A few weeks ago our during a regular meeting of our professional engineering society we had as a dinner speaker a young army reserve captain who had just spent a year in Iraq. The story he told was an entirely different account of how things really are over there - and what the long term problems with the county really are.
As an engineering duty officer he commanded a group of about 100 reservists. They were stationed in a small village about 60 miles north of Baghdad. From the time his group arrived their approach was to get to know the citizens and befriend them as much as possible. Soon they were being invited into homes for tea on a regular basis.
Although they spent about one forth of their time patrolling and looking for possible terrorists they saw virtually no action and no one in the command was wounded during the year they were there. The captain described the situation as follows:
There was virtually no employment in the region. Each family tried to farm a small piece of land handed down from generation to generation. As families grew the lands were divided into smaller portions as more sons were born. There was no infrastructure in the region. Society and allegiances were based upon tribal relationships. There was no water or sewer system. Wells and effluents from animals and people ran together and mixed at different places. Schools were very poor and the facilities were atrocious. Some power was available some of the time but people tended to hook up all kinds of personal devices with no concern for safety.
When people died from an accident or sickness it was considered Allah's will and was therefore accepted.
The soldiers asked for and received packages from home that included food, clothing and in particular medicines. There was no hospital or medical facility in the area.
What all of the captain's report (including photos) told us was that if we didn't even have the civil war in Iraq the time and costs to bring the country into the 21st Century would be astounding. This kind of information is one of those newsworthy issues that we should all be made aware of - especially our politicians and foreign diplomats. If this kind of information is not made public, the American people will never be advised of the long-term costs that we may incur during our post-war efforts in Iraq.
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