Day 80: American combat troops are out of the cities

So, although Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett's deaths have pushed Iran's democratic protests and the US "drawdown" out of the cities to the back pages, today was the Big Day. So far, there has been one terrorist attack -- up north in Kirkuk, where the Kurds have been asserting their autonomy and fighting not only with the Sunnis, Shi'as, but also the Turkish people.



Honestly, I don't know if it was Obama's push, or if that was just the impetus, but if so, I am already glad he's in power because putting some dates and some heat really got people from the momentum of stretching this out to being another Bosnia or Kosovo. Actually, someone should call me out on this because it was actually the security agreement and I think that was signed before the presidential campaigns.



Anyhow, I was in Baghdad today, but only in the Green Zone, so did not get to see any of the parades or ceremonies or "street parties." We took off from Baghdad to come back home around 2pm, so had a birds eye view from the helicopter, but still did not see anything. Strangely, the main roads were actually empty -- maybe a security measure?



This is a good thing folks.



Oh one funny incident. The chopper ride from Basra to Baghdad is one hot, unpleasant 3 hr experience. Maybe the first time, it's sort of cool. Maybe for about 20 min at most. You pass over some pretty incredible terrain -- mud houses with no power lines anywhere in sight, marshes, even some open water, then baked desert. But, having the hot wind and sand in your face for that long while your ass goes numb doesn't rank real high on my list of fun things to do. So, I was amused when the political advisor (POLAD) for our division, civilian equivalent to a general, pulled out a Amazon Kindle to read on the flight. I kidded her for awhile, and then right when she was started to get annoyed, I showed her mine. So we both had these geek toys and when the pilot came over during a refueling stop, he was shaking his head. I wrote on my hand, "Because no inflight magazines"

Day 79: Americans pull out of Baghdad = Iraqi Victory?

Caught this on Yahoo News (my choice of premiere, unfiltered, high quality news)...
 
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.
 
Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory."
 
Read the whole thing here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090629/ts_nm/us_iraq
 
I agree that this is a good thing.  It answers the doubters (both in the US and in Iraq) of whether we are serious about this pullout.  Heck, any one who has spent 5 min talking with anyone who is in Iraq now or has been there in the past year could tell you as much that we are turning things over and getting the heck out of Dodge.
 
But what bugs me not just a little bit is when the guys you defeated, then built back up, trained, and pushed towards getting a plan to take over their own country, now drive around in the Humvees that you (the American public) bought them (and are having a helluva time teaching how to maintain) and say that it is their "victory."
 
Just a minor irritation of course.  Totally irrational, I know.
 
 

Day 77: Few images from the Iraqi Army

Short post -- got back from my trip, this time, didn't take 7 attempts, just one, and I walked into the passenger terminal and directly onto the waiting helicopter. Of course, that was only because I was in the Deputy General's party... life is a little different when you have those stars on your collar.

Little more excitement this trip -- our living area got rocketed (wasn't close to where I was sleeping), chopper got shot at, and the electricity went out, so I spent one night sweating my ass off and wishing I was dead. I somehow attracted some sort of insect, so had what looked to be about 80 bites on me -- turns out it was some sort of allergic reaction.

The complaints of the Iraqi locals about the electricity not being reliable becomes a lot more real when you are laying a pool of your own sweat, hoping it is daylight soon, but also not wanting it to be because it will be hotter...

Day 73: Iran's woes = good for us

Over here, all the televisions in the dining facilities have been tuned to the anti-government protests in Iran that were sparked when charges of election fraud were leveled against the current President Al...

It started as a peaceful, massive rally. No one really knew how the regime would react. We soon found out. Rhetoric about banning the protests led to police and the army being readied, to the on-air killing of a female student protester by a militiaman's bullet, to the latest -- violent confrontation by both sides.

I certainly think that if I were Iran I would have played this with a little more savvy. Allowing statements to go out like, "We will crush this protest" (from a leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) don't really help legitimize your nation in the international arena. Many have clamored for more aggressive public support by the US government (mainly the Republicans), but I think that would play into Iran's hands. When your enemy is destroying himself, sometimes the best course of action is to stay out of his way.

