Army Battles to Rebuild Local Services

Scott Walton studied government history in college. The U.S. Army trained him as an armor officer. He knew nothing about water-treatment plants or electrical substations.

But in his year as a cavalry company commander in Iraq, Capt. Edward S. Walton has spent as much time dealing with electrical power, sewage and garbage collection as he has fighting the insurgency. He’s now a resident expert in what the Army calls SWET -- sewage, water, electricity and trash.

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have spoken recently of shifting the emphasis in Iraq from combat to training the nation’s security forces. But equally important to the military effort, top commanders say, is a vast sweep of projects designed to improve the basics of day-to-day life.

Soldiers such as Walton are at the forefront of a long, tedious and often frustrating endeavor. Building water-treatment plants and setting up garbage-collection routes is hardly glamorous, and work is regularly brought to a halt by insurgents. But the infrastructure projects are the third pillar of the U.S. exit strategy, along with battling insurgents and training Iraqi forces.

“If all we do is combat operations and train security services, we’ll never get out of here,” said Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, assistant commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, who in the last year has headed military efforts to rebuild essential services in Baghdad.

“I know ISF [Iraqi security forces] is the key to the future, but it’s equally important to get these essential services going,” Hammond said. “Security without restoration of essential services -- it ain’t going to work.”

Electricity is still unreliable in Baghdad. Millions of Iraqis live without running water or modern sanitation. Raw sewage and garbage clog many streets, and there are long lines for gasoline in this oil-rich nation.

Billions of dollars earmarked for reconstruction have yet to be spent because of guerrilla activity. Yet many Iraqis believe that a rich, powerful nation such as the United States could modernize Iraq almost overnight if it chose to.

Iraqi officials bristled this week after U.S. officials disclosed plans to divert about $1 billion from infrastructure rebuilding projects to help pay skyrocketing security costs.

Suspicion and resentment have always been the burdens of occupation forces, and troops here have struggled to convince Iraqis that their intentions are altruistic. Commanders acknowledge that the strategy is self-serving because municipal projects can promote stability and self-government, eventually enabling U.S. forces to begin leaving.

“It’s a form of ammunition,” said Brig. Gen. Mark O’Neill, assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is taking over control of Baghdad from the 1st Cavalry this month. “If you can get trash picked up, get water running, get electricity flowing, the sewers working so people’s quality of life is improving, then you have to fire fewer rounds of the other type of ammunition.”

Even so, the commanders were not trained as municipal-services specialists, although each man did have his staff spend a week with municipal officials in Austin, Texas, and Savannah, Ga.

“He’s an infantryman, and I’m an artilleryman,” Hammond said, referring to O’Neill. “We’ve trained our whole careers to ... destroy an enemy. All of a sudden I’m the head garbage man in Baghdad. And soon he will be the new head garbage man in Baghdad.”

Municipal projects are paid for by the United States but built by Iraqi contractors and laborers and protected by Iraqi forces. American troops stopped providing security at sites because they drew insurgent attacks, Hammond said.

In Walton’s tumultuous little corner of northeast Baghdad, he is often frustrated by some Iraqis’ suspicion and parochialism. But he said his efforts over the last year have steadily improved living conditions there, and helped turn some Iraqis away from the insurgency.

He has spent millions of dollars on hundreds of projects, he said, from installing streetlights and power lines to repairing roads and building schools.

Some projects are designed to reward Iraqis who support U.S. forces, he said. Others are set up to undermine support for insurgents in marginal areas. All have produced intelligence by building rapport with Iraqis who have been willing to provide information about insurgents.

Walton’s efforts have been stopped several times by battles with militiamen loyal to Muqtada Sadr, a radical Shiite Muslim cleric. Virtually no work was done from April through early July and August through mid-October, as U.S. forces fought fierce street battles with Sadr’s men.

“You need momentum for these kinds of projects, and nothing destroys that momentum more than combat ops,” Walton said.

He meets weekly with a dozen members of the local neighborhood advisory council, selected by U.S. authorities in July 2003 as a transitional local government. Each member is paid and provided with two bodyguards. Two Iraqis working for the council were slain just outside the council’s offices in December.

To prevent council members from being targeted, Walton never goes to their homes or acknowledges them on the street. His unit’s Iraqi translators are not required to work in their own neighborhoods, where they risk being killed as collaborators.

This week, Walton and his men met council members in a fortresslike municipal complex that was recently refurbished with U.S. tax dollars. The complex is ringed by concrete blast walls and concertina wire, and Iraqi police stood guard.

Some council members were businessmen or professionals wearing sport coats and slacks. Others were local tribal sheiks dressed in robes. Each arrived with requests for services in his or her section of Shawra Um Jither, a section of northeast Baghdad that is home to 250,000 people, most of them Shiites.

Council member Mohammed Hammod, a dentist, requested permission to post armed guards around mosques to deter attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents during the 10-day Shiite religious celebration of Ashura. Walton agreed to discuss the request with his battalion commander.

Several councilmen accused a local pharmacist, who is paid with U.S. funds to run a small clinic, of siphoning off money. Walton suspected the councilmen of angling for control of the cash, so he challenged them to provide proof.

A bearded sheik presented Walton with an ornate letter complaining of a lack of potable water in his neighborhood. Walton patiently explained that a $3.5-million plant under construction should begin providing water to the entire area by August, “the key word being ‘should,’ ” he added.

A female council member, appointed under U.S. pressure in this patriarchal society, requested an Internet cafe. The captain turned her down, saying he had to give priority to more urgent needs.

The meeting, an exercise in politicking, cajoling and pushing for self-interest, dragged on for nearly three hours. Walton played occupation commander, mayor, city manager, civil engineer and diplomat. He moved the agenda along briskly, consulting a stack of flow charts and a green “leader” notebook.

It was Walton’s final meeting with the council. He will be replaced next week by Capt. Dustin Baadte, a 3rd Infantry commander who sat quietly trying to absorb the nuances of shepherding municipal services through a nascent local government in the midst of a guerrilla war.

Walton presented each council member with a certificate carrying the logo of his battalion and a unit medallion with the motto “Always Ready.”

“I’ve learned a great deal from you all,” the captain told them. “When violence erupted here, you guys were always on my side. You’ll go down in Iraqi history as true patriots.”

Hatem Kadim, a bearded council member in a dapper sport coat, rose to thank the captain.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done to improve the lives of our people,” Kadim said. He seemed to fumble for a way to describe the gun battles that took a toll in casualties from Walton’s battalion.

“We feel sorry,” he said finally, “for the bad things that happened that we couldn’t control.”