Day 111: A typical day in paradise

Today was a good day -- sort of representative of the things I'm doing here, so thought I'd share...

Yesterday, I left the Regional US Embassy compound in Babil province, which is not far from the biblical hanging gardens of Nebuchanezzar. Unfortunately, I was only there for an overnighter, so I did not get to go see the ruins of the gardens or the palace that Saddam built right on top of some other archaelogical city foundation. I also did not get to take a dip in the pool that the embassy has. I was there to meet the Provincial Reconstruction Team, debrief the outgoing and incoming military support elements, and talk to the civil affairs teams to get input for the series of recommendations I'm writing about how to improve the way the Army and the civilian reconstruction teams work together.

Anyhow, that night, we had another indirect fire attack -- nothing as effective as the rockets in Basrah. The embassy is protected by contracted guards (Blackwater), not the military, so they went up to the roof with snipers while we waited downstairs. I felt pretty useless with the civilian contractors protecting us.

I jumped in with a convoy coming out to Kalsu, also in Babil province, but further north and much larger. This area is notorious for dust, and it was so thick, visibility was limited to two cars ahead, so we kept the speed down. Last week an MRAP driver fell asleep and hit a Iraqi car headon. 18 tons vs. 2 tons -- the civilians didn't have a chance.

The civil affairs guys took care of me and put me in a room in their compound. The room looks like a cross between a 10 year old's playroom and a college dorm. Two beds on milk crates, homemade furniture constructed from 2x4's, snacks and wrappers all over the place, kiddie sheets on the bed, a stuffed teddy bear in the corner, and Maxim's all over the place (man, I thought I had outgrown those, but they're pretty addictive...even if they are from 2003). Best part was that someone routed an internet cable through the wall.

I slept fairly well, and then woke up at 5:30am to get ready for a mission. I ate breakfast and then linked up with the CA guys and the infantry platoon that was providing security. The mission was to check on some issues with the farmer's market that this team had poured over $2M to build. We took the MRAPs, which was unusual, because those things are so big and have such an aggressive, military appearance, which is something we're getting away from. We also did not use an Iraqi police or Army escort, which is also pretty standard after the June 30 security agreement, which requires most movement to be escorted.

We arrived, met the 8 man "management board" mostly composed of the local sheiks and a few other influential people. They explained that they wanted to expand the market stalls because trucks could not get in all at once. They didn't come out and say it, but they wanted money. Before seeing the problem, the project leader said the right thing, which was to ask them if they'd considered getting a loan, adding an investor, or increasing the stall rent. They looked at each other like they really hadn't. I suggested we take a look because it might just be an operational problem. We walked outside and there were two large permanent overhead stall covers about 25' apart. I could see how it could get congested. But, with some established traffic patterns and a couple traffic cops, it could get a lot better. The iraqi traditional way is to just let anyone come in at all times, leave their trucks there, basically chaos. So, who knows if they'll do it. But, asking for money to expand after only 2 months of operations and when they haven't even gotten the liquidity to pay their own salaries, tells me that they're still learning to do things for themselves. We are in the business of helping them take care of things themselves. That's why it's a little annoying to most everyone in the civil affairs community to be told that an additional $500M had to be spent this year.

Anyhow, we told them we had confidence in them (the equivalent of, "Yeah, you got it taken care of.") and then rolled back to camp. Just had enough time to drop my gear, grab some lunch and then went in to interview the brigade commander and his deputy. This is a typical interview with broad questions about what they've learned to pass on to other units and leaders. Generally, I have no problem securing these interviews because commanders love to talk. But they usually have pretty good insights, so it's valuable. The deputy gave pretty ho-hum answers, but the commander was very opinionated. Unfortunately, he was from West Virginia and talked a mile a minute, so I had problems keeping up. Some people use an audiorecorder, but I prefer to just write.

After the interview, I sat in on an intelligence synch meeting to see how the different staff share information. The group here is doing better than most. Usually, everybody is pretty silo'd. The intelligence guys just want to focus on threat intelligence about bad guys, while the civil affairs guys just care about civil information on schools, who runs the electricity grids, etc. But there is a lot of potential for cross-over. For instance, one PRT team leader was talking with a Brigade commander about a deputy governor who was seeming to be very uncooperative and driving a wedge between the rest of the local govt and the PRT. Turns out that this guy was actually implicated in the murders of two Iraqi policemen and was giving information leading to the emplacement of IEDs against our patrols. With that info, she could now plan her strategy to try to isolate him.

I had a few more informal conversations with people who wanted to share some observations from their time there. Like my civilian job, I end up hearing a lot of the frustration of people, and it's tough because I can't influence everything and can't promise anything. But, at least input allows me to prioritize the messages and once in awhile, I can talk to the right people to fix things.

