By Tom Wheelock

The Uprising Begins – Life in the Green Zone was good into the Fall of 2003; we worked hard and played hard. But it was a false sense of security as Sunnis displaced in May from their former military and government livelihoods began to strike back in late summer by bombing the UN mission and Jordanian Embassy and deploying Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) against Coalition military vehicles. 408 American soldiers were killed from June 1 to December 31, 2003, almost 3 times the number during the conflict.

     The Sunni insurgency then struck at the heart of the Green Zone on October 26. Around 6:20 am, a donkey cart carrying a disguised rocket launcher was led down the road across from the Al-Rasheed Hotel that housed CPA staff, stopped, and fired 10 rockets at the building. I was on the 10^th floor and had four rockets hit around my window. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on a visit to CPA was staying on the 12^th Floor. His team quickly got him out of there. An Army Lt. Colonel was killed and 15 individuals wounded.

 Green Zone life after that attack changed dramatically. We moved out of the Al-Rasheed into other camps, and night-life became very subdued. Insurgents used IEDs to attack CPA convoys to and from Baghdad Airport, and against Bechtel vehicles travelling to work sites. Suicide bombers attacked Iraqis in line at security checkpoints to enter the Green