This is definitely helping in the Iraq theater though, where anything that can distract the Iranians from their covert influence over Iraqi goings on -- whether anti-coalition force propaganda, economic influence (through cheap imports, for instance, which destabilize domestic Iraqi agriculture), and the smuggling of lethal aid to insurgencies, is welcome.

Day 72: Seventh time's a charm

It only took seven tries (and countless wasted hours), but I finally caught a flight out. This time it was on a Blackhawk -- it had been years since I'd been on one, and I forgot the rush you get from lifting off quickly, the ground only about 6 ft from your face, the "whup-whup" sound of the rotors, and the hot wind hitting you through the open windows. We flew over blue-green water, and it really did remind me of that scene from Apocalypse Now, where the Air Cavalry flies over Da Nang Beach with Wagner playing in the background. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" Quick 45 min flight and we touched down.

I'm on another sector visit, this time to the provinces of Dhi Qar and Muthanna, which are sort of in the center of our area of operations. This belt has been fairly quiet in terms of violence, but there have been attacks that flared up recently and a few days ago a soldier was killed in an IED attack during a routine route patrol not far from here. The patrol had elements of the Iraqi security forces mixed in, which is our marching orders as we increase the force drawdown and try to legitimize the Iraqi police and Army who we have been training for the past few years. I can't relate the details, but apparently someone in the Iraqi police element snitched, leading to the patrol being targeted. Things like this make it very frustrating to hear dissatisfaction from both people who want us to stay around and those that want us to leave. For those of you that may think that the military is gung-ho and wants to stick around, I wish you could spend some time here. The planning around responsibly pulling out is not at all haphazard and consumes the waking hours of a lot of people here, whether in terms of what do we do with all our bases and equipment and hazardous materials, to what happens to the civil capacity building projects we leave behind, to probably the most important -- setting up the Iraqi security forces to enforce and defend the rule of law and defeat the insurgency.

Everyone wants to get out of here, but the military leadership has decided that we are not going to just run and leave even if that would be the easy thing. Trying to give up control of how we believe things should be done is probably the toughest thing to do. Even if we have a perfect plan, part of this working is that the plan must be bought in by the Iraqi leaders. Even better, it needs to come from them. That's our primary mission right now, is to be advisors and try not to step in unless asked. It sure is frustrating though.

On this trip, I am spending more time visiting the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and civil affairs troops to get a rounder perspective on how the civil capacity building mission is going and whether we are organized the right way for the Army and the civilians to work together. This is, as we'd say in business school, "soft, squishy stuff", but it's very important and there are lessons to be learned that we can implement to improve. At least I hope so, because I'm spending a lot of time talking to people about it.

I'll give you an example. The PRT teams typically are about 10 people, consisting mostly of subject matter experts, some project managers, and a couple bilingual bicultural advisors. They don't have admin and logistical support, security, or the resources to move around the sector to do their mission. Yet, they administer and "take the lead" for as much as $100M in projects. So, they depend on the Army to partner with them and provide these services. A common sentiment heard from the PRTs are, "We need help from you." In response, the Army sent them what's called a Movement Support Element (MSE). These are about 8-10 soldiers who act as a staff for them and provide logistical support. At one PRT that I met with today, the PRT leaders kept 2 of the 8 soldiers they got and "fired" the other 6. This action certainly must confuse leaders on the Army side who are now scratching their heads saying, "You said you wanted help and now you say you don't want it. What gives??" Instead of just scratching this up to personality or culture conflict, it's helpful to look deeper. The reason the PRT didn't want the MSE was because what they got didn't match what they needed. The MSE, while good in theory, actually was a non-cohesive group of individual soldiers thrown together, without a leader, clear mission, equipment, and worst of all, few specialist skills. So, the PRT had to spend a lot of time explaining to them what to do, only to start losing some of them a few months later. The management overhead was too much of a headache.

So, the simple lesson here is that someone really needed to sit down and spend time with the PRTs to understand where there gap was and then put together a solution that was didn't have a lot of management drag, yet really freed up the PRT principles to focus on doing what they do best -- get the Iraqi leadership to come up with their own ideas and then turn them into feasible projects.

