Greetings from the Red Zone- Dispatches from a Five-Day Trip to Iraq

(FYI: Lawrence Korb is a man who has appeared frequently on Countdown; this essay gives a pretty good opinion of what's going on over there in that land of milk and honey)

http://zedc3test.techprogress.org/issues/2007/04/red_zone.html

Greetings from the Red Zone

Dispatches from a Five-Day Trip to Iraq

By Lawrence J. Korb

April 17, 2007

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Day 3: April 9, 2007
The Fourth Anniversary of the Fall of Saddam

To avoid any problems, the government imposed a 24-hour curfew (actually Maliki declared it a government holiday). During the three-mile drive from our compound to the Green Zone and back, I noticed that there were only a handful of cars and trucks on the road and a small number people out of their homes. It is hard to believe that four years after our “victory,” the only way to provide safety is to lock down the capital city.

We spent the morning listening to briefings from consultants advising the individual ministries on the TATWEER project. Most were American and many spoke Arabic. Listening to the briefings, it is easy to see how people making a quick visit to the region with very little understanding of the situation can go away with the impression that things are getting better and that there is “light at the end of the tunnel.” These men and women believe in what they are doing and are close to their clients.

But if one uses the reports of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and pushes the briefers, a different picture emerges. The place is a mess and despite the almost heroic efforts of some Americans and some Iraqis it is not getting better. One of the consultants told me not to believe anyone who says that the situation is getting better.

In the afternoon (it lasted from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.) we had a luncheon meeting with about a dozen leading American and Iraqi officials. The American delegation included the heads of the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office (the successor to the Coalition Provisional Authority), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Office of Economic Reconstruction. The Iraqi delegation included the Iraqi ministers of National Security, Health, and Higher Education and the Deputy Minister of Interior, plus a member of Maliki’s staff and a Parliamentarian. This session also had an air of unreality.

The city was in lockdown, 10 American soldiers had died the day before, and the citizens of Najaf and the Sunni Scholars were calling for an end to the occupation. Yet we had a seven-course meal and the American officials and the Iraqis were exchanging diplomatic pleasantries about the progress they were making.

I had the good fortune to sit next to the Deputy Minister of Interior (the ministry responsible for the national police). He told me that the problem with the police is not training but loyalty and motivation—he cannot get enough officers to come to Baghdad, even though controlling Baghdad is critical to the establishment of a unified Iraq. He also said that Muqtada Al-Sadr still controls six ministries, including his own.

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