>Starting from scratch
>Working toward empowerment
>Standing on their own

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The nation mourns the loss of U.S. servicemembers in Iraq, but that doesn't mean progress hasn't been made. Three servicemembers give their first-person perspectives about significant advances in a country struggling against violence.

By nearly all accounts, the reports coming out of Iraq have been troubling. We watch as the number of servicemembers killed continues to rise and worry as thousands more come home with injuries that will affect the rest of their lives and the lives of their families. New phrases such as "improvised explosive device" (IED) have entered into everyday use because of the war.

But in the face of this grim news, are we looking at the whole picture? Is progress being made in restoring order in Iraq?

The answer, according to three members of Task Force 2-2, is a resounding "yes." But, they say, understanding the depth of the answer is nearly impossible if you've never been to Iraq.

Picture a country that had barely made it into the last century in terms of modern civilization, with corrupt local governments, infrastructure that was almost nonexistent compared to American standards, and serious ethnic strife. Then stage a few wars, and you only begin to get an idea of the point from which Iraqis — and U.S. servicemembers there — are beginning.

Starting from scratch

Army Lt. Col. Peter Newell, 42, Task Force
2-2 commander, was charged with both helping Iraqis establish their initial government and forming units of the Iraqi military and police in the Muqdadiyah area, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad. Newell's regiment, based in Germany, was in Iraq for 13 months and left in February 2005.

Newell knew what he was getting into before being deployed to Muqdadiyah because he'd been there twice on reconnaissance, plus his regiment had just seen duty in Kosovo, where it had been involved in a similar mission.

"This is not something you can read about and truly understand," says Newell. "Part of it is managing expectations, which is difficult ... when people have 21st century expectations in relation to a country whose infrastructure is based in the [early] 1900s."

For instance, though 220-watt power lines run through towns, the actual wiring of individual buildings was done for the most part on a do-it-yourself basis. Residents climbed the utility poles, tapped into the power lines, and ran the wires overhead to their buildings. "It looks like there are huge spider webs over the town," Newell says. "To undo it, you'd have to rip the wires out of the cinder block buildings. It boggles my mind."

Near his camp, there's a large hydroelectric power plant that was built in the early 1970s by either Czechoslovakian or Hungarian engineers. "The parts to improve it or repair it don't exist. It is not like you can go in there with $100,000 and swap some pieces out and make it work." The plant now is being refurbished in a project costing $90 million to $100 million, says Newell.

In the smaller villages, residents get their water by dipping buckets into a canal. "People want clean water, and water [projects are] easy," he says. A water purification plant and generator cost about $100,000 and serve between 3,000 and 50,000 residents.

The water purification plants, besides being fairly quick and easy to complete, carry with them a big bonus: good public relations. "Water is the No. 1 issue, and the No. 2 issue is jobs," he says. When they're managed correctly, infrastructure improvement projects mean local jobs, which in turn mean more buy-in from local residents. "For every guy you give a job, 10 of his family members would quit the fight, because he is supporting 10 to 15 people in his family," Newell says. "There are people who want to cause problems with anyone, but I don't think anyone was ever dumb enough to mess with a water project or anything like that because they are messing with themselves ... the village guys would have been willing to guard the projects themselves."

A number of events stand out as satisfying to Newell. One was the elections: "I worked in an area that was 60 percent Sunni, and 68 percent of the eligible population turned out to vote. That's better than you get in the United States, and nobody in the United States is shooting at people in the polling places. So the idea that Iraqis don't want democracy is just ludicrous," he says.

Forming and training an Iraqi army battalion also was gratifying, he says. When Newell first arrived, he says, the corruption in the battalion was rampant. He fired and jailed the original commander, got rid of half of the battalion's members, and set about rebuilding it.

Newell and his soldiers visited area sheiks and city councils, who nominated individuals from their villages. At one point, he recounts, "we were taking applications for 200 positions, and over a three-day period more than 4,000 people showed up." Applicants were tested and ultimately were chosen so that a broad range of ethnicities and villages were represented in the battalion.

"We trained them using the same principles and training mechanisms as we use for our own soldiers, and we sent them out with my own guys for weeks at a time," says Newell. "They became one of the best, if not the best, in Iraq. ... In six months they were capable of doing company-level operations. ... They could fully function long before we left."

According to Newell, the Iraqi government has taken over more ownership of the individual infrastructure projects, planning, overseeing, and completing them. "Schools are being built, water projects are being constructed, electrical systems are going on. But how long will it take to bring the infrastructure up to what standard? I don't know the answer to that question. I think the question is at what point can the Iraqi government handle this question themselves. And by and large, they are there now," Newell says. "What I would always tell my guys is that 99.9 percent of the people in the area I was in want nothing more than peace and to raise their family. That small percentage that doesn't want it is a formidable problem, but you can't let that characterize the entire country."

Working toward empowerment

Capt. James "Tom" Cobb, 33, USA, Task Force 2-2 fire support officer and civil military officer and a key contact for overseeing local improvements, juggled multiple infrastructure projects — as many as 50 — at the same time. Although he's not an engineer, he did have practical experience: He did the same job in Kosovo on a much, much smaller budget.

"The basic infrastructure in Iraq had been taking a beating for 35 years of dictatorship and two or three wars," says Cobb. In the past few decades, he says, "the cities got periodic improvements, but the 200-people farming villages ... are so far off the beaten path, they didn't get a lot of love."