There are lots of other stories around managing expectations... an extreme one being the civilian woman who showed up to her first patrol wearing a skirt and heels, a more minor, but common one being civilian's lack of understanding why the military needs so much information so far in advance. So, another recommendation I am making is to require an inbrief for both soldiers who will be working with civilians and also for civilian PRT members who are coming to work with the Army. The content would be drawn from the experience of what both sides have said most surprised them or what they wish they knew coming in. There is no silver bullet, but I think common understanding of roles and expectations and clarity in a common goal really makes a difference, and where we help is recommending what mechanisms are good tools to make that happen.

I never really had an organizational design background or did much of org change projects, but now I wish I did. It's not rocket science, but after this, I don't think I'll necessarily take lightly some of those challenges.

Day 68: Blown out

When I first heard about average time to do an air medevac extraction (by helicopter) for Iraq and Afghanistan, I thought there was a typo. It was about 30 min in Afghanistan and 2-3 hrs in Iraq. Seemed backward because in Afghanistan, our forces are spread thinner and the combat outposts are more remote and less built up.

After being "snowed out" for 2 days and having had 4 flights cancelled on me, I now understand why. In early summer, the dust storms in this area are legendary. Looking outside, it's hard to see 100'. A brown haze hangs everywhere and people with any breathing problems are sucking hard. At night, when you turn on a flashlight, it looks like a light saber.

I'm trying to go back out to check out 3 PRT teams -- they're coming together for a key meeting tomorrow morning, and unfortunately, looks like I'm going to miss it.

At the end of that trip, I am going to piggyback along with one of the generals to observe a mutual "show and tell" -- he's bringing two of the Iraqi Army division commanders together to look at one of their camps first, and then we'll all fly over to the other commander's camp. The tricky thing is to not give the impression of this being an inspection and also not making it a direct comparison, which could lead to some loss of face/honor. It will be really interesting. I spoke with one of my counterparts who works 70% of his time with Iraqis and the main advice he gave me was: talk as little as possible, don't have your agenda that you push through, and yield to them. Again, as with civil capacity building, they must confront and work through their own problems.

I read in a local Iraqi newspaper today (translated) an interesting episode:

"In a sign of the need for Iraqi officials to show their independence, a senior American military officer was turned away from a major meeting in Baghdad between Iraq's civilian and military leaders. 'We apologize to you, but this is an Iraqi meeting and you're not invited,' an Iraqi general told the American."

You go girl.

Day 64: A clash of civilizations

Today is Sunday and it's the half day out of the week that I take off, so I have a bit of time to share a little bit of a subject that I've been investigating for awhile now:  the cultural clash between civilians and the military.  This is nothing new.  Since ages past, soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors have used the word "civilian" in tones that are usually used to described snails and other things that crawl along on their own slime.  Similarly, ask most human resources professionals what they think of when they think about career military guys joining the civilian workforce and they'll usually use the words, "inflexible," "domineering," "no sense of humor," and "puckered tight."
 
Times have changed however.  First, the role of citizen-soldiers has increased since 2001 to a vital part of the war effort.  Used to be that the stereotype shown in the movie "Stripes" was pretty accurate.  Reservists were weekend warriors who were untrained, didn't look like soldiers, and didn't act like them.  You wouldn't send them into war and for a hard-charging active duty soldier, telling them that they would be sent to the reserves was like a death sentence.  I enlisted into the Army National Guard in '92 and remembered that during my first several drills at my unit, a lot of people didn't bother showing up and the admin NCO would call them and politely ask where they were and didn't they want to come in to drill this weekend?  No significant training -- just some PT, a lot of admin work, and then ceremonies and dinners.
 
