Below – Congressional delegation (Codel) landing at the Hadithah LZ
An awkward moment came when Hadithah Mayor Hakim announced that he hoped the Republicans would win in the fall elections. He obfuscated a little when the Democratic Codel leader reminded him that three out of the four members of the visiting Codel were Democrats, but he didn’t back down. His point was that he wanted America to stay in Iraq until the country was secure and he was spooked by the talk of precipitous withdrawal he heard from the U.S.
Back in the MRAP a colleague clarified what had happened. He recalled that when he traveled in the Balkans in the late 1990s, he found that many people favored the Democrats because they feared the Republicans would cut support. In general, they fear a change in the American policy that has protected them – in some cases literally saved their lives – and they remember the opposition to the surge came mostly from Democrats. Their opinions stem from a misunderstanding of American domestic politics and, ironically, overconfidence in the veracity of political statements made publicly by politicians. They think Amerrican politicans might mean what they say. It is another concrete example of how our domestic political squabbles spill over into our foreign relationships.
It is sort of like a domestic dispute in the big house on the hill, with all the neighbors watching and some of them taking sides.
In any case, the Democratic delegation leader assured all those present that America would not abandon its friends no matter which party won the White House this fall.
Mayor Hakim made other, less controversial, points. He thanked America for saving his country and hoped that Iraq would now have the good fortune of countries like Germany and Japan who, in his opinion, benefited from American occupation and attention. The mayor favors federalism, which he sees as the only way a country as diverse as Iraq can govern itself and make most people reasonably content. (In any case, centralized decisions making has not worked out so well for the last … oh 5000 years.) Maybe a more bottom up system would work better.
The city council president agreed with his mayor on most things, but disagreed about federalism. He thought that federalism was the slippery slope to disunion. The mayor pointed out that this showed that they enjoyed democracy in Hadithah. The mayor and the city council could publicly disagree and, referring again to his early comment on Republicans and Democrats, everybody could speak freely.
All the Iraqis seemed to agree that Iran was a threat to Iraq and a general menace to the peace in the region. They feared that the day the last American left Iraq would be the same day the Iranians started moving in. The U.S. had made Iraq too weak to defend itself, they said, and should remain here until Iraq was strong enough to defend itself.
Following the meeting with city officials, the Codel went on a short walk through the market district of Hadithah. Unfortunately, they could not walk through the main market because the streets are being repaved and sidewalks are being installed, with the help of the USAID funded IRD, BTW. Of course, they COULD have walked past the construction, as most Hadithah shopper do, but this was precluded by security since the Marine vehicles following the pedestrians could not negotiate the construction zone.
Despite not being the main market area, the streets were lively and the people friendly. People expressed gratitude to the U.S. for helping make the city safe again. One individual spoke in English, saying that he had been to London many years ago and had worked in the oil industry as a young man. When asked about security, he said that he now felt safe to go out day or night. Only six or eight months ago everybody had to hunker down even during daylight and going out after dark was completely out of the question.
The mayor told us that Anah is a 5000 year old city built in 1985. The site of ancient Anah now lies under the waters of Lake Qadisiya. When the Hadithah Dam was built, the Iraqi government hired a French firm to design a new city on higher ground. The result was a pleasant new city, with wide streets organized on Cartesian grid, which can be appreciated even through the detritus of war. The first building was the mosque and the rest of the city was built around it.
I was surprised to learn that the mayor did not have an accurate estimate of his city’s population. He said that people were beginning to return and that the population was growing. Anah has long been known for its educated and effective workforce. These are the people who suffered most from the recent insurgency. The insurgents specifically targeted the best educated members of the population, who they considered corrupted, westernized not sufficiently pious, or all of the above. As a result, many of the best and brightest are either dead or living outside the region or the country. Making matters worse, during the 1990s, the city declined as a result of the general poor conditions in Iraq. Anah’s education level meant that many of its people COULD leave and sell their skills elsewhere, so the city declined even more precipitously than some others with less mobile workforces.
The mayor doesn’t think the sojourning population will return anytime soon. They have built successful lives someplace else and Iraq will offer them no corresponding opportunities in the near term. In the longer term, however, he expects some return of the diaspora. When people have made their fortunes, he hopes they will return to the pleasant city on the shores of Lake Qadisiya.
The mayor was optimistic about the future. In five years’ time, he expects Anah to have prosperity levels similar to Amman, Jordan. Amman is not to the level of a developed world’s city, but it is significantly better off than Anah. Anah has a long way to go, but considering how far it has come in the last couple of years, a smaller version of Amman may not be an impossible dream.
Electrical Power
Alone among all the cities of all of Western Anbar and probably in all of Iraq, the little city of Anah does not have a significant problem with electricity shortages, at least according to what the mayor told us. How is this possible?
