  According to John, dates are good for almost everything.

He hopes to take his family to the U.S.  Our lawmakers, in their wisdom and compassion, are making it possible for those are threatened because of their work with us to get green cards.  I wondered about the pain he must feel leaving Iraq.   He had spoken with such passion about his home and date palms there. 

Leaving is not really his plan.  John wants to get his family safe in the U.S. and then he wants to come back to Iraq to carry on the fight working, again, as a translator for the U.S.  What you have here is an honorable man who loves trees.   How much better can it be?   I will make it my businesses to make sure my State Department colleagues treat him fairly when the time comes.

I left John at the landing zone in Baghdad.  He will catch a taxi to his home.  He knows the dispatcher, who will give him a reliable driver and he told me that he thinks he will be safe.   Terrorist used to beset the road.   They mostly just robbed people, but sometimes they killed if they were feeling nasty.  The coalition surge had chased them away in any case and now the Iraqi police were doing a better job of patrolling.  We sometimes forget how secure our lives are.

The great Ronald Reagan said he heard that hard work never killed anybody, but that he wasn’t taking any chances.   Reagan was expressing in his amiable way a truth that anybody who studies work knows.  After working a while, your efficiency drops.  You face diminishing returns.  My guess is that something around nine hours is good.  You can and sometimes must work longer hours needs be, but it is unsustainable.  Workaholics should get a life. 

Around here this wisdom does not apply.  Even if you didn’t want to work, there is just no place to go or anything else to do.   You see my “can” in the picture.   I am lucky enough to have an end unit, but it is not a place to relax.  My view consists of the latrines and a big tank that says “non-potable”. 

I have started to run again and I can go outside the gate, but there is not much to see.  I have found a few lonely eucalyptus trees.  I try to run by them more than once.  I also have a Eucalyptus tree near my office.  Birds have returned to it in the last couple of days and they are active at dawn and dusk.  (During the day, during the summer, Icarus like, they might just catch fire in the hot sun.)  There is just no reason to go home.   So we don’t.  You can find people at work anytime.  You can schedule meetings for Sunday morning or Saturday night secure in the belief that people will show up and probably be grateful for the diversion.  The office is nicer than the can.

The Marines have a ferocious work ethic and an unrelenting positive attitude.  I do not think they need to sleep at all.  The Colonel is working when I get here in the morning at around 8.   Last night I left the office at 11:45 (2345 to them) and most people were still at work just like they were the rest of the day.

Nighttime is just a brief interlude, just a time to sleep.  Not a time to go home.

Adapting, I am.  I have carved out time for running and time for blogging.  I am going to carve out time for reading books.  I am desperately seeking a routine.  When I get one, I figure I will be less inclined to gripe.  Today I went out and sat under one of my eucalyptus trees, across from the portable toilets to enjoy my moment of Zen.  As I let the rest of the world go by – trucks, helicopters and men going into the green plastic outhouses* – onto my I-pod came “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” by Rachmaninoff.  If you saw the movie “Groundhog Day” you know this music.   It is a calm and urbane.   The soundtrack did not go with this particular scene, but my experience here is reminiscent of the “Groundhog Day” theme.
 

* I have learned that the best time to use the green port-a-potties is around 10 am.   The cleaning crew comes out and washes them down, so you get that daisy fresh atmosphere.  Of course, after dark is also a desirable time, since what you cannot see bothers you less.