Went back to the room to crunch the past several days' notes into updating my drafts and then sent them out back to Ft. Leavenworth in preparation for a conference call meeting tomorrow where we are going to try to deconflict what everyone is doing. Apparently, a lot of people are working on this topic of civil capacity building, and it's good not to be duplicating efforts.

Finished about 9pm, did a quick check-in call with my analyst back in the US, and then off to the gym for a quick workout before bed.

So that's a typical day in the life...little bit sweat, little bit writing, and a lot of talking. 4 provinces down, 2 to go. I should be back in Basrah in about a week.

Day 104: Scrappin' with the locals

Just a quick post to let you all know i'm fine and correct the impression I may have given that I was in the ER for an extended period of time. Nope, I was in and out -- just a quick check that all my bits and pieces were in the right place. My neck feels fine now.

Strange timing, because today I had lunch with one of Iraq's top wrestlers. Gaz is only 23, but has trained for 16 years, both here and in Iran, and hopes to train in the US as well. I met him through the provincial reconstruction team leader for the Diwaniya province, who met him through the nephew of a local sheyk who is a wrestling enthusiast. He didn't speak English, but we chatted through an interpreter and he said that he really was interested in learning some brazilian jiujitsu. The PRT team leader is trying to set up a wrestling tournament just to increase interaction with the locals. No, Sarah, I won't go near it...

I'm on 3 week trip outside the wire this time, covering 5 provinces. Started in Baghdad with a couple of conferences and am making my way down to the units I haven't met with yet. Coordination has been kind of painful, since there's so many parties involved.

This morning, I used the phone of an empty office and when the PRT civilian came in, my greetings and self-introduction was met with a "Who are you and what are you doing in my office?" (no smile). Yup, definitely a culture gap between the military and the civilians, but I thought that usually the guys wearing the green suits were supposed to lack social skills??

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | Three MN soldiers killed in Basra attack

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | Three MN soldiers killed in Basra attack

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Day 99: Lives lost for what?

Sorry, haven't blogged in awhile, haven't been in a terrific mood. Several nights ago, we lost 3 soldiers in a rocket attack.

These guys were not on patrol, they were not going into insurgent territory, and our base is not in a controversial location (in a city). They were just like you and me, probably getting ready to go eat late dinner, take a shower, go workout, or standing around talking about what they're going to do when they get back home.

Then, some insurgents who liked life the way it was before, fired off 5 rockets from outside the camp walls. 4 hit within the camp footprint. They were unusually accurate or lucky this time.

One hit near the living area, and those guys were gone. How do you tell their families that is how they died?

We need to quit "liberating" countries where we sink billions of dollars into the government, sheiks, and militaries, only to have celebrations when we leave (but keep the dollars coming, please) and where people watch insurgent cowards indiscriminately shoot at us from cover of night. And now we have our hands tied when we want to defend ourselves.

Just my personal opinion of course.

Day 91: Got put in the emergency room

But it's not what you think. Since I've been in Baghdad this week, I noticed in the gym that there are classes and one was combatatives (Brazilian jiu-jitsu). Since I was training before I deployed, and really enjoy it, I was psyched to check it out. At Basrah, not only are there no classes, there's not even a mat in the tiny gym we have to work out in.

So, the first night, I go in and it's just open mat, meaning you show up and do free sparring ("rolling") with anyone else who shows up. I went, met a few people, and did a little rolling for about an hour. There was really no pussyfooting about it. No going in slow -- you just wade right in. The first guy I matched up with probably outweighed me by about 90 lbs. He did submit me twice in the few times we rolled, but it felt good and I think he expected it to be easier from his first comment, "F*ck, you're annoying!"

Then, I sought out a smaller guy, who was hanging out in the wings, who turned out to be really good. The guy was doing leg and ankle locks on me, which beginners usually don't know. This was better because he wasn't just using his weight and sitting on me like the first guy -- and I was a little more technical. He submitted me 3 times, but taught me some stuff too.

The next morning, I was so sore I had a hard time getting out of my bunk.

The following evening, there was another session, but this time with instruction. We did basics like passing guard. That was followed with more rolling, and I learned that in gi-less (no uniform) fighting, there's few advantages in offense, but makes it much easier to escape -- because you're so sweaty and slippery and also because it's tough to grab onto clothing.

Then, the third night, I went back for more open mat and ended up matching up with the really experienced guy. We started easy, then got a little more aggressive -- maybe when I got him in a choke he didn't expect. He stacked me, which means he had my entire body up on my bent neck, and then he suddenly put more weight on me and twisted me at an odd angle. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my neck and heard a series of pops. Not good. I called him off, and froze -- I did not want to move.

