Extreme makeovers in Iraq
SCOTT FONTAINE; Staff writer
KHALIS, Iraq – Lt. Col. Chuck Hodges has a plan. His Fort Lewis soldiers have spent weeks renovating a crumbling school, and the students will see it for the first time a few weeks from now.
Hodges envisions Iraqi kids giddy with anticipation, smiling and fidgety. They’re standing behind a Stryker and an Iraqi army vehicle.
Finally, the moment they’ve all waited for: Hodges, the commander of 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, gets on a bullhorn and yells, “Move that Stryker!”
The vehicles roll away. The students sprint toward the building, where their teachers are waiting to show them around. At Al Rowid school, the kids will enjoy a U.S. investment of new paint, wiring, plumbing, windows, air conditioning and bathrooms.
All of it comes courtesy of a multimillion-dollar Pentagon program designed to strengthen the Iraqi economy and win influence over the people.
It’s called the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, commonly known as CERP. But you could also call it the Iraq version of the U.S. government’s federal stimulus plan – except American taxpayers have stimulated Iraq’s economy five years longer than they’ve been stimulating their own.
Fort Lewis commanders control millions of dollars in CERP funds and are distributing them all over the country – from Diyala province in the east, to Basra in the south, to the Baghdad capital region.
One Fort Lewis colonel admitted feeling “sticker shock” when he learned how much his brigade would spend. But leaders also believe their projects will pay dividends in Iraqi good will at a time when U.S. forces are preparing to withdraw.
In one corner of Diyala province, the Fort Lewis soldiers of the 1-23 Infantry have dubbed the $30,000 renovation of Al Rowid school and its Feb. 2 re-opening event “the Extreme Tomahawk School Makeover.” It’s a reference to the ABC reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” combined with the battalion’s nickname, the Tomahawks.
The middle school of 780 students is the first of four schools the Stryker battalion will refurbish. It’s one of many civil affairs projects that will cost a total of about $2.6 million throughout the battalion’s deployment.
The CERP program allows U.S. military units across Iraq to spread around money for civil affairs projects in the areas where they operate – from building roads and improving utilities to expanding businesses and developing agriculture. CERP money was also used to start the Sons of Iraq program, which put thousands of militiamen and former insurgents on the U.S. payroll to protect their neighborhoods.
American officers use Iraqi contractors and often partner with aid organizations in hopes of stimulating the local economy and dissuading unemployed Iraqis from joining the insurgency.
The Pentagon expects to spend $200 million in the 2010 fiscal year on CERP. Battalion commanders hail the program as a way to exercise “soft power,” or nonlethal influence.
The program has critics. A 2008 report from the Government Accountability Office criticized CERP for its vague parameters and lack of oversight, although the GAO says on its Web site that its recommendations have since been implemented.
Lax oversight in the past has opened CERP to abuse, including one Fort Lewis officer who pleaded guilty in federal court in December to stealing almost $700,000.
MEANT TO BUILD PEACE
The CERP program is a counterweight to Iranian influence throughout Iraq’s east, as well as a tool for calming Arab-Kurd tensions in the north.
The renovations of Al Rowid school stemmed directly from a conversation between Hodges and Khalis Mayor Oday Adnan Ibrahim shortly after the 1-23 Infantry arrived in Diyala in August.
Boys attend school at Al Rowid during the first half of the day, girls in the afternoon. The mayor told Hodges that the Iranians were paying for construction of a new girls school, one of 100 such projects across the country.
But the mayor was unhappy: The exterior of the school looked nice, but the inside seemed lacking, he said.
The Fort Lewis battalion commander pounced at the opportunity.
“Tell me what you need,” Hodges said. “This can be my proxy war with (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad. We’ll build better schools.”
While relations are good today, they were strained at first between Hodges and Oday, who once served six months in jail for being a member of the Mahdi Army Special Groups militia. Hodges would request meetings; Oday would decline.
The roads near Khalis were lined with bombs, and insurgents regularly fired rockets at nearby Forward Operating Base Warhorse. After one such attack, one of Oday’s relatives was arrested. Hodges demanded a meeting.
“I told him other places are getting civil affairs projects, and Khalis is not,” Hodges remembers. “I told him, ‘We know your people are tired of violence. We want to help, but you won’t get anything if this doesn’t stop.’”
Since then, roadside bombs and rocket attacks on military bases have all but dried up. Hodges and the mayor meet several times a week. And aid projects have poured into the Khalis area, including a chicken co-operative, housing for refugees and a brick factory that will provide jobs for hundreds.
The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to which 1-23 Infantry belongs, expects to complete $45 million to $60 million in projects during its one-year deployment. The aid will be distributed throughout Diyala, the eastern province simmering with Shia-Sunni and Arab-Kurd tensions.
Most of the money has come in the form of microgrants, one-time payments of usually $5,000 or less that aim to promote capital improvements and business expansions.
Before receiving full payment, each microgrant recipient must receive small-business training, in which the recipient learns skills and drafts business plans.
About 1,500 such grants will go toward revitalizing the Aruba Souq in Muqdadiyah, a centuries-old center of commerce in the province.