Then 2001 came and suddenly we had 360,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Army, stretched near capacity, had to draw upon its reserve and national guard component.  Funny how knowing that you are going into combat makes you suddenly get your mindset turned around.  The first couple years I'm sure there was a lot of adjustment as well as the active duty vs. reserve attitudes.  By 2005, because of the way that different units were mix and matched and thrown together, you could not tell who was a reservist and who wasn't.  As much as 70% of the deployed forces left their civilian jobs to spend 12-18 months fighting a war.  I was no longer surprised that some of the most experienced and competent NCOs and officers were reservists or guardsmen.  You just cared that they did their jobs well, not whether they were active or reserve.  In fact, in the type of mission we're in now, where the emphasis is no longer on breaking and blowing stuff up, and we are focused on civil-capacity building and the training/advising of Iraqi security forces, reserve components bring their civilian experience to the fight.  Just imagine -- how can a 23 year old lieutenant mentor his Iraqi police chief counterpart?  On the other hand, a 32 year old Reserve lieutenant, who's been a state trooper for 9 years would bring a lot more experience to bear.
 
So, in addition to the reserves getting a lot better and integrating into the overall Army, the role of civilians has come to the forefront as well.  In most of Iraq, we know that the end is near -- we are no longer working towards a defined endstate objective where we will leave when security forces are trained, the rule of law has reached a certain level of adoption in the judicial system, and clean water, electricity, and sewage treatment is available to everyone.  Now, we are leaving at a certain time and we just need to do the best we can before we pull out. 
 
We as "green suiters" have to leave because we are a very visible reminder of conquering occupiers and that strikes a certain religious and social chord that has been played on by extremist and religious and political groups.  As an aside, if you read the newspapers and ask anyone publicly whether coalition forces should leave the cities by the end of this month per the Security Agreement, the universal response will be "yes".  However, one on one and privately, most local Iraqis do not want us to leave.  They know that when one of theirs is taken away by a coalition forces soldier, he may be charged, he may be locked up, but he will be seen again.  They are afraid of another sectarian civil war. 
 
However, civilians can continue working and overseeing reconstruction.  This happens through Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).  To borrow from my friend Wikipedia, a PRT includes a military component (Civil Affairs/Force Protection, etc.), civilian police advisors, and civilian representatives of US (or other national) government foreign affairs agencies. In a US-led PRT, this generally includes a representative from USAID, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Justice. They are assisted by public diplomacy and reporting staff.
 
An Afghan PRT is commanded by a military officer, generally of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is supported by a civil affairs team and platoon of National Guard soldiers for security. The staff generally numbers between sixty and one hundred persons. There is no lead agency or department; the US government civilians and the military commander form an executive committee of equals which develops a strategy for the PRT, drawing on the expertise of all contributing agencies. Activities in Afghanistan focus on extending the reach of the central government into the provinces.
 
In an Iraq PRT, the Team Leader is a civilian who reports to the US Department of State, and his deputy is generally a military officer. While civil affairs members are present on the team, there are more civilians than military personnel on the team. Functional areas include rule of law, reconstruction and development, agriculture, and governance. Some Iraq PRTs are embedded into the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) with which they are colocated (ePRT). The BCT retains responsibility for providing security for the civilian team members. In contrast to Afghanistan, Iraq PRTs focus on building the governance capacity at the local levels of government.
 
So, if you read a lot of the mission statements of units here now, the main efforts are keeping security, training the Iraqi Security Forces (Army, local police, national police, and border enforcement), and building civil-capacity.  The last line of effort is led by the PRT with the Army supporting.
 
This briefs well.  However, in practice, it's often ugly.  Imagine if you threw the schoolhouse tough with the Montessori kid and told them that they needed to play together.  What usually happens?  Either they resent each other, try to screw each other up, or in most cases, end up doing their own thing and ignoring the other as much as they can.  I saw that this seemed to be the case in one province, but also heard that in another province, the PRT team leader and the brigade commander were as tight as frat brothers and I really wanted to see why that was the case.  Plus, maybe I thought that my being a reservist would help me see both sides.  Oh, and I wanted to be able to say that getting a degree in social studies paid off somehow.
 
So, I spent time with both sides, and as you might have read, came back from spending nearly two weeks with a team that worked fairly well together.
 
In my next post, I'll share some of my preliminary findings (those that I can share).
 
