Emails From Iraq (1)

An American contractor on his arrival in Iraq in 2007 to work for a company with a contract to mentor small businesses owned by Iraqis

Did you know you can still get commercial flights into Iraq? And did you know the politically correct way to land an airplane in Baghdad ends with a flush ... an extremely steep, downward spiral from 15,000 feet directly over the airport so not to attract gunfire? We flew Royal Jordanian Airlines so ours was a royal flush. Welcome to Iraq!

Some of you joined me from Almaty to Zagreb, from Bishkek to Banja Luka and Bansk. But nothing, absolutely nothing, compares with Iraq. I cannot do justice after only a few days, but my objective is to give you a first person, on-the-ground perspective of this country. At the very least, this will be educational. I fully expect my opinions to change and stories to conflict, but that's the way things are: fluid and unpredictable. I also expect and hope that what I tell you will differ vastly from what you are seeing on the US news. We all know of the US bias; these reports will give you perspective on the biases. Truth is a matter of interpretation and yours is as good as anyone's.

There are things I cannot say much about, mostly to do with security. What I suggest is you think of the most exciting action film you ever saw and begin there. My daily gear includes an armored vest and helmet, and moving from point A to point B requires extensive planning and preparation, including multiple guards and armored vehicles. I am learning to follow orders which will be a pleasant surprise to my wife. For the ladies, this is a haven of hunks: young, dashing men in excellent physical condition.

My story starts in neighboring Amman, Jordan, a diamond in the ruff, a rose among thorns. People walk the streets of Amman as if things are normal. If you look at a map, however, you will see Jordan is surrounded by lands where walking streets is not a privilege taken lightly. Our stay here is brief, overnight only. In the morning we board a plane for Baghdad but are instructed to go back to waiting because of "bad weather" in Baghdad, the first sign of unpredictability. Later, after flying over a sand storm on the way to Baghdad (it is mostly desert between Amman and Baghdad) and finding beautiful weather upon arrival, we are unsure what the real cause of the delay was.

After more delays in passport control (one of our party was deported back to Amman because he did not have the right paperwork), the other member of my team and I met our security detail, a guy from France and another from Australia, and we donned protective gear and received a briefing about what we could expect on our five mile trip from the airport to the International Zone (IZ, formerly called the Green Zone). This stretch of highway has been called the 'most dangerous road in the world' and our security personnel are accustomed to navigating assorted threats. The ride was directly from the movies and we arrived, as expected, safely.

I haven't said much about my job because it is not entirely clear to me. I am a civilian contractor, and working for the US government requires skills nobody should ever seek. I'll fill you in as this unfolds. By the way, I turned a huge corner today. Boarding an airplane to Iraq for the first time produces anxiety by itself. Knowing you will spiral steeply toward a target is equally troubling, not just because of the dangerous maneuver but also because of the reason for it. So as I nestled fitfully into my seat and tugged the seatbelt tighter than usual, and only then learned the pilot was a woman, I had two choices. The choice I made was to refresh my amazement of the 'fairer' gender. It seems women really can do anything!

Feel free to contact me if you want to give me orders. I am listening very well right now.

Emails From Iraq (2)

This is my third draft of this issue. In the first draft, I ended with what seemed a logical afterthought. Soon after writing it, I received a list of questions from a friend and the afterthought became a purposeful forethought. Two of the questions provoked thought and meditation. One question was, "What surprised you the most?" The other was, "What scares you the most?" Interestingly, the answer to both questions is, "Reality." The third draft was necessary after learning where I am being sent and what restrictions there are on my words.

As an alumnus of Bosnia, I thought my experience as a civilian contractor in a war zone prepared me for this. The truth is working in a war zone 4 years after a war offers little preparation for working in an active war zone. I experienced the war more than once this week, including explosions and smoke, warning and all-clear sirens, orders to get inside, gunfire, and incoming and outgoing shells, in addition to the 24/7 roar of military helicopters directly overhead. As in the past, nothing hit our camp but there is little more to say than "Wow!" We are advised to find ways to deal with stress, and days like these are the reason why. I have so much to learn.

I originally started this report with the intention of providing a few details about the project only to learn that constraints on disseminating information are very, very strict. So until I learn exactly what I can and cannot say, I will refrain from offering much about where I am, what I am doing and how it is getting done. Some of my friends think I work for the CIA. Sexy idea but untrue! The real reason is to protect everyone's ability to work in Iraq safely.

If you want to read an informative, published report about the project please go to http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr185.html - particularly pages 6-7. I am a member of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) - Governance (RTI - contractor). This is part of President Bush's "New Way Forward." Without revealing my views of our president, I am allowing my perspective on Iraq to crystallize independently of US media - a personal objective. I can tell you the optimism here is as strong as the pessimism there. I learned in other developing countries, and it is certainly true here, that progress is measured in millimeters. In a broad sense, are we making a difference? Yes. Are we making mistakes? Yes. Is this expensive? Yes. Is money being wasted? Only as artists waste raw materials. Should we pull out or set a date for withdrawal? No. Should we have come here in the first place? I don't know. All the effort, cost and waste could have been avoided if we had never come here in the first place, regardless the arguments about WMD's. Having been part of reform of the former Soviet Union, however, I will not agree that coming here was a mistake - at least not now.