The picture below shows Hadithah Dam, which supplies much of Anbar’s power and created the reservoir that drown old Anah. Anah gets its power from the dam and from petroleum fueled generators.
Anah spells relief from energy shortages m-e-t-e-r-i-n-g. Anah is evidently the only city w/o a significant energy problem because it is one of the few to meter effectively and charge for electricity. Most other places electricity from the grid is essentially free, or at least not properly metered. People have no incentive to use it wisely. In fact, those who limit their own use of power are just chumps, as somebody else will eagerly soak up the surplus they create. Our visits around the province have found profligate use of electrical power, when it is online, followed by bitter complains when it goes down. We have also noticed stores full of electrical devices ranging from small appliances to big screen television sets just waiting to absorb any new power that is generated. Anbar clearly has an electricity problem. Just as clearly, it cannot find a solution by increasing supply alone. Electricity currently is de-facto distributed by political fiat. Local leaders demand, persuade, cajole and perhaps do other less savory things to get a bigger share of insufficient resource. Demand for any free product grows as rapidly as supply can keep up or, as in the case of Western Anbar, even faster. It will be great to build more capacity and Iraq has the money to do that and this new capacity will satisfy demand only when the rest of the country behaves more like Anah.
Pushing Back the Desert
In any climate as dry as Western Iraq’s, water management is the key to success and even survival. The Euphrates River is especially low this year from a combination of drought and increased diversions upstream in Syria and Turkey. As you drive across the river, you can see that the bridge was built to span a much wider flow. In some cases, the water is hundreds of yards from the evident previous banks and new islands have emerged in the middle, a profuse cover of vegetation and the presence of goat grazing it indicating that this may be more than an ephemeral anomaly.
Low river levels create challenges for irrigation. In many cases, pipes that once easily drew the water emerge onto dry land. Authorities are digging wells and extending pipes as “temporary” expedients, but everyone understands that even when the rains return, upstream dams and diversions have permanently altered the shape and hydrology of the river. The future of the Euphrates may be something like the Colorado.
But the people of Anah are not content to let the desert will expand. We visited a project to plant trees to hold the soils and create a more benign microclimates. Above and below are pictures of a one-year old installation and another nearby that has been growing for eight years. Our ePRT is helping these projects in a small way with advice and funds, but we cannot take credit for initiating them. The oldest trees in this particular plantation are eight years old. They include date palms, pistachios and olives. The local arborists take seeds and cuttings from the most robust individuals and use them for nursery stock to expand the effort.
The trees are currently sustained with a drip irrigation system, but once established they can usually get along on the stingy local rainfall, according to the Chief of Agricultural Engineers for the desertification reversal project. This, BTW, is exactly what Dennis Neffendorf told me and the engineer and I had a good conversation about soils. In many ways, the dust bowl we experienced on our own Great Plains is analogous to the current situation in Iraq. Iraq is dryer, but as with our own case the destruction of perennial vegetation cover exacerbated a bad situation and damaged a fragile ecosystem.
The picture below shows seedlings growing in a lattice house, which protects them from the burning sun.
We talked a little about goats, those pernicious desert making machines. The engineer showed us perennial leafy plants (I didn’t recognize it but it sort of resembled heather) that not only can survive moderate browsing by goats, but actually require it for sustained growth. His nursery has been propagating these plants and is hoping to cover some of the dusty expanses of the country with this green food. Some of these plants are non-native and I did pause to recall that kudzu, crown vetch and multiflora rose were once touted by our own government experts as solutions to problems, but looking up at the desiccated dusty desolation that lies outside any man-made green zone, I think that anything is an improvement.
Potatoes, Cows & Fish
The Anah region grows substantial amounts of potatoes. This surprised me, since potatoes are water intensive and grow best in a loose, sandy soil very different from the hard clays and hard pan we see in Anbar. When they explained it to me, it still seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth, but they disagreed. The soil is indeed not suited to potato cultivation, so they change it by bringing richer, sandier soils up from the river bed. I took a handful of it and it looked and felt like those Wisconsin or Polish soils I had seen growing rich potato crops. Of course, they also bring the water up from the river. The potato farm supervisor, told me that yields vary greatly, but that they could get 3-8 tons of potatoes from an acre.