 

Funny

For the past 3 weeks, I've been trying to get in on the Chief of Staff's calendar.  It's been ridiculously difficult.  Part of the reason is because he has a gatekeeper adjutant who guards his time like it's gold.  Probably a good thing he has that. Plus, I've been busy enough without having to go ask for more things to do.
 
So I finally went in today and sat down with him.  We talked about priorities, all in all, he was pretty supportive and interested.  There was one thing which made it hard for me to concentrate though.
 
When I first arrived in the room, he was with someone else.  Didn't recognize him.  Looked like a generic mid-grade officer.  CPT, MAJ, or LTC.  White, average height, glasses, unremarkable. 
 
I waited outside and after a few minutes, he left.  When I went in, I had a seat and there was a coffee table there.  On it was a PPT slide with some text on it and some notes on the sides.  I didn't really pay attention, but my subconscious did.  It was a sign that had been posted in the latrines (bathroom) in each stall that said, "Please take care of this place, etc. etc."  Anyways, people get bored and write on those.  I myself was carrying on a bit of dialogue.  It's kind of fun.  You write and then you come back a day or two later and there's more community input.  Kind of like a Toilet Wiki.  Yeah, low tech, but effective.
 
Anyhow, yesterday, it disappeared.  I was pretty disappointed, since the conversations were increasing along different threads.  I assumed that they had all been taking down. 
 
Only after my meeting with the Chief did I realize that the sign that was on his coffee table (and probably the topic of his discussion with the poor dude before me) was none other than the one I'd been drawing on!  I am trying to think, but I really don't think there was anything explosive -- (no pun intended).  No names, no vulgarity, no dirty drawings.  Pretty highbrow as far as graffiti goes.
 
So, that is the big mystery that will haunt me.  Maybe on the last day that I leave here, I'll ask him what it was that got it selectively removed and turned into an asschewing accelerant.
 
So high school.  So fun.

Day 61: Never get on Big Brother's bad side

Arghh. I messed up and did the wrong thing at the wrong time. One of the things that has been a little difficult to get used to has been the level of security working here. You are not allowed to bring in USB thumbdrives, PCs, cameras, recording devices, or cell phones. There is actually an entire section that is called "Information Assurance" -- what they actually ensure is that you will get hosed if you come afoul of them. They are more popularly called the "Security Nazis".

I understand that they need to set guidelines and rules. I took my phone the other night and charged it. Had not even turned it on since I left Kuwait. Anyhow, on the way out of the hooch, I grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket and came to work. Well, as I was sitting at my desk, the alarm went off (it was an embarassing new agey soothing tune too). I had the misfortune of being right by the security representative, a zealous 1LT. He called me on it and said I needed to bring it over to the security systems officer. I went over there and they said I should bring it to the front and leave it there. No problem.

Well, the SSO comes over later to ask about it. Says that they need to do a scan on it. "Ok" says I. A civilian comes over an hour later, asking for the password. I give it up with a little hesitation. Sarah would never have given up her privacy rights, but I'm the trusting sort. I ask when it will be available and the civilian hesitates and says that he got an email that the phone was brought into a secret briefing.

I don't see it that day. Today, in the afternoon, I go to see what's going on. Well, in their little super secret squirrel hideyhole room tucked away behind a locked vault, it's like the exciting news. Like their version of catching a spy. They say that the scan came up clean, but they still want to wipe the blackberry clean. That would really suck, since it's my work BB and much of the info has not been saved. This, my friends, is what happens when you are in staff, you're overmanned, not busy enough, and don't have enough indirect fire landing on your ass. You spin little stuff up into high drama.

To make things worse, I had just been in the middle of a formal request to authorize a camera for bringing into the HQ. Great..... wonderful way to show you're responsible and capable of bringing a recording device into a secure location by doing something boneheaded like this.

So, not too optimistic about that request having any legs. Best I can hope for now, is that these boy scouts let me keep my data.

Oh, and Candice my dear, the only karaoke going on here is in the shower. (Actually, there is a "Basrah's Got Talent" show coming up sometime...)