I learned today where I will be stationed, and I also received clear direction about what can and cannot be reported. If you did not read the cover email carefully, please do so. My ability to continue sending these reports depends entirely on your conformity to the rules. My assignment is in Anbar Province, the largest province (yet sparsely populated) to the west of Baghdad. Anbar is predominantly Sunni and borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and is home to Fallujah, Ramadi and Abu Ghraib, among other less notable locations. The good news is I will live on a Marine Base in Ramadi. Anbar is where much of the surge is taking place, the latest attempt to restrict the insurgency. I understand a goal of this surge is to bring peace and stability to a predominantly Sunni area as balance to the Shia dominance. You can learn more about Anbar Province by looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Anbar_Governorate. More on this later.

I read in an online newspaper this morning about fighting yesterday in a city south of Baghdad. This must have been what we heard. We are 8 hours ahead of the east coast.

Eisenhower, Reagan and Rumsfeld

At the moment, the coherence of the motives of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and the retired military officers who now unite in denouncing him can only be dimly imagined. At best, we can expect future revelations to tell us how close we came to the truth. But let's take a stab at it.

More than fifty years ago, President Eisenhower baffled most of us by warning about the Industrial-Military Complex, which we now see about like this: military contracts are awarded for technical research in the civilian sector. This system was first devised in 19th Century Germany, with great success in providing the German High Command with new weapons and methods of warfare which three times brought Germany close to conquering Europe. No doubt, many of the more intellectual officers of the military had dreams and fantasies which translated into requests for proposals. No doubt, some scientists have brought ideas of workable research projects into receptive military conferences. It's hard to say where such a process begins, so it's fair to call it a Complex.

Although we fought some moderate-sized wars during the period from Eisenhower to the end of Reagan's second term, there's a short-hand way of describing the Industrial Military Complex during that time: we devised a regular succession of new weapon systems, which we had no intention of using. The final example was Star Wars, the threat of which caused the Soviet Union to surrender the Cold War, when in all probability Star Wars was a project that didn't even work. Never mind the oversimplification; this will suffice as framework for a different proposition.

The spin-offs from this military research explain the sudden flowering of peaceful products from Silicon Valley, and the suburbs of Houston and Boston. Japan, mandated to avoid military development, was particularly active in developing peaceful spin-offs from new technology. Over in the world of the professional American military, the spin-offs were somewhat different. Each new technology needed to be carried forward into what was called a weapons system, where whole industries were shaped around the idea of mass-producing the new system, and regiments of young officers planned their future careers as the spear-heads of the new advance in warfare. And then, as often as not, the weapon system was totally dropped in favor of some newer weapon concept, with new industries to profit from its production and new officers to promote their careers as the leaders. It was a great system for the research industry, but it was hard on its supporters and disciples.

Meanwhile, there were two other negative responses. Military leaders in the under developed world began to imagine that their masses of troops and low-technology style might be able to win wars of attrition against a more sophisticated enemy, and in turn the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, and Al Queda taught us some unexpected lessons. The American military was not asleep, we made short work of the same Afghans who had nearly bled the Russians to death. These constant reminders that the world remains a dangerous place exposed one major weakness in the system of devising new styles of warfare. You can't be really sure it works until you try it with live ammunition on a serious enemy.

So the little wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had the advantage that they tested the new systems for weaknesses to be corrected, and identified weapon systems which ought to be expanded for more serious wars, somewhat to the East. You hate to believe our leaders are thinking this way, but there's no doubt we would blame them if they hadn't identified that Humvees need more side armor, body armour needs more ventilation, the CIA needs more language experts.

On one level, of course, all of this is terribly plausible. On another level, some soldiers are getting killed by it. It is certainly easy to sympathize with officers who had been trained to fight the old way, the tried and tested one. Or others who had staked their future on the potential of a weapon system which was never adopted, particularly one which was an unsuccessful contender for reasons of local or partisan politics. And particularly when the civilian leader did not come through the same cultural conditioning of the military academies, had not particularly distinguished himself in challenges they respected. In fact, a Yale man who was described by Henry Kissinger as the most effective bureaucratic infighter he had ever met. On his second try at the job of Secretary of Defense, nearing the end of his term. Having almost proved his point.

CEO of the World

George W Bush

Christmas, 2005.