I doubt that he understood my point of reference and may have been talking about an Iraqi donum, which is 0.67 acre, or he may have thought I meant hectare. It gets worse, because an Iraqi donum is much bigger than a Turkish donum … Suffice it to say, it makes a difference. And did he think I meant short ton, long ton or metric? Unfortunately, I didn’t think of this until after I was headed back to Al Asad. I just assumed. Mea culpa, I should know better. I was reminded how hard it is communicate not only in a different language but also in a different measurement culture. Three to eight tons an acre is a very high yield and if indeed we are talking the same measurements, I guess it makes sense to grow potatoes in the desert. But I realize that I have a meaningless data point in my notebook and must remember not to do that again. It doesn’t matter, since we are not doing a precise survey. All I need to know is that the Iraqis seemed satisfied with whatever yield they are getting from whatever area they are talking about and they don’t think it is a problem.
Their problems include the need for a shade tarp and the threat of aggressive goats. Full sunlight is not a friend around here most of the year. Growers put up shade tarps to protect garden crops during the heat of the day. Our Iraqi friends mentioned that their shade tarp supports were damaged. Something else they need is a fence to protect them from marauding goats. This latter requirement may be less effective than it seems, since the marauding goats’ owners will open it up. In any case, they asked us to help with a grant. We will consider it, but are disinclined at this point, since it is something the Iraqi authorities can provide.
We also visited the site of a future dairy farm/creamery complex. When completed, the facility will produce milk, cheese, yogurt and – after a suitable interval – hamburger. Initially they will get 250 head of dairy cattle and expand as demand conditions allow. They are currently waiting on a “green zone”, irrigated fields that will provide the fodder crop to feed the cattle. This will be done with pivot style irrigation making those crop circles so prominent in arid places in our country. They wisely want to get the feed production up and running before the cows come home. This is not as clear a decision as it seems to most of us. Planners often fail to put things in logical order and discover only afterwards that they missed a key step. The Anah authorities have thought through all parts of the lifecycle, including proper use of manure. The agricultural engineer also told me that they have plans to apply municipal biosolids to the pastures.
The dairy farm didn’t look like anything I remember in Wisconsin. There will be no quaint red barns (the pictures nearby shows what the barn and milking stalls will look like) and there will never be verdant hill dotted with spotted cows. This is much more like an industrial agricultural enterprise. The only thing that caused me some concern was the source of management and money. It is a state sponsored operation. I don’t have confidence that a state run enterprise can work better in agriculture than it does anywhere else, but at this time there are no other investors willing or able to take on this sort of challenge.
We were scheduled to visit the fish hatchers and poultry farm, but ran out of time. Briefly speaking, the fish hatchery is meant to supply stock for local fish farms and restocking of Lake Qadisiya. Anah authorities are interested in getting QRF money to help repair and restore the hatchery. This is probably something that will be left to the Iraqi authorities.
Our short trip to Anah revealed a well organized and well managed town with more strengths than weaknesses; more opportunities than threats. There is reason to be optimistic.
We discussed the state of our districts at our recent team meeting. The good news is that progress across Western Al Anbar has been astonishing, but it is still uneven and each of the sub-districts has its own particular conditions. Here is a general look.
Al Qaim The saying around here is that the sun rises in the west, since Al Qaim was the first district to throw off the insurgents. Al Qaim, which includes the regions of Husaybah, Ramanan, Karbilah and New Ubaydi, was the most advanced economically and politically, but its progress has slowed in recent months. Our LNO there sees this not so much a problem as a simple case of diminishing returns. It is like what happens after a forest fire. Progress is quick in the early stages of recovery but naturally slows as the region approaches a mature situation. Al Qaim both benefits and suffers from the legacy of state investment. The region has a big phosphate plant and a cement factory as well as a railroad repair center. None of them are working to full capacity. The rail center is in the process of being demilled
The Al Qaim region has some of the richest soil in the Middle East, according to our Ag Advisor. Beyond that, the river water at this point carries less salt and mineral, so that it takes significantly less water to sustainably produce crops here than farther downstream, where more gallon of water must be used to avoid salinity. The ePRT is working to hold an agricultural conference in September to address some agricultural issues.
Rawah/Anah Rawah/Anah has a split personality, with Anah much better run politically and better managed in general. However, they share the environment. The region is heavily agricultural and agriculture has suffered from the long drought. This is exacerbated by low water levels on the Euphrates caused not only by the drought but also by water diversions in Syria and Turkey. The Euphrates will probably never reach the water flow it did a generation ago. Many of the regions pumps and pipes no longer reach flowing water. Updating agriculture is a priority here.
Hadithah The Hadithah Triad, which includes Hadithah, Barwana and Haqlaniyah, is our success story. When I arrived ten months ago Hadithah was a prime concern. The RCT doubled down on the region and it became the biggest recipient of our QRF and other programs. Earlier this year CSP opened and office there and has been very active. Today it is thriving. The biggest problem is growth. We are trying to develop accurate figures, but it is clear that the Triad is experiencing a population boom. Property values are rising and there is building everywhere you look. Perhaps this is the bounce effect we say in Al Qaim several months ago, but for now the Triad is our shinning star. Of course, I should add the caveat that everything is relative. The region still suffers the paradox of high unemployment and a shortage of skilled labor, for example.