To make it short, I ended up going to the post medical facility to get an x-ray and check things out. The doc said it was just a bad sprain and gave me all kinds of horse tranquilizers and muscle relaxants. And Sarah says that I'm too old to do this stuff anymore.

It's weird -- when I turn my head one way, I feel tingling in my scalp on the other side.

Let's hope this is the only time I'll have to see the ER this tour...


Oh, happy birthday to my brother !

Say it loud! I'm American and I'm proud!

Happy 4th of July everyone, especially my Yankee friends living overseas.  Get those MC Hammer pants out (you know, the ones with the flag screen-printed on them.)  Match them with a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Official-T-Shirt-Cotton-Sleeve/dp/B000NZW3IY) and show the locals who's the ugly American. 

 

What did you do today for the holiday weekend???

Day 83: TGIF!!!

Just kidding... it's easy to lose track of what day is what because there's no real weekend.  Most people take it easy on Sun, but there's definitely no sense and excitement on Fri afternoon.  Actually, some people are giving their sections Sat off because it's the 4th of July, but since there are no real celebrations or parties, all you can do is really sleep longer, watch some DVDs, or go work out.  I may try to get the Iraqi guys out to play some football or ultimate frisbee. 

 

Ah, crud.  Going back to Baghdad for the 4th to attend a conference.  Maybe it being such a big post, there'll be some festivities like more cheerleaders!

 

So, here's a few random thoughts and observations that came to me as I sat in on an assessment of the sector this morning:

 

* One of the key things we're moving towards here is a professionalized law enforcement and judicial system based on evidence, not just witness statements and confessions.  So, a big part of this is building warrants, getting them approved by a judge who's got enough balls to not worry that someone will try to kill him or his family, and then partner with the Iraqi police or Army to go execute the warrant ("snatch the guy").  Problem is that after all of this, a lot of the suspects claim that they are not the ones on the warrant!  There are endless variations of names and it's all real confusing, but the bottom line is that some dirtbags slide because of that technicality.  So, the lifesaver is using biometrics (retina scans, fingerprints) to get people's identities right.  The effort is around getting people into the database, and then getting a hit when they come up for a violation, etc.  Since people tend to stay near their hometowns, if you get some guy who's not from his "hood", it's a good indication that he may be up to no good.

 

* The extremist groups have tried to increase their attacks on coalition forces as we moved combat forces out of the cities.  Why?  To try to claim credit for us leaving.  Kind of the equivalent of the skinny loudmouth kid saying, "Yeah, that's right...better get your ass out of here." as the big guys are already leaving the room.

 

* It's tough to be the Iraqi Police.  They already have a bad reputation because they are much more likely to either be corrupt or infiltrated and tied to the gangs or extremist groups.  But, now, an IP chief can lose his job based not only on either of those two claims, but also if he doesn't go along with the politicians' political agendas. 

 

* One major difference we're doing here is to consciously shift power from the traditional centers of influence -- the tribal sheiks -- to the elected officials of the Government of Iraq.  It's the right move because we want to build legitimacy of the government.  But, it feels a little forced -- is it really our job to meddle and change the shift of power?  The mechanism is reconstruction funding.  The US has done this for years....interestingly, there is little mention of this "soft" or non-kinetic power, which is really where the fight is now.  The scary thing is what is the role of the sheiks now?  If they become marginalized, there is the risk of them becoming anti-govt and therefore anti coalition force.  The friend of my enemy is my enemy...

 

* The Iraqis dropped leaflets over Basrah yesterday celebrating the pullout and also urging residents to support the government.  What is amazing is not the message or the delivery method, but that they did this without our urging and actually, without even coordinating with us.  At initial blush, I'm sure some people were a little prickly about that, but when you think about it, that's really a good step.  Goes back to that comment I mentioned about a week ago where a senior ranking American officer was given the door in his face when he tried to go to an Iraqi meeting.  "Thanks but no thanks.  This is an Iraqi meeting."

 

* In the immediate several weeks after the very important 30 June pullout which is going smoothly so far is addressing any report that we are violating the security agreement because this can be used to justify terrorist actions and attacks our credibility if not addressed immediately.  So far, there have been several claims in the Iraqi media that so and so saw American troops in so and so neighborhood without Iraqi Army or Police around.  So, it is important to have a battledrill ready to quickly respond and stand with the Iraqi security forces and say, "BS -- we did not do that."  In the past the battle drills were just to respond to indirect and direct fire, now words and perceptions are just as damaging.  Things like this really make me think that today's junior leaders have to be much more savvy and adaptive.  No more lugheads going "Me like break. Me kill."

 

* My old friend Mike S would get a big kick out of the fact that I have now seem the word "nefarious" used in at least two briefings.  So zany!