Oerdin's Iraq thread - Continued

[Dinner]

It's not whither or not I will go home its whither or not they will find something more restrictive for me to do while here. Luckily, they shouldn't be an issue.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Oerdin

Things have been rather slow lately because the Commanding General of the 1st ID has started to directly take part in the town council and is releasing information directly to the local press. When we first arrived in Iraq we were kept busy organizing town coucils, establishing contacts with local leaders, doing town assessments, and arranging contracts with the local media. Now the intial phase is complete and everything is pretty much running fine without us. There is still work to be done distributing leaflets & newspapers but we've already gotten the regular infantry to do most of that for us. It appears that we've worked ourselves out of a job.

Excellent work.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Oerdin
In the mean time I have more time to play Civ3 and catch up on my reading.

Play as the Persians.

[chequita guevara]

No, the Byzantines are way better.

Anyway, question. How close does a bullet half to be before you hear it? Bunnygrrl and I were sitting on the couch at her gandma's when I heard pop-zip-pop. Firecrackers are more echoy, so I'm pretty sure I heard a handgun. The zip was new though, and BG and I spent the rest of the eveneing hunched down on the couch.

[Dinner]

Not really sure. The Iraqis normally fire AK-47s or a derivitive design of the AK-47 so you will certainly hear the initial firing of automatic weapons. You'd be more likely to hear a ricoshay (spelled wrong I know) but other then that it is hard to say. Things like temperature and humidity can greatly effect the way sound travels through the air.

[Dinner]

Today I ended up being caught in what seemed like the never ending mission. Sure, it was only 8 hours but when it's 135 degrees outside eight hours can seem like a very long time. We were just supposed to go to an early lunch with one of the Sheiks from the local Shamar tribe and then come back; that it sounded pleasant was the only reason I agreed to go. The lunch was being held 20 miles north at an abandoned Iraqi Army barracks which has been turned over to the Iraqi National Guard and the Iraqi National Police to use as housing for their employees. Predictably the place had been thoroughly looted by the locals to the point that all of the doors & windows were missing and electrical wires had even been pulled out of the walls.

Naturally, the Iraqis were unhappy about the situation but they were even more unhappy that some one (most likely one of them) had run over the main water line onto the post thus destroying a 5 meter long segment. They had fixed the pipe but a technicion at the Iraqi national water company had refused to turn the water valse back on unless they paid a bribe. They called the technicion's boss who said it wasn't really a bribe just s "service charge" and oh, yeah by the way he wanted a service charge too.

So anyway the sheik of the Shamar tribe had his family make us a very nice lunch. When we arrived they killed a goat and four chickens in front of us then he had his female relatives go off to cook them. It took about 1.5 hours for the food to be prepared and during that time the sheik informed us of their difficulties with the water company and the Captain agreed to help them solve the situation. When the food arrived it was served in large trays which were shared by the whole table. The tray was filled with Saffron rice which was cooked with raisons & dates and then topped with chopped up pieces of goat and chicken. People in Arabia eat with their hands instead of silverware or if you are worried about getting dirty fingers then you use a piece of flat breed to scope up the food as you eat. It's a little weird to eat with your fingers from a community bowl where everyone else is also touching the food but I got over it fairly quickly.

Any way desert was water melon & fresh grapes followed by the manditory three cups of chai. After that the Captain of the infantry company asked the Shiek if he knew any bulldozer opporators (he did because his tribe has several thousand members) and when the men arrived they were hired as construction workers on the base. At $100 per five hour day they were getting several times the going rate but this helps pump money into the local economy and it is still cheaper then what would be charged in the west.

The Shamar tribe were big supporters of Saddam during his reign but as soon as Saddam was gone the opportunitic tribe quickly became one of the biggest pro-Coalition voices in Tikrit and tribal members became some of the first and most numerous employees at the new Iraqi National Guard and National Police force. The result is the Shamars have worked themselves into several key positions with the government of Tikrit. This is good though the tribe has a tendency to save the choicest public contracts for other members of their own tribe. The US has enforced oversight boards to make sure corruption is kept to a minimium but the Shamar tribe still seems to be doing very well for themselves. The certainly have the lowest unemployment rate in the Tikrit area.

