Letters from Baghdad

[yesman065]

Sent: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 5:20 am
Subject: Creative Rail Road work here in Iraq

We had people out flying the rails on the IRR, (Iraqi Railroad) and it
looks like we came across some creative Iraqi workers. It seems some
locals decided to dig a canal of their own so that they can get water
from one side of the track to the other. Now of course they do not have
permission, but that should not be a surprise, nor stop anyone, for this
is Iraq! Well as you look at the pipelines that run parallel to the
tracks they carry oil to and from Northern Iraq.

If you look down into the trench/canal it looks like they are dragging a
pipeline along inside the trench. I believe that they are getting ready
to tap into the oil pipeline and than bury their line into the
trench/canal. Now you got to give some credit to them for these people
are willing to go out in the middle of the desert and "tap in".

CDR USN
"International Railroad Consultant"

[yesman065]

.

[glatt]

Wow. That one belongs in wtf.

[ZenGum]

Indeed.

I'd hate to be in the next train to run over that.

I'd also hate to be attempting nation-building amongst people who either don't have a clue or don't give a damn. Didn't these people loot their own hospitals?

Good luck at the job - it is clear from these posts that some Iraqis both have a clue and give a damn - just not terribly many.

[Bullitt]

Speaking of nation building, a guy my dad works with who was recently sent over to Iraq to help rebuild certain aspects of their infrastructure has sent out an email update. Here you go, name withheld for privacy:



Dear family and friends:

With a little over four months under my belt now, I am beginning to feel at ease with the surroundings and the routine of work and daily life here, which, when we are not working, is mostly filled with sleep, exercise, trying not to eat too much chow in the dining facility, and waiting for helicopters. Lest anyone thinks the two hour advance arrivals at the airport in the States are unknown in a combat zone, forget it. Reservations for a seat on a flight must be made exactly four days in advance and you must check in at the air facility 2 hours before your departure time. The only positive is no TSA checkpoints, since everyone here is already armed. Most flights out of my camp and back to it are done at night, so this usually means sitting around a dusty plywood hut for two hours or more until around midnight, when the flight arrives and the wind from the rotors buffets the thin plywood walls. A Marine with a roster and a fluorescent blue chemlight ushers the passengers outside and we follow in single file to the landing zone, clad in our flak jackets and helmets, and lugging backpacks and rucksacks through the hot rotor wash, blowing sand, and gravel. Once aboard, bathed in dim green light, we sit knee to knee inside the rumbling fuselage, smelling exhaust fumes wafting through the narrow compartment. The waiting can last a few minutes, or if you are unlucky, there is a lengthy delay as the aircrews and ground crews work to load or unload cargo (sound familiar), which can take longer than you would think since it is being done in the dark, with a military forklift, while the helicopters are running. The last time I flew, when we departed a remote airbase, the helo fired off a solitary red flare, probably as a precaution, that was intended to distract man portable surface to air missiles. I don’t know if there was a legitimate threat below trying to shoot us down, but when you are sitting near the rear of the aircraft, as I was, peering out into the blackness beyond the edge of the ramp, and you hear a loud pop, followed by burst of red light, it certainly gets your attention for a second.

Since my first update, I have ridden on nearly a dozen helicopters and visited several cities, military bases/camps, and Joint Security Stations (police precincts) in Al Anbar Province. My focus has been on reconstruction and engineering, but our Marine Corps mission is focused on what is termed “Transition”, which, for the military, is the training, advising, and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces, their Army, Police, and to a lesser extent, their newly formed Highway Patrol. Transition, though, is more than just training a military and a police force; it consists of several pillars or elements that must be interconnected and interdependent to fully function as one. These elements are: Rule of Law, Security, Communication, Governance, and Economics. In order to get all of these elements of Transition to work is a complicated, sometimes rewarding, and frequently frustrating process, involving military civil affairs teams, US State Department Provincial Reconstruction Teams, US Agency for International Development, law enforcement advisors, and instructors on judicial process and municipal management. The overall goal of Transition is to move the Iraqis to a point where they have become relatively self -sufficient and reasonably capable of providing security, stability, and the broad array of basic services at the local, regional, and national levels. There will be differing and uneven progress in all these areas, imperfect solutions at best, but if we and the Iraqis can build on the trust that has been established so far, their formal government institutions and their age old tribal organizations will find a way to work together and function for the betterment of their leaders and their constituents.

For the Marines, the Security element of Transition, especially the training and advising piece, can be somewhat counter intuitive for the American military mind. Our traditions and our ethos are steeped in the institutional practice of empowering young leaders and solving problems at the lowest levels. Our ranks are replete with Type A, problem solvers and aggressive, smart young enlisted who want to “fix” and change things, in this case the Iraqis and their seemingly bad habits. But the Iraqis do not adhere or subscribe to a Western military mindset. Arab militaries, for the most part, do not have any tradition of expecting their Corporals and Sergeants to make decisions; that is left to the Captains and Majors. However, the Iraqi soldier, or “jundi” is desirous of a challenge, eager to learn and show he is competent and capable, and their officers are, for the most part, quite seasoned. We Americans often look at their Army and Police with a very critical eye and see their shortcomings compared to our capabilities as deficiencies we must address and indeed correct before we can depart and deem our mission a success. But our trainers and advisors must fight this urge to try and remake the Iraqis in our image, for the longer we persist with this line of thinking, the more the Iraqis will lean on us and expect more from us. Lest we forget the lessons of history:

“It is better to let them do it themselves imperfectly, than do it yourself perfectly. It is their country…:

- T.E. Lawrence

We are, as one departing Colonel told me, “advisors, not providers” and the sooner we embrace that philosophy, the sooner the Iraqis will begin to solve their problems in their own time and in their own way. They are already doing this in many areas, we are simply here to ensure they make progress, but over time, that progress will have to be defined more by them, and less by us.

For those of you wondering where and when this relationship ends, it won’t, at least for another twenty years, perhaps much longer. We have made a long-term moral, financial, and military commitment to the Iraqis and we are not going to renege on that commitment, regardless of the political rhetoric in Washington DC or on the campaign trail. Just turn on the news and see President Bush confirming a partnership agreement with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Our degree of involvement and numbers of troops will decline in the years ahead, but it is obvious to me that we will have troops working alongside the Iraqis, just as we have the South Koreans and the Germans, for at least another generation. By that time, it is my hope that the young barefooted Iraqi boys, who passed me by the other day, pushing carts to Fallujah, will have had an opportunity to go to school, find an honorable way to earn a living, and raise their families in peace. The Marine Corps has sent me all over the world, and that is one thing I have seen in Asia, Europe and Africa – the desire to live, love and be left in peace is universal.

Semper Fidelis

[tw]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

We have made a long-term moral, financial, and military commitment to the Iraqis and we are not going to renege on that commitment, regardless of the political rhetoric in Washington DC or on the campaign trail.

Replace the word 'Iraq' with 'Vietnam'. Same letter was sent 30+ years ago when that government also would not stand up and resolve the fundamental problem.

As Petraeus has today prefaced his comments, we are not winning. We are making possible a solution. America cannot create that solution. And currently the Iraqi government has done nothing to make a solution possible.

The same letters from Nam proclaimed all the good things we were doing. But we were now solving the problem. Does not matter how many schools get built if the powers that be don't want to solve the only problem. A problem that created a civil war - in both countries. No American flag waving even implies a solution.