Hit If the Triad is thriving, Hit, which includes Hit, Baghdadi, Kubaysah and Phurat, is its dark twin. Hit suffers from especially poor and corrupt leadership at the top, which has been a significant impediment to our efforts. The ePRT avoids all projects directly involving the mayor, which limits our reach. On the hopeful side, the city council in Hit is basically sound and those in the satellite regions are good. Beyond that, the rot at the top cannot hold back economic growth, which has been significant.
Our LNO in Hit reports that The attitude in Kubaysah is very positive and the people are content with the completion of several CF and ePRT projects and continuation of some others such as, the water network. He also said that in meeting in Baghdadi with the district manager Muhanad and the city council chairman Mal-Allah both expressed their appreciation and thankfulness to the ePRT, the Marines, and the IRD for the projects and the development in the city.
Rutbah Our biggest area geographically is Rutbah, which includes Nukhayb, Akashat, and the border ports of Waleed and Trebil. The region borders on Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. Rutbah is several months behind in its development. It recently got a new and dynamic mayor and it making progress. The biggest issue for arid and sparsely populated Rutbah is water. Rutbah owes its existence to watering holes, but they are not extensive. The modern city grew around a British fort built in the 1920s. At that time there was a few hundred people. Now the population is around 30,000 and growing rapidly, which is taxing the local environment. Rutbah has access to wells, but the pipes are inadequate. There is a big western desert project that is supposed to bring water from the Euphrates. See above about water in the Euphrates. Besides sheep herding, the region is important for the POEs, the borders and phosphate production. We only recently send a permanent LNO to Rutbah and he is closely assessing the situation. His priorities are to make sure LPG training is done all over the region and to facilitate the establishment of a regional council.
We visited Kubaysah to look at projects and meet with local officials. Kubaysah is a sub-district of Hit. Locals complain that it is a long neglected district. Most of the people in the region are from the Kubaisi tribe, from which the town takes its name.
Above – watermelons, odd shape, good tastePower
There is universal agreement that the big bottom line problem for Kubaysah is electrical power, follow by the related impediment of fuel supply. While there is some uncertainty about precise numbers, everybody agrees that the population of Kubaysah has increased significantly since the 2003. All these new people demand electricity. Beyond that, each consumer is now pulling more power from the grid. The mayor told us that a few years ago you could count the air conditioners in the city on one hand. Today air-conditioning is becoming common and in this hot climate nothing stresses energy as much as air-conditioning. Add to this all the consumer electronics you can see for sale in local shops and the challenge is apparent. Supply will have trouble keeping up with demand even in the best case scenario and we are not dealing with the best case scenario. Electrical generating capacity has increased only a little since the Saddam era. It will take something like a heroic effort by Iraqi authorities to create the capacity to fill the burgeoning demand for electricity.
The mayor of Kubaysah sees a simpler interim solution to his town’s problem. He needs new transformers to properly take advantage of already available electricity. The town currently has a 10 MGW transformer. They need 20. The mayor thinks the provincial government already has some. All they need to do is bring a couple down and hook them up. Provincial promised to do just that, but they don’t follow through. Resources pool and get stuck in Ramadi, he says. He asked us to use our good offices to help him get what was promised. We promised to help to the extent we can. That is a big caveat.
Above – this guy claimed he couldn’t stand to be in the house when the air-conditioning went down. It didn’t look like that much of a hardship.
The energy shortage came up repeatedly in discussions at the city council as well as during our foot patrol through town. We joked that the mayor had choreographed the walk so that everybody we met would reinforce his message. In fact, this is nothing new. We hear it always and everywhere.
You perceive the obvious impact it when you see people sitting outside their houses because it is too hot to be inside w/o air-conditioning or when you buy that warm Coca-Cola at the local shop whose refrigerator doesn’t work, but those are superficial impacts. Uncertain power drives up the prices of goods and makes them less available. For example, Kubaysah is a leading producer of chickens. Commercial chicken operations are big consumers of electricity to keep large chicken houses ventilated. If it gets too hot, the chickens die. You also see an impact on fresh vegetables. Nothing grows w/o irrigation. When electric pumps stop, so does the life-giving water, which in this climate means that weeks of work can be desiccated in days or hours.
Water
Our ostensible purpose of coming to Kubaysah in the first place was to check on some of our and CA’s projects. The most prominent is a water project that will replace the old system of water pipes and bring clean drinking water to most of the city’s population.
