More, Please

I'm starting to notice that my time in between posts is slowly drifting apart. This isn't intentional; I have just been extremely frustrated and I am trying to take a step back before blasting my frustration into the blog and turning it into a wordy bitch session. That being said, I need to write about a conversation I had with my Iraqi counterpart this past morning.

It was a dusty morning, already approaching 95 degrees at about 8:45am. We were driving through the depot, talking about how to better organize certain warehouses and what work needed to get done. The conversation then turned to physical improvements that needed to be done, and I got excited because this is an area I have been working since we arrived here. We have already rebuilt the guard houses that used to be falling apart, impressed with them; he stated that the warehouses needed to be fixed in a similar fashion. I happily responded that we have already contracted out the work, which would begin soon, and that they would be as good or better. He then declared that we need power; I again responded excitedly that we have plans to run power all throughout the depot, including street lamps and power to all the warehouses. In addition, I continued, we are going to have the roads repaired and the spaces in between each warehouse graded and leveled for drainage. On top of all that, we have another project for a central receiving and shipping point which will include new offices and a consolidated operations center.

I'm not sure what kind of reaction I was expecting, but I do know I wasn’t expecting what followed.

"What about water", he asked through the interpreter.

I was confused, and asked "Water? What do you mean? Drainage?"

"No", he replied. "Water from pipes. To all the warehouses."

I was stunned. "No, there are no plans to run water mains to all of the warehouses, sir. We've spent close to $100 million on the improvements I just talked about, and if we wanted to run water mains it would easily be double that. There just isn't enough money."

He looked disappointed, and replied simply "Well, we need it. We should have water mains here."

I was still bewildered by this request. "Sir, I've been over this with your boss. We talked about all of the improvements we'd need to make in order to run this depot more efficiently. Water mains are a luxury, and are so expensive that their cost cant possibly be justified."

He just shook his head, clearly not happy and disappointed. At this point I was starting to get angry, so I simply looked at my interpreter, shook my head and said nothing. I thought angrily to myself, Water mains? Is he kidding me?? Everywhere I have ever been, to include the US, we use bottled water. We provide them unlimited bottled water here. There is no need to wash in the warehouses since the living quarters are located somewhere else. I couldn't stop thinking about this verbal exchange all day. This wasn't the first time I've received feedback like this. Here we are in Iraq, pouring 100s of millions of US dollars into their military, their government, and their infrastructure; and yet, the only response I get from many when we describe our improvement projects is almost disappointment that we aren't doing MORE. It is the same with our role as advisors. We are constantly being asked to do MORE, to provide MORE fuel, MORE new equipment whenever theirs breaks, MORE work out of our own Soldiers.

This is what frustrates me, because I still feel like the more we give, the more they expect and the more they want. What I need to do is try and understand things from their perspective more. For example, water is a big deal to the Iraqi's. They grew up without having much water in their homes and learned from an early age to hoard it and store it whenever its available. Of course my counterpart is going to request it when he hears how much money we are spending on other things. That being said, they also need to understand what's important and what is nice to have. I still feel like we are failing in conveying mission criticality to them; too often we are scrambling to get things done and they are standing by watching. How do we solve this? How do we change our perspective to understand them better and not get so frustrated by their constant clamoring for more? We could leave, but I still don't think that’s the right answer (Actually we can’t leave, but you know what I mean). Problem is, I don't know what the right answer is, and I don't think anyone else does, either.

The Ligers

No, the title is not referring to my uncle's fantasy football team that won the league championship last year (although they did). The Ligers are what we nicknamed ourselves after a surprise visit from a 10-person "Tiger" team sent by our higher HQ. What's a Tiger team? Great question, and it’s the same question we asked upon their arrival. The answer we received is that a Tiger Team is an ad-hoc team sent to fix problems where the current personnel are unable to do so themselves. Ohhh - so basically a group of our peers who have been working in an office for the last 3 months are sent to the field to fix problems they really don’t know much about. As you can tell, their arrival didn’t sit well with us, and so we called ourselves the Ligers, because a Liger will always beat a Tiger.

In actuality, neither group started off on the right foot, and to be fair to that group, we didn’t give them much of a chance. One of my good friends from 10th Mountain was one of the individuals on the team, but I didn't give her much preferential treatment (sorry!). It's hard for us to accept that after 3 months of living and working with the Iraqi's, a team of staff officers is going to come tell us how to solve all our problems. We've suffered through broken equipment, long periods of no power, lack of fuel, and countless other circumstances that have given us a bond with our Iraqi counterparts. We are just starting to really see how things work, and now we are being told everything is broke, falling apart at the seams and it’s more or less all our fault. So yea, we got pretty defensive.

