In January 2007, President George Bush announced the Surge.
He called for two marine battalions and five army brigades to head towards Iraq
along with an increased number of reconstruction workers to conduct a unified
counterinsurgency campaign. The argument was that the increased troops would
help bring down violence, and allow for reconciliation. On the civilian side,
more Americans were to be sent out into the provinces to work with Iraqis to find
out their needs, and help empower them to run their own country. While the extra forces helped bring down
violence in Iraq the civilian surge was far less successful due to a slow
start, internal disputes, and bureaucratic delays.
The Surge started with new American leadership in Iraq.
General David Petraeus was named the new commander of the multi-national
forces, and officially took over from General George Casey at the beginning of
February 2007. By the end of the month, 2,700 new troops had arrived in
Baghdad, with 16,700 by June. New U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker tried to work
closely with General Petraeus to make sure that the reconstruction effort
helped with the military strategy. Crocker found that there were too many
rebuilding programs all running independently of each other. He created the
Joint Strategic Assessment Team to try to coordinate them all. He also wanted
to emphasize Iraqi control and capacity. This was the first time that an
integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency plan was being implemented in
Iraq. Back in 2005, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called for such a strategy, but
in fighting back in Washington undermined it. Now there was a concerted
effort to get everyone on the same page to combat violence, and get the Iraqi
government running properly.
Two problems that quickly emerged were that the civilian
Surge took much longer to come together than the military one, and that Iraqis
were still reluctant to govern. Ambassador Crocker did not take office until
the end of March. His team didn’t arrive until early summer. That caused
problems coordinating with the military. Getting funds acquisitioned and
contracts processed also caused delays in new projects. Finally, the Iraqi government was still refusing to take responsibility for much of the infrastructure it was being left with, something it had been doing since
2003. Crocker tried to streamline the contracting process, and cut down on the
red tape. At the same time, the U.S. started working with Deputy Premier Barham
Saleh, Planning Minister Ali Baban, Finance Minister Bayan Jabr, and National
Security Adviser Mowfaq Rubaie to include Iraqis in the strategy. In turn,
Baghdad promised to spend more of its capital and provincial budgets to
shoulder more of the burden of rebuilding the country. This was especially
important to the U.S., because one of the goals of the Surge was to make the
Iraqis self-reliant, so that they would not always look towards the Americans
to solve everything. The Iraqis eventually did start to outspend the Americans,
and did take more responsibility. Some of the bureaucratic delays were also
solved, but not all of them. By September 2008, only 50% of the money set aside
for the PRTs was disbursed.
Members of an Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team
talking with tribal leaders about improving agriculture in Baghdad province,
2007 (American Forces Press Service)
The Surge emphasized Americans getting out of the Green Zone
and their camps, and out into the local communities to work with Iraqis. Part
of this involved creating more Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), and the
new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams (ePRTs). PRTs were originally
proposed by Ambassador Khalilzad in 2005, but disputes between the Defense and
State Departments over who would run and fund them, held up their creation. The
PRTs eventually worked on capacity building and planning with Iraqis, so what
was built came from them, and would be sustained and funded by them as well.
They also tried to get Iraqi businesses involved in the reconstruction
contracts to get money flowing into the Iraqi economy and giving jobs to
locals. One simple innovation was to get Iraqi firms to service
the huge American military presence in Iraq. This actually started in the
middle of 2006 with the Iraqi First program. From October 2006 to September
2007, it gave out $2.7 billion in contracts to Iraqi companies that employed
75,000 Iraqis. By early 2008, there were roughly 4,100 Iraqi businesses that
had worked with the Americans. This helped create a new entrepreneurial class
of Iraqis, which are now at the forefront of the emerging private sector. The Surge was also important in empowering the Iraqis, and including their
views. For much of the time beforehand, the Americans had largely talked to
themselves about what the country needed. Iraqis were now getting their voices
heard.
A map of PRTs and ePRTs in Oct. 2007 (IraqSlogger)
There were some problems with implementing the PRTs however.
Some Iraqi officials wanted to manipulate the reconstruction contracts the
Americans offered to enrich themselves, family, and supporters. That along with
the insecurity led to huge cost overruns. A market being rebuilt in the Dora
neighborhood of Baghdad for example cost $900,000 even though the work mostly
consisted of laying down a concrete floor and putting a roof over it. That was
a constant struggle, but probably unavoidable given the amount of money that
was being pumped into the middle of a warzone at that time. Another issue was
the lack of adequate staff. By the middle of 2007, there were only 29 Arabic
speakers out of a total of 610. The ePRT in Baghdad’s East Rasheed served
800,000 people with a staff of only six. Finally, some members of both Petraeus
and Crocker’s staff questioned whether reconstruction would affect the fighting
and bring about changes in Iraqi governance. A few of Crocker’s advisers
pointed out with the civil war in such high gear, building new infrastructure
was not going to stop it. Likewise, some PRT members and economic aids told
Petraeus that they weren’t sure that improving services would give legitimacy
to the government when so many Iraqis were concerned about survival. Overall,
the PRTs did important work out in the provinces, but it took them a long time
to overcome these deficiencies. They would continue to lack adequate staff, but
when security finally improved, they would do a much better job, because the
emphasis became more about governance, which was what the PRTs were focused
upon.