My Quaker Friends are comfortable with the firm position that no war can be justified. This sometimes leads to feeling it's unnecessary even to consider the justifications or the mitigating circumstances of any war, since nothing can be said which will lessen their opposition. My Democrat friends seem to have an equally closed mind, one which leads them to emotional denunciations of George Bush which I know cannot be completely reasonable. However, George Bush and I went to the same sort of schools, feel passionately about the same sort of libertarian economics. I like his father very much, even though our association in the same college class was very brief. In short, I want to give this man every benefit of doubt and fairness, even in the face of what I must acknowledge to Quakers and Democrats is a glum recognition of the strength of their strongest argument. I don't like wars, I don't like political spin. But it is important to me to feel I am doing my own thinking, so I resolved to make as good a case for W as I possibly could. After that, perhaps I could take time to see how well I had convinced myself.

We frequently hear that America is the only superpower in the world; our president is the most powerful man alive. I suspect George Bush believes that, too. His formulation is likely to be that he has found himself the Chief Executive, the CEO, of the world. His training and background tell him how to manage a huge enterprise: delegate authority. That is, assign general goals to subordinates. Prior to 1918, an American president would assign foreign affairs to his State Department.

Our involvement in several cataclysmic wars made clear that large portions of the world would not leave us alone, nor respond to the persuasiveness of diplomats, either. Certain governments at certain times, would have to be assigned to the Department of Defense. This technique worked even better than we expected; Germany, Japan, and Italy became our most effective allies.

Baltic States

The rest of the non-American World was turned over to the multi-national corporations. More accurately, perhaps, the multinationals took the rest of the world away from the State Department and proceeded to subdue a great deal of it. South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, the Baltic states, Hungary, India, the Czech Republic seemed to do it eagerly, China did it in its own way, and much of the rest did it grudgingly. Russia and mainland China, along with Canada and Mexico, are special cases. Perhaps an interdisciplinary approach needs to be devised for them.

September 11

But by the time the younger Bush President came to power, it had become clear that none of our approaches, diplomatic, military or economic, would make much difference to a large subcivilized part of the world. Africa and vast stretches of Central Asia were just about the same as they were in 1900. Like South America, it looked as though they could be safely ignored -- until the events of September 11 showed that they could not be. Furthermore, it was clear to the American government that this disaffected region not only hated us, but had the capability of making atom bombs, and the oil revenues to finance a very destructive war against civilization. In Texas parlance, it's them or us.

The largely marginalized State Department quite properly responded to the enraged vigilante police action by protesting that you can't intimidate millions of people who essentially have nothing to lose. The diplomatic corps has long been a creature of a handful of universities who were once themselves captured by sit-ins and more recently by tenure.

28th Infantry Division

Since the nation was only formed in 1776, and the only memorable war before that was the French and Indian War of 1754, the origin in 1747 of the Pennsylvania 28th Division of Infantry needs a little explaining. The 28th is a National Guard reserve unit, taking its present organizational form 138 years ago. Even counting from that moment makes it the oldest (and third largest) division in the Army, but there are another 123 years of history before that.

A few people remember that Ben Franklin made his first step into politics during King George's War, when French and Spanish privateers were suddenly roaming Delaware Bay. The pacifist Quaker government hesitated in confusion, so Franklin stepped forward to call for a volunteer militia. It was paid for with a lottery because the Quaker legislature resisted; there seemingly was no end to Franklin's ingenuity. The unit remained a permanent one,and since then served with distinction in the various conflicts through the Civil War, when it was organized into the National Guard. The volunteer movement it inspired was part of the impetus for the Second Amendment to the Constitution which the National Rifle Association will be glad to explain to you, although historians commonly trace the civilian soldier tradition back to King James and the English Civil War. Franklin was unfailingly patriotic, and never hesitated about military measures when they seemed necessary. He lived long enough so his military sympathies were a dominant force at the Constitutional Convention.

Major General Wesley E. Craig Jr., former commander of the Division, was kind enough to address the Right Angle Club about the 28th Division recently. Since the citizen soldiers of the National Guard all have other careers, his daytime job was as an executive for Strawbridge and Clothier. A moment of reflection about the origin of his own name, connected with a strongly Quaker firm, evokes the two strongest social and ethnic tensions of early Pennsylvania history.

The audience was treated to a description of the military history of the unit, whose largest battle was the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. But they are in Iraq today, with almost every soldier serving one tour of duty, many of them two or even more. They were the unit stationed in El Ambar province during the period before the Sheiks finally decided that America was going to win this war, and changed sides. General Craig had returned to America only a month before this famous turning-point. Before that, units of the 28th were in Bosnia and Kosovo, and are proud to have been chosen for the introduction of many innovative technologies. They are the only reserve division with Stryker vehicles, and before that employed unmanned drone aircraft for reconnaissance. Observer drones fly at 2000 feet and carry no weapons, unlike the Predator drones which carry rockets and fly at 10,000 feet.

Not everything is a story of victorious action; the 28th Division is very proud of its activities in the Katrina rescue missions and other domestic emergencies. The Go Ahead Division is proud of its reputation for being on time, every time.

And it is mindful of the sad side. In Iraq, it is 31 KIA, with 167 WIA. If uncertain what that means, try a little harder.