Little in terms of infrastructure or maintenance was done during the last thirty years. The water tower pictured at the end of the road is from 1963. Saddam spent money on arms and extravagant palaces. Low on the priorities list were water projects with results underground and out of sight.
The Kubaysah water system dates from the 1960s and has essentially not been maintained since. The population outgrew the system & pipes corroded, allowing sewage to seep into the drinking water. The CA funded project you see in the pictures is addressing this.
The picture shows part of the problem. That isn’t raw sewage, but it comes close. It flows until it evaporates or soaks into the ground & into corroded pipes.
A Friendly Foot Patrol
We wanted to see a place where the pipes were actually being installed. The narrow streets of the old town did not permit us to travel by MRAP, so we got out and walked. I always enjoy the foot patrols in any case and request that we do them whenever possible. I try to keep some Iraqi Dinars in my pockets and buy something at a local market. It also gives us a chance to see and be seen, as well as check the pulse of the neighborhood. I understand that this is not a scientific survey, but I also would say that I don’t trust the scientific surveys very much in Iraq.
Polling in Iraq is problematic and unusually susceptible to bias. Furthermore, I think some of those sponsoring some of the polls positively demand it.
The people of the town know who their benefactor is the U.S. and the atmospherics were great. Everyone was willing to talk to us; all were smiling and friendly. When our interpreter apologized to a driver delayed by our foot patrol, he commented that is was no trouble and thanked us for what we were doing.
I believe he was speaking in general terms and not specifically about the water project, but the presence of hundreds of workers doing something obviously of assistance can’t hurt. The only caveat I can think of is that residents seem to have come to think of the U.S., rather than their provincial and national leadership in this role.
Markets were in open and the vendors claimed business was good and said that the produce, with the exception of bananas, was local. As the picture nearby shows, the butcher shop also has fresh local produce.
Eternal Vigilance
I am acutely aware that we can play our role only because the Marines with us play their so well. They are the ones who established this order that allows the flowering of peaceful commerce. I think of it in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy: security comes before development.
The Marines remain vigilant so our team can be secure in our work. I think I would feel safe walking around hell if the Marines were taking care of me.
Dates
Earlier this season we noticed that few of the date palms around Al Asad had many dates and we feared that this could be a general condition. Fortunately, our local problems stemmed from lack of care. Nobody was cultivating the trees around base. Date palms can pollinate naturally, but they do so inefficiently if not cultivated and planted in the proper way. There is not shortage of dates anywhere where anyone cares enough to care enough.
Not Much Use if You Cannot Use it
This a new sewage truck the city of Kubaysah recently received as a gift from Columbia. Everybody agrees that it will greatly enhance the city’s ability to treat its sewage – whenever anybody learns how to use it. Our ePRT is looking into getting training for the city workers.
One of the key components of sustainable power and influence is consistency. If people understand that you will keep your word and behave in a consistent manner, they will respect you, whether or not they like you or what you are doing. It is good to be loved; it is better to be respected.
Western Anbar is a place of tribes and extended families. Each group and sub-group has a reputation as do each of the sheiks. These groups are constantly vying for advantage and position. The Anbaris have come to see the Marines in terms they understand – as a tribe with a history and a reputation, although outside the tribal system. They have come to see the Marines as the toughest tribe in Anbar, the tribe with the longest memory and the one that will pay back in the terms used by the ancient Roman Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Felix) “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.”(BTW – a good biography of Sulla is Sulla the Fortunate. It was published in 1927, but I don’t know of a newer one. You could also go back to Plutarch, which is available in full text translation on Google. Sorry, I can never resist the digression.) This is good. The Marines have won respect in Anbar in their own terms.
The Marines provide consistent security which allowed the flowering of Anbar we are now seeing. It is more than security from insurgents & AQI. The Marines also provide a kind of impartial and honest outside force that helps guarantee the regional tribes and grouping against each other in their sometimes violent competion. It is a smaller scale version of how the U.S. & NATO allowed the French and Germans to give up their ancient suspicions and hatreds since the security of an outside force eliminated incentives to stealthily surpass and surprise your opponent with a sudden, devastating, power. The potential down side of what amounts to a hegemonic relationship is that it can break down if the outside force weakens or disappears before the embers of the ancient hatred and suspicion are gone. With any luck, the people get to like working together better than destructive confrontation. It worked maybe too well with the French & Germans.
This interrelationship would be an interesting subject for an anthropologist to study. People always understand new development in their own terms and try to make sense of them in relation to existing structures. It is not surprising that the Anbaris would see the Marines as the toughest tribe in Anbar.