During a negotiation I had with one of the team members, a light switch went off somewhere in my head. We were discussing fuel, and how they (the coalition) were going to put in a request to get us (the Iraqi unit) as much fuel as we ever needed. Well, this pissed me off. For the past 3 months we have been forcing the Iraqi's to manage their fuel situation on their own - and when they run out, there is no safety net from the coalition. Our experience with them has shown us that when we provide the safety net, they don't work as hard to manage their own situation. Why would they, when we'll just bail them out if they fail? Our negotiation hit a tense point, and the conversation then went like this:
After explaining the reason we didn't like to give them coalition fuel, I was asked, "So are you prepared to answer for failed missions and explain that you refused fuel?"

"Damn right I am", I snapped back. "You know what? That’s the problem here. We have a coalition-run HQ coordinating and commanding logistics down to Iraqi-run ground units. How can we make any progress that way??" At this point I barely paused to catch my breath, and the veins in the side of my head were beginning to pulse.

I continued on, "It's like this: If we fail to make a mission here, our coalition HQ comes down on the coalition advisor's here. Who, then, is coming down on the Iraqi's? That's supposed to be our job in a way, but do you really thing the Iraqi's are paying much heed when they know we'll be gone in 8 months?"

No response, so I drove forward. "What needs to happen is our HQ needs to put aside their arrogance and start letting the Iraqi's command the Iraqi's. Then, when a mission fails, have an Iraqi general come down hard on the Iraqi commanders here. These guys are lifers - you better believe they care when their commanding officers bring a shit storm down on them!"

"There's a difference between letting them fail, and letting them fail miserably. We can’t let them fail miserably", she finally replied in a tone to match mine.

"The hell we can’t!” I replied. "How are they ever going to learn otherwise?"

At this, the negotiations pretty much broke up; the other participants were beginning to stare and my voice was getting elevated. Thinking back on the conversation, though, neither of us was really right or wrong. She was absolutely correct in assuming we need fuel, and was simply trying to help me by providing a solution. As I tend to do, I over analyzed the situation and took some pent up feelings out on her. Here's the important part to me, though - there is a disconnect. The coalition wants mission accomplishment first and always, and are willing to throw resources to the Iraqi's to ensure that happens. However, as long as we continue to provide them with unending resources and safety nets, they'll never start depending on themselves to do it.

Where do we draw the line though? Fact is, there are American troops with each Iraqi unit, and if that Iraqi unit doesn't get what it needs, we hurt Americans. That fact is what drives us to continually bail out the Iraqis - we can’t, and won’t, let a mission fail when American lives are at stake. It’s also for this reason I have to somewhat concede the above argument. I obviously don't have all the answers, but I am pretty adept at identifying problems and putting together working solutions. I finally pinpointed our problem here, what I'll dub as the great disconnect, and I feel helpless to correct it.

That being said, we have a whole of working solutions in place. Everything from increased manpower (we are at about 35% strength on the Iraqi side), to longer working hours, to complete refurbishments of the crumbling warehouses. A year from now, this place WILL be better then when we arrived. The question is, will it be good enough?

The Media and Congress

What I wouldn't give to be a member of our esteemed media or congress, because if I were, I would get to write articles like this: Report: Iraqi force training producing 'mixed results'.
This has got to be a joke. Like this quote: "The bottom line is that after three months of studying the U.S. effort . .. we cannot assess the operational capability of these forces," the report said. "We are actually left with more questions than answers." Of course you are - I still don't even know what the hell I'm doing and I've been here over 2 months! I can assure you that 3 months would not be close to the amount of time required to write a congressional report. "And we've seen over the last few days and weeks that they are not even operating in the lead." Wow, you've seen that over the last few days! Great job - so statistically speaking, those few days with one or two small size units are representative of the entire Iraqi Security Force (ISF) and Army (IA)?

What I get from this article is that the congressional "subcommittee" and the Department of Defense are having a little power struggle and so to emphasize this a report is published criticizing the DoD. I am by no means saying that I believe the ISF or IA are ready to take full control. However, that doesn't seem to be the focal point of this article and that's what pisses me off. Instead of highlighting all the negative opinions that we are so tired of hearing repeated by congress over and over, why not list some factual stats that illustrate where the forces are and where they need to go? Instead, this media article, like so many others, seems to be written to further fuel anti-war sentiment and public opinion. But hey, that's what we're over here trying to protect. The right of the media to publish biased articles and fuel public opinion. It could be worse - our government could be controlling the media and influencing everything they write . . . (sinister laugh)

If you are looking for a better written article, read this one about the ongoing operation in Diyala. In this now volatile province, members of the 1920 revolution brigades, once bitter enemies of the US military and Iraqi government, have become unlikely allies to US and Iraqi military, even though the majority of the Iraqi Army there are Shia. This same "about-face" is why we hear so little about Anbar Province and Fallujah lately, and is something I've touched on in previous posts. The people of Iraq are sick of living in fear and are starting to recognize the real enemy among them.

Feel free to comment or disagree with anything I have written, and remember, the views expressed here are my own personal ramblings and do not reflect the opinions of the US Army or the our government!