Another's View

I received a link to this gentleman's blog the other day. He is/was a US Army Corps of Engineers civilian employee - not sure if he is still in country or still with USACE. His description of his experience here captured the current view from my foxhole:

Skip Rohde, "Ramblings From a Painter":
Whenever I go home, people ask me, "What's Iraq like?". I don't know how to answer that. It's hot. It sucks. It's great. Wonderful people. Terrorists. A different way of life. Like being in a minimum-security prison. You can make an impact. You can't make a dime's worth of difference. You're valued. You're treated like sh*t. No time for yourself. Great pay. Not worth it.
Iraq is a maze of contradictions. When people ask me what Iraq's like, they're looking for a sound-bite insight into something that would take a thousand "War and Peace"-size tomes to even begin to understand. Like the blind men and the elephant, this blog has been my attempt to explain my little bitty piece of the puzzle.
There has been a monumental change in Iraq in my twelve months here. Last year, we were in charge. We did what we wanted, we owned the streets, and only coordinated with the Iraqis when we needed to. Now the Iraqis are in charge and flexing their muscles. They don't do things nearly the way we would, and they don't want our help (at least, they don't want to be seen as wanting our help). We're pretty much confined to our bases now. Our convoys roll at night, every night, hauling equipment to Kuwait or Jordan as part of the drawdown and bringing back food and fuel and other supplies for the thousands of us still here. Last year, we were still planning on being here for a long time. Now, we're working on drawing down as fast as we can. Officially, all the military will be out by December 2011. Sounds like a long time, but it really isn't. Unofficially, there's an election coming up in January in which the Iraqis will vote yay or nay on the Security Agreement. If they vote "nay", as they most probably will, then we have to be out of here in January, 2011, which cuts our drawdown time in half.
But the main thing, for me, has been the people. There are all kinds here. Young American soldiers. Old grannies and grandpops (me included). Ugandan, Peruvian, Iraqi, British, and Gurkha guards. Sikhs, Kenyans, Malaysians, and Australians.

Thanks, Skip. You explained a great deal of what it is like here in just a few short paragraphs.

I had a meeting today with a senior Deputy Minister. He looked me in the eye, and without hesitation, asked for $15M in assistance on a certain project. I had to assure him there won't be anymore US checks like that written so easily anymore. The end of the $52B investment in Iraq is in sight. Not saying that "capacity building" won't continue under the normal State Department (read USAID) processes but it will be much different in the next 12-24 months. In some ways I sense the Iraqis saying, "I've got nothing to lose," in asking for these huge sums without batting an eyelash. I also see a mixed amount of gratitude. Another senior manager I met with today was extremely grateful for our past support and had great hopes in some offers we made for assistance today.

From the surreal life of Wayfinder6 - I attended a party (dry for me, wine soaked for the State players) at Udai and Qusai Hussein's private pool (now called Liberty Pool). I couldn't help but wonder what kind of horrors occurred there before 2003. Strange feeling - something wasn't right about that place.

Grace & peace.