The souq had about 2,000 shops at the time of the American invasion in 2003. Suicide bombings in 2004 and 2006 drove away most merchants, but the brigade is using CERP to bring back many of the small businesses and to develop larger shops as anchor tenants, such as a medical clinic and a bank.
“If you can get them economically tied together, hurting them will hurt everyone else in the group,” said Capt. Pat Biggs, an engineer and the Stryker brigade’s CERP program manager. “They won’t attack the souq because it would hurt everyone – Shia, Sunnis, everyone.”
EFFORTS IN BASRA TOO
The southern city of Basra is an important soft-power battleground because of the Iranian influence in the area, and because U.S. officials hope economic development in the province will spark foreign investment.
With its access to Iraq’s only ports and nearby oilfields, Basra holds the country’s greatest economic potential, yet its development trails Baghdad and other major cities.
That has made it a center for civil affairs projects in Iraq, mostly run by Fort Lewis’ 17th Fires Brigade, which assumed responsibility for the American battlespace of Basra in August.
The U.S. military has spent $250 million since the British handed over responsibility for Basra in April. About $100 million has come through CERP, with the rest from the State Department and other agencies.
Capt. Jayne Strathe was looking to spend some of that money during a tour of a busy Basra marketplace on Dec. 31.
Soldiers from the Fort Lewis brigade formed a security perimeter as Strathe, a civil affairs officer from Iowa, struck up a conversation with the owner of a falafel shop.
“If you receive a small amount of money from the American government, what would you do to expand your business?” Strathe asked.
“A new shop at a better location,” the owner said, talking through an interpreter.
“Where would you move?” she asked.
“Downtown!” he yelled in English, flashing a wide smile.
Strathe produced a microgrant application in Arabic. She explained she was searching businesses that could receive a few thousand dollars to expand. All the man had to do was fill out the basics; the Americans would follow up and determine if he should receive the cash.
Strathe repeated the drill at a supermarket, a fruit stand, a store selling mechanical oil and another hawking hubcaps. Each time, she had the owner fill out the application with the potential of free money from the American government.
Maj. Bill Crouse, the 17th Fire Brigade’s civil-military officer and the commander of its civil affairs company, said they are frequently told there are no constraints on CERP money.
“No one has ever told us that we can’t do anything,” he said.
Crouse’s company has about 25 soldiers working civil affairs throughout Basra province, with about 70 projects going at any given time. Its biggest efforts are a reverse-osmosis water plant and a water treatment plant designed to provide clean drinking water to Basra.
“I had some sticker shock when I saw how much we were going to spend here,” said 17th Fires commander Col. Steven Bullimore. “It’s a priority, and we’re spending like it is.”
AVOIDING KICKBACKS
Fort Lewis’ 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division manages about $7.5 million in CERP projects at any time, but the Stryker brigade’s location in Baghdad has attracted unwanted interference from the Iraqi government.
Each project must include an agreement between the U.S. Army and an Iraqi government ministry. The Iraqis commit to take care of maintenance and upkeep, but they sometimes let the new facilities lapse into disrepair.
There’s also the problem of kickbacks. Employees of government ministries often want to know details about projects so they can help their friends win the contract and share the wealth, Capt. Talgin Cannon said.
But Cannon, the 4th Brigade’s CERP manager, said he’s seen an improvement in the bureaucrats’ behavior recently. The contractors with a reputation of transparency win more jobs, he said.
“The good contractors – the ones we try to work with the most – don’t play ball” with corrupt officials, Cannon said. “They know their money goes to them and their employees.”
The brigade oversees about 40 ongoing projects plus a host of microgrants. The projects include water pumps, filtration systems, solar-powered streetlights and building refurbishments.
“We can go in, meet with leaders and ask how to help,” said Maj. James Martin, the brigade’s civil-military officer. “If it benefits them and benefits us, it’s worth it.”
But out in rural western Baghdad province, where the brigade’s 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment is based, the use of microgrants has stoked tension among residents.
“If there’s a market with 20 vendors and we give microgrants to four of them, the other 16 want to know where their money is,” company commander Capt. Derek Noel said. “It can create a financial imbalance, and some people talk about unfair practices. Oftentimes, microgrants aren’t the tool to use.”
REVIVING POULTRY INDUSTRY
The poultry industry in Diyala thrived for decades but disappeared during the insurgency. Frozen chickens imported from Brazil now stock most freezers throughout the province.
But about 150 farmers are members of a cooperative that has received $500,000 in CERP money to improve hatcheries, farms and feed mills.
The money has allowed for the import of 10,000 chicks from a farm in Alabama to help start breeding and feed programs. An international aid organization is underwriting the costs of the feed for co-op members.
Hodges and his civil affairs officer, Capt. Andrew Maggard, met Jan. 9 with the cooperative co-owner, a man named Hussein, who suggested combining the $5,000 microgrant money in several packages, depending on the needs of each farmer. This way, he said, each farmer wouldn’t be required to draft a proposal.
Hodges nodded as Hussein broke down the math on a notepad. He then turned to Maggard.
“Well, it sounds like a pretty good idea,” Hodges said. “This will be a lot of paperwork, though.”
He paused for a second, then added: “How about we cap it at 100 microgrants to start?”
And with that, Diyala’s poultry industry received another $500,000 from American taxpayers.
scott.fontaine@thenewstribune.com
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