Our ePRT is unique because of its decentralization. Our area of operations covers around 15% of Iraq; we have five separate districts and it is very hard to travel among them. In response, we developed a system of embedded team members, who stay with the battalion task forces most of the time. Well, that was the theory. We only got it implemented within the last few months, as staff changes made it possible in practice. The system works wonderfully, but it creates management and communications problems, since there is almost never a time when all team members are together in one place. Today we had a general meeting. Dennis Neffendorf is on R&R and three new team members are supposed to arrive soon, but I don’t think we will ever get a bigger quorum than we got today.
You can see the picture. Of course this picture is not complete because it doesn’t include all the Marines we work with. W/o them, we would be able to do nothing. Marines from the effect group were with us in the first part of our meeting and it was interesting for me to watch the interactions. My team members introduced themselves and said what they did. I was conscious of the great pride they took in their work. I felt lucky to be part of such a team. Every member is motivated to do his best work and we all are trying to learn from each other.
In our small way, we are making history. Our relationships with the Marines, the Iraqis and each other are new and, as I wrote above, our decentralized structure is unusual. I think it is precisely this combination that accounts for the high morale, desire to do a good job and eagerness to improve. Paradoxically, every individual feels simultaneously like an autonomous entrepreneur and an integrated member of a team. All great things are based on contradictions. High morale is also a bit of a surprise in a place like this, but I suspect that the good sprits are more because of and not in spite of the challenging conditions. I am also just lucky to have good team members.
This may be the last time I attend a meeting like this with almost everybody. I will try to have one more in September when my successor arrives, but stuff can happen between now and then. It is interesting to think re leaving. My perspective is changed. When I first got to Al Asad, I thought I would never leave. It was a very unpleasant place and I would have been very happy to leave early. I would have probably called it a reprieve. Now I am not so sanguine. It is true that Iraq has become more pleasant (or less unpleasant) as we have upgraded our offices and the violence is way down, but that is not the whole story. I have gotten used to it. The dust and heat doesn’t bother me as much and I have learned to perceive subtle differences in the landscape, so it does not seem universally barren, as I saw at first. More importantly, I find the work and the people I work with very fulfilling. I also like being around the Marines. Their sense of duty and honor is great. I hope I have learned something from them.
I am making a small difference and that is important to me. I would like to continue to contribute. Beyond that, I feel a little guilty about leaving before the fight is done. Others have to stay; I get to go. Others have suffered a lot more hardship over here; my tour in Iraq was not bad. I console myself with the belief that I will have done my duty, finished my entire time & kept my word. You can always do more, but at some point you have to recognize that it is enough. I am certain that everything will go on fine w/o me, but this gnawing feeling mitigates the joy I feel about going back to my family and the green and pleasant places at home.
I am sure I will get over it in short order. When I am not in Iraq, it almost seems an unreal dream when I think about it. It is so different living in America it almost seems like I am a different person. I can understand why ordinary Americans who have never experienced this life have trouble understanding it. It is astonishing to think that one day soon I will get on a plane and a few hours later this will all be over for me.
Don’t you wish the Iraq war REALLY was for oil as the conspiracy nuts told us? Then we would have that $79 billion dollar surplus Iraq now enjoys. The country earns around $90 billion a year in oil revenues and Iraqi officials face the unusual dilemma of not being able to spend money as fast as it comes it. I wrote re this in an earlier post.
Meanwhile, we Americans are paying for development projects. This is not how the textbooks describe empires. When the Romans took over Carthage, Egypt or Gaul, they MADE money. “To the victor belong the spoils”, is what the Romans always said. That was the way it was throughout history. We Americans broke the mold.
The American method is more enlightened. We started doing this big time with the Marshal Plan after World War II. American generosity made possible the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Allies and former enemies alike benefited. But it was actually enlightened self interest. It helped us avoid the threats of chaos in Europe and still another rise of an angry and irredentist Germany. Our leaders back then understood that American prosperity would be enhanced by prosperous partners and that prosperity would hold back the evils of Communism. The often overlooked truth of a free market is that everybody is better off when everybody else is better off.
The Romans could profit from the spoils of war because their world was different. The ancient world was much closer to a zero sum game, where one person could gain wealth only at the expense of another. Our world, with its market economy, is a positive sum game, where we can all get richer through trade and better production methods.
We did both the right thing and the smart thing when we choose to help Iraqis to their feet rather than exploit the riches under them. We could not have enjoyed success in Iraq had we not taken the more holistic and enlightened approach. And American success in Iraq in establishing order is what made possible Iraq’s prodigious oil earnings.
We are on the way to a prosperous and stable Iraq that will be a partner of the U.S. rather than a menace to the world. Nevertheless, each part of the journey has different challenges and opportunities. A couple of years ago it looked like Iraq was spinning out of control and was greatly in need of proactive American generosity. As Iraq piles up money from oil revenues, some of the variables of the equation change. Iraq can pay for its own reconstruction and probably help more with the costs of maintaining its own security.