Despite the attempt to have a unified plan there were
disagreements over what the U.S. reconstruction effort should focus upon.
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Paul Brinkley wanted to get Iraq’s factories
up and running, after the Coalition Provisional Authority had closed some of
them down. Brinkley believed that the state owned enterprises (SOEs) that ran
much of Iraq’s industries could provide employment. He thought that $200
million could get 150,000 Iraqis working. State Department officials at the U.S.
Embassy were skeptical, arguing that spending lots of money on factories that
had been closed down for several years, because they were inefficient was not
the best strategy. The arguments over Brinkley’s plan became so intense that he
moved his staff out of the U.S. Embassy. In March, he picked 140 factories that
he thought could be made operable, and by September 17 of them had re-opened.
The attempt to reform the SOE’s continues to the present day, but with few
positive results. The Brinkley affair highlighted the fact that different
agencies had different ideas about what should be done to get Iraq up and
running again. This divided energies and money, and led to many arguments like
the one between Brinkley and State. The Surge was never able to resolve this
issue.
Another disagreement was over the use of the Commander’s
Emergency Response Program (CERP). CERP funds were distributed by U.S.
commanders to try to help build up support for their efforts, and get
communities working. A common program was to employ young men to pick up trash.
USAID and PRT officials voiced several concerns about CERP. Some believed that
local Iraqi councils should be doing this work instead of the U.S. military. It
also distorted local labor markets by drawing away workers to the American
funded jobs. The USAID’s Inspector General for example, found that the U.S. was
paying more for trash pick up than the average wage for skilled workers. That
would mean that local Iraqi officials would be under pressure to continue these
types of jobs after the Americans left instead of spending their budgets on
more important development projects. Some PRT members said that the military
was only thinking short-term. Army units for instance, tended to emphasize how
much money they spent, and not on the effects. This again highlighted the fact
that different groups saw reconstruction in different terms.
Ambassador Crocker’s plans had some negative affects as
well. He tried to centralize control over reconstruction in the U.S. Embassy to
overcome the overlapping and inconsistent programs. The Embassy ended up taking
over responsibility for the Oil, Agriculture, Trade, Transportation,
Communication, Justice, Interior, Health, Finance, Education, and Culture
Ministries. This caused a rough transition as not everyone at the Embassy was
sure what their new jobs were, and in turn, Iraqis and Americans out in the
field were confused about who they should report to. Many started complaining
that they were dealing with the bureaucracy more than with projects. Crocker
and Petraeus tried to work closer together to resolve this issue, but it did
not always work. The idea was a good one, but the way it was implemented caused
more trouble than it should have. This only added to the delay in spending and
contracts that PRTs and others were running into.
The positives of the civilian Surge finally began to become
apparent in 2008. That was when Iraqis really began moving into a leadership
role. The Planning and Finance Ministries created a uniformed contracting and
regulation regime that allowed director generals to better execute their
budgets. The U.S. started helping Iraqis implement their plans, and placed more
emphasis upon building capacity and sustainment programs so that Baghdad could
run its infrastructure and govern better. Finally, Iraq got a huge boost from
rising oil prices in 2008 that pumped in lots of extra money. One of the main
goals of the Surge was to get Iraqis in the lead, and they were finally doing
that by 2008. They were spending more of their own money on their own projects
rather than always following the Americans.
Despite the improvement in security that the Surge brought
about, it was not able to overcome all of the difficulties of rebuilding Iraq.
The civilian side was slow in starting, which added to the red tape that
already existed, led to delays in spending. There were also
continued differences over what the U.S. should be working on, and between the
civilian and military sides despite concerted efforts to overcome those
divisions. Finally, the Americans wanted to put the Iraqis in the lead. That
did eventually happen, but the problem was the public ended up not being happy
with what they saw. Baghdad’s ability to govern proved inconsistent, and people
began to complain about the lack of services after violence subsided, something
that continues to this day. There were still huge hurdles facing Iraq showing
that the civilian side of the Surge did not have the same kind of results as
the military achieved.
SOURCES
Khalaf, Roula, “Fortune favours the brave in Iraq,”
Financial Times, 3/14/13
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Hard
Lessons,” 1/22/09
- “Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report to the United
States Government,” 7/30/07
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