When Cobb first arrived, he says he was "literally on the ground floor getting the projects going." He says, "I made friends with some of the Iraqi people, and I depended on them, and they depended on me."

The projects ranged in scope and size. "We took 31 schools and pumped $1,000 apiece into them because they needed windows and heaters. You would not believe how cold it is if you don't have a heater in a cinder block building with no windows. Kids couldn't ... get a good education because they were freezing."

They also helped rebuild medical clinics, provided supplies for them, and bought two infant incubators for the area's only neonatal clinic. In a larger project, plans to refurbish a massive water treatment plant that would serve people living in a 25-km radius were approved just before Cobb left.

Perhaps most gratifying to Cobb were the school projects, which often served 300 to 400 students (Iraqi students attend classes in shifts, with separate sessions for boys and girls). "When we had the grand opening celebration, the local dignitaries ... would have the kids do a little play for us. They would sing and dance and clap, and just the look on these kids' faces [showed] that you did something for them, [and] it made me feel good."

Also, the fact that the Americans arrived with four trucks of school supplies and other items didn't hurt, says Cobb. "The local neighborhood got real happy," he remembers. "But that's not what you join the Army to do. You did not sign up to build schools. I think the thing that most surprised me is that you have to literally fight your way through an ambush to get to a city council meeting so you can show these people how to govern themselves. That didn't happen as often as people like to let on, but it was frustrating when it did, because we were just trying to help."

Cobb echoes Newell on the importance of jobs for Iraqis as a means to empower the local government as well as ensure the long-term survival of the infrastructure improvements. Also, practically speaking, having local help took a lot of pressure off Cobb as he was simultaneously managing numerous projects.

"I went to the local mayor and said, 'Look, we've got too many projects, and I can't keep track of them all and inspect them all. I'm going to hire some engineers for your staff, and I'll pay them.' I was going to hire five or six and he found me, like, 50 guys who were young engineers out of work, who'd just graduated college before the war. I called the guys I hired my engineering council.

"That did a lot of good things for us. One, it put five or six engineers to work, gave them experience so they could get hired by a company later, and also it put an Iraqi face on these projects. ... I let the local leaders do the interviewing — I let them vet these guys, and I monitored it. I tried to put an Iraqi face on all the hiring and all of the firing most especially, and on all the project approvals. That was an empowering tool for the local politicians," says Cobb.

Not only that, it served as sort of an insurance policy. "I don't think any of our projects were ever attacked by the insurgents, because I'd like to think the Iraqis felt they owned [the projects]."

Cobb says it can be frustrating to know firsthand that there is tangible progress being made in Iraq, but that the message seems to get lost on the American public. "There are huge areas of Iraq that are secure enough that you could move your family there if you spoke Arabic, but those places never get any press," he says.

Standing on their own

Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Kevin Whelan, 28, of the 415th Civil Affairs Battalion, worked with Task Force 2-2 as a State Department police advisor. In his civilian duties, he's a New York City police officer.

He first arrived in Baquba, Iraq, in February 2004. "The first week we were there, our team was hit with an IED," he says. He and three other soldiers were in a Humvee that was blown up by a homemade roadside bomb, which had been detonated by a cell phone. The Humvee's driver, Pfc. Nicholas Frye, was killed, and all the passengers, including Whelan, were wounded. According to the New York Journal-News, after the explosion, Whelan pulled the survivors out of the wreck, got them bandaged, and then, while waiting for help to arrive, attended to his own serious injury — his eye, which had been struck with glass and shrapnel.

Whelan was sure he was going to lose his eye, and he spent three days in a Baghdad military hospital undergoing treatment and tests. When he found out he wasn't going to lose his vision, his resolve was firm. "I told them I wasn't going to go back home."

Whelan was reassigned to work with Task Force 2-2 in Muqdadiyah, where he focused on police and security issues. That meant helping to rebuild the local police department from scratch, starting with the basics, such as simple traffic control. Although traffic might seem a trivial matter, it's not, he says. "It's one of the small things that amount to a major problem if it's not controlled." Snarled roadways aren't just problems for local residents — they make it difficult for the U.S. military to keep the area secure, he says.

Once police are able to handle small routine matters, they can move on to deal with larger issues and focus on capturing the "big fish," Whelan says. "One thing that I was fairly shocked to see is that you have regular crime that goes on — you have murders, carjackings, kidnappings ... then it moves into the insurgents and the weapons trafficking from Iran in our area," he explains.

He says that soon after he arrived in Muqdadiyah, the military received word that there was going to be an attack at a police station. "We went to the police station specifically to reinforce them because we knew the attack was forthcoming," he says. He and other Task Force 2-2 members outlined a plan with the local police to combat the attack, and, he says, everyone seemed in agreement.

"But no sooner did I turn my back when I saw all these blue shirts running away," Whelan remembers. Those blue shirts were on the backs of the Iraqi police, and that left only the U.S. servicemembers to confront the attackers.

The police later worked to improve their ability to do basic police work, he says. "Over time, they did start stepping up to grab the big fish." He says the most satisfying aspect of his job was interacting with the region's police leaders, though at times that could be tricky. "You are basically going into someone else's house and telling them what they should be doing," he says.

Then, in September, after a few months of working with the police chief to help rebuild the department and its capabilities, "it was the same scenario. We knew there was going to be an attack." Members of Task Force 2-2 went to the police station as backup.

"This time," Whelan says with evident satisfaction, "the Iraqi police stood their ground."