Day 47: Long Day

Sorry I haven't written anyone in awhile. Since arriving at this forward operating base in Wasit, I've been out everyday on missions, either with the civil affairs teams, or with the artillery battalion here that has been turned into infantrymen and run joint operations with the Iraqi Army. I just got back tonight and have a day tomorrow to just meet with the Brigade staff here on post.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, one of the most important things we are trying to do is to train up and legitimize the Iraqi security forces to maintain stability on their own. As we frequently do with foreign forces, we are partnering with them to not only not appear to be doing things unilaterally (in this case as an occupying force), but to also train them or to ensure that the mission is being done to a high standard.

For the past 9 months since the Georgians left, this artillery battalion has run three Joint Security Stations (JSS), which combine a platoon of soldiers (~20) with up to 40 Iraqi soldiers. They live, eat, and patrol together. I sort of wish that I was a young platoon leader again who got to do that. They learn more than any of us staff types that only meet the Iraqis occasionally.

As part of the drawdown and transition strategy, we are turning these JSSs over completely to the Iraqis. Today was the first one to be handed over so there was an actual ceremony attended by the battalion and brigade commanders, high ranking Iraqi counterparts, and media.

It was a short ceremony -- both platoons facing each other were in formation, the national anthems played with each side saluting. Man, it felt weird both saluting the Iraqi national anthem and then watching the Iraqi soldiers saluting while ours played. I just still don't know
how we came to be training and funding our former enemies. In any case, this was followed by a reading from the Quran and then short speeches by both senior commanders.

Not more than a half hour after the ceremony, all American soldiers were gone for good from that outpost. That is the real deal -- I hope (along with all of the US forces), that the Iraqis will not go back to their old infighting and really use the lessons learned to build a strong, respected fighting force to protect the nation against terrorism. Oh, and if they also stop the Iranians and are friendly to our administration, and buy $3B in M1 Abrams main battle tanks, well, that's an unexpected and totally unanticipated bonus.

The biggest shortcoming right now is probably their ability to plan for logistics and maintenance. This is partially a cultural tendency. For instance, we use just in time principles as the basis for understanding that less inventory is usually good if you have high parts cycle throughput because it means you are getting parts out where they're needed without having a lot of inventory tied up in a warehouse. The Iraqi mentality, however, is that the more the better. Having a full warehouse means you have power. One commander was plugged into the national power grid (so didn't need generators), but had two, while sister units had no electricity. He would not give them up, claiming that he had to have a backup. Very frustrating.

We followed that by a trip up to another outpost in the north to check on the soldiers there. It was surprisingly well-appointed for such a barren location way out there. The commander gave the battery a safety award for not having had any accidental injuries in the past 3 months. He finished with a short speech on how the unit had to be just as careful in the last 100 days of the deployment as they were during the first 100 days (usually the most dangerous, while you are trying to figure things out).

By the time we got back, we had been on the road for 3.5 hrs, so I was pretty beat, but still had interviews lined up, panel-style with about 10 of the unit's staff. Pretty good sessions -- a lot of typical griping that you would hear anywhere else in any theater, any time. The higher headquarters doesn't help us plan... they hoard information.... Equipment we request takes forever for us to get.... Still, some things they said were helpful and surprising. Always nice to get viewpoints from opposing sides.

It's late, and I missed dinner, so going to grab "midnight" chow.

Oh, just added some pictures. In case you are curious, that last photo is what happens when your butt sweats. I thought this was a phenomenon only capable of people with big heinies.