In any event, after we ate we went to go check on getting the water valve turned back on. The water company, of course, had a totally different take on what happened plus they said the charge was a shut off charge because they had to send a technicion out to turn off the valve after the pipe was busted. Apparently, this is a common occurence since Iraqis don't bother to bury their pipes they just lay them out on the ground and then hope no one runs them over. We convinced the water company to turn the valve back on without paying any fee though when we got back to the ING base the water still wasn't running. We took a quick trip back to the pumping station but they said the valve was one. To make a long story short there was a rock which had some how gotten stuck in the pipe when the pipe got broken and the Iraqis who originally fixed it didn't catch it. Rather then just telling the Shamars what the problem was and letting them fix it the Captain volunteered all of us to help them fix it. That's where all the rest of my day went.

Still, the water works now and the Shamars have invited us back to another goat roast for helping them.

[Lonestar]

Good PR though. Keep up the work.

[Arrian]

[chequita guevara]

Your lunch sounds pretty cool.

[Dinner]

The lunch was great though nearly every Iraqi meal seems to be just about the same stuff.

I'm pleased that things seem to be going in the right direction. We only get one mortar every 2-3 days instead of the 4-6 per night we used to get. IEDs have almost stopped occuring near Tikrit and everyone seems to either work for the ING/IP or know someone who does. This trend seems to be happening in most of the AOs I've worked in. True, areas like Samarra, Baqubah, Fallujah are still very hot and I don't expect any improvement there, but, those are former regime strongholds and most of the serious trouble seems to be confined to that area. No doubt we will all see more opporations in those areas.

In Balad they'd get 1-3 mortars per night but that is still significantly down from half a year ago when I first arrived in Iraq. Recruitment for government and security positions is way up and the transfer of authority seems to be playing well with the average Iraqi. Per capita income has nearly tripled since before the war and prices have fallen rapidly since the end of sanctions so the peoples' real buying power is way up. The visability of Coalition Forces has decreased slightly sence the transfer of authority and the visability of Iraqi security forces is way up. As an added benifet the Iraqis seem to be a bit more ruthless in dealing with insurgents then we foreigners were plus they have an easier time figuring out who is doing what. I expect this will lead to some trouble with the press but it is standard fair in the Arab world and the Coalition will remain so as to curb the worst abuses. Still, the Iraqi people want an end to violence more then anything else and the Interium Government will rise or fail depending upon if it is seen as being tough on criminals.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The lunch was great though nearly every Iraqi meal seems to be just about the same stuff.

I'm pleased that things seem to be going in the right direction.

According to my extremely right-wing local paper, The Florida Times-Union the U.S. has been driven out of about 40% of Iraq, at least in that the U.S. is no longer bother to patrol the province of Anbar because they don't feel like being shot at.

[Arrian]

Dare I actually hope things are improving? Interesting to note that as soon as it's no longer US (the outsider, the invader, the infidel) running things, there is a change in attitude and results. Perception is so powerful.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

According to my extremely right-wing local paper, The Florida Times-Union the U.S. has been driven out of about 40% of Iraq, at least in that the U.S. is no longer bother to patrol the province of Anbar because they don't feel like being shot at.

Al Anbar covers approximately 40% of the country. It is a very big provience and we actively patrol every part of it except Fallujah. The IGC brokered that deal claiming that Iraqi security services would be able to handle it. So far things are a very mixed bag; the Iraqi security services don't get involved in much fighting but they also don't bother to go look for the bad guys either.

The only other area I can think of that we don't actively patrol is the city of Najaf. Najaf has a population of around 200k-250k so I don't think the number is any where near 40% of Iraq.

[chequita guevara]

I can't find a link to the story on the net, but the story said that the U.S. has left the patroling of Anbar to the Iraqis, and the Iraqis aren't doing the patroling.

[Dinner]

We are trying to turn over progressively more responsibility to the Iraqis but the performence of the Iraqis has been uneven at best. There are pockets of serious soldiers but a whole lot of them are just useless ****es. They stand around with there thumbs up their asses not really caring what's going on around them.