Since the day I arrived in Iraq, we have been working to help them spend their own money. This is NOT a new policy. But the sheer size of the cash mountain has added a new urgency to the efforts and created many new opportunities.
Iraq is a rich country and until the 1970s was one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East, but in recent generations hydrocarbon wealth has been more a curse than a benefit as the oceans of oil fueled wars, facilitated tyranny and permitted mismanagement on a monumental scale. No country w/o such wealth could have afforded to sink so low but still allow the rulers to be so threatening. Iraq’s conflicts were not FOR oil, but they certainly were ABOUT oil. W/o the power oil could by, Saddam would have been someone on the order of Robert Mugabe – a horrible man and a local menace, but not a world concern. Oil wealth boosts the opportunity to do good or evil.
The money accumulating in Iraqi coffers must be used to produce good outcomes, to build infrastructure, to educate the Iraqi people and restore Iraq’s rightful place in the world. If it sits around too long, somebody will figure out how to steal it or employ it in some nefarious fashion. There are lots of projects that need doing in Iraq. In the recent past, the U.S. would have paid for them, but we are weaning them off American largess. Iraq is unique among war-torn states and developing ones in that it has the resources to pay for its own development. It is time they did.
You usually think of breezes as cool and refreshing. This is not always true. I recently returned via Kuwait, where at the camp we experienced a steady hot wind that was actually painful. It felt like being in the stream of a hair dryer. The wind also sun backed hot dust. It is really unpleasant.
I just think it is odd that you feel cooler when you protected from the breeze. It is a new and unwelcome experience. I figured I would cool off with a shower. The water tanks are outside, so the “cold” water was uncomfortably hot. On the plus side, there is no need for a towel. You just put on your clothes and walk out. You feel cool for a few precious minutes; then you are dry and a little dusty.
A guy from Nevada once explained to me that up in the north you don’t go out in the cold winter. It is same in the hot desert, just reversed. Painfully hot and painfully cold are both dangerous. In fact, a Minnesota winter will kill you faster.
I took the good advice and hunkered down in my tent. Unfortunately, the tent is a little on the depressing side, as you can see from the pictures.
Being in Iraq is better than being in Kuwait. I have my own quarters and my own stuff and- odd as it sounds – Al Asad is just better than Ali Al Salem. We even enjoy cooler temperatures. The high reaches only around 110-115 degrees and it is nice in the early mornings. I know 110 sounds horrible, but it really isn’t. As they say, it is a dry heat and there is a big drop in temperature at night. It just is not very pretty. Below is some of the nice parts.
BTW – it is even nicer in Rutbah and Al Qaim, where you have something closer
A good routine is to be active early in the morning and hunker down inside during the extreme heat of the day. I went running at dawn, which was around 0500. The thermometer said it was 86 degrees, so it was a lot like a warm afternoon back home. Not bad. Taking advantage of the 0430-0730 time frame changes the impression of Iraq as hell. This is also the cleanest part of the day. The dust tends to rise a little after dawn. It must have something to do with the hot sun warming the ground and changing the wind patterns, but I don’t know.
Of course, following this happy routine is not always possible. Sometimes you have to be out and travelling during hot part of the day. It is then that you earn that hardship pay. Most uncomfortable is flying in helicopters. You get the unpleasant combination of hot air, hot exhaust, sun beating down on metal surfaces and the requirement to wear helmets and body armor. Humvees and MRAPs have air-conditioning that works reasonably well. It is still uncomfortably hot, but not so dire. I pity the Marines who have to stand post during the day.
A veteran Marine told me that Al Anbar was relatively green back in 2003. Relatively is the operative word, but it was wetter in 2003. A little bit of green would also create a different impression. The general rule is 5-7 dry years and one wet one. The locals call the wet year “normal” and complain re the drought during the other ones.
I guess the bottom line is that timing is important. In the summer, you have to be out and active before 0730. Forget about it after that. On the other hand, winters have pleasant cool weather, and it is nearly perfect in Novembe-December & February-March, expect for the occasional duster.
Below is from a report by our Ag-Advisor Dennis Neffendorf. It is more interesting than anything I have going on today, so I am posting it. Our overall goal is to make the sheep herds healthier, more productive and smaller. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we estimate that there are at least 1/3 more sheep on the range than the land’s sustainable carrying capacity.
Ironically, low productivity, poverty and inefficiency tend to create a lot more destruction than prosperity. Poor people tend to be bad stewards of the land because they need to take more desperate measures, like grazing too many low quality sheep, so we think that improving productivity and bringing shepherds more into the market economy is a win for the people, for the counter insurgency and for the environment.
QRF finds an Excellent Process to Train and Assist Sheep Herders in Western Anbar for Wool and Herd Management
Awassi sheep are the economic soul of Western Al Anbar. There are three sub-breeds in the Al Asad area. All produce productive lamb and are superbly adapted to the harsh conditions of Iraq’s western desert. Their fat tail is a key to their survival. It functions as a reservoir of fat and moisture. Other breeds have been tried and expensive research was done to try to find a better breed of sheep for the Jazira Desert of Iraq; all have failed.The Awassi has an open face that permits efficient grazing the thorny plants of prickly dry grass. Beyond that, the sheep can maintain excellent vision for grazing, but the absence of wool in the face allows the animal to maintain a cooler body temperature and adapt to temperatures well above 120 to even 135 degree F in the desert. They also lack wool on their legs and under stomach, which in addition to keeping the animals cooler also contributes to its tremendous ability to move across the desert. The tremendous fat tail provides a source of energy for the animal that allows it go for days without eating. This tails allows the animal to drink water during the day. Other breeds across the world can not handle the hot desert water. This unique ability to drink this very warm water the secret is in the tail.
So when a Sheik offers you a piece of prime tail at his home he is offering you one of the finest secrets of the desert to survival of this harsh climate.
Shearing an art that has been done for many generations, here in Anbar much to everyone’s surprise is still done with swords. Yes indeed swords! These swords are laid along side the belly of the animal and cutting of wool is done in a well designed pattern along the length of the body of the animal. This process has worked for many years and it sure allows the herder to harvest his wool in parts of Iraq that do not have electricity. This technique will take the shearer from 30 to 40 minutes to shear an animal and the only maintenance is the sharpening of the swords. It is a laborious process and wool is mainly used within the confines of the community and not currently taken to textile mills or international buyers and marketers of wool. The absence of commercial shearing in Western Anbar has created a negative effect on herd condition, health and has impacted the economic potential of the typical sheepherders in Western Anbar. Without the use of current technology and techniques in wool management, shearing, tagging, grading and marketing of wool has severely degraded not only the economy of the sheepherders family but has further degraded the land resource base of the Jazira Desert.
Quick Response Funds set up by the Department of State provided an avenue for training, providing updated equipment and grading of wool. Programs like this directly enhance the capacity of the Iraq sheep herders but provide a relationship with local wool producers that produce a friendship that will last for years to come.
The training program will provide hands on experience of shearing and proper use of lister equipment. Once the wool is shorn, training will also be provided on body condition and fertility of producing ewes. The wool will be graded out to International Standards to provide a competitive marketable product to textile mills. Wool has many secondary uses not only the use of lanolin for oil but can also be used as an insulation material for homes and business. This of course has to be properly processed.
Sheep are one the few agricultural animals that provide two economic sources of income to the producer. First the wool and then second a very desirable meat. Bringing in animals for shearing and tagging allows the opportunity to check for parasites both externally and internally. The consumption of healthier lambs is also a direct link to the healthier people that consume these meat products.
Other nice positive benefits of overall sheep and wool management is that wool can be shorn and corded to make their own thread, high dollar rugs and clothing material around the home. It can provide additional household income and many of the handmade products lead to a more comfortable life style and economic growth.
Shearing is an art that takes patience, skill, keeping the lister sharp and not cutting the merchandise to avoid infection and other potential problems.
After the wool is graded and sorted then it goes in the wool bag for marketing.
I wrote the following letter to the editor of American Journalism Review. Please follow the links for the original story and this link for the original letter to the editor.
I read your story “Whatever Happened to Iraq?” (June/July) because I am trying to figure out the same thing. Why did the news from Iraq disappear about the time the situation here started to change? I think the problem might be that the American success in Iraq doesn’t fit the earlier defeat-and-destruction narrative that you mention in your story.
I don’t think it is a conspiracy, but it is a syndrome. Journalists like stories that fit their narratives. Once they have found a narrative that other journalists consent to, they are loath to seek disconfirming evidence. My complaint is that the lack of news now has frozen American perceptions in the bad old days of 2006. So much has changed since then. I have seen it in my 10 months here; Marines who were here in 2005 and 2006 tell me that the change is simply unbelievable, which may be why journalists don’t believe it.
The fantastic story, which will probably be told by historians and not current journalists, is that we faced down an insurgency in the center of the Middle East, in a place (Anbar) that al Qaeda had declared the center of its new caliphate. We have driven them to virtual extinction in the course of about a year and did what the pundits and many American politicians said could not be done. Why is that not a story?
Instead, it is big news when the odd bomber gets lucky and kills a bunch of civilians. It is a case of journalists truly missing the forest for the trees.
John A. Matel U.S. Department of State Western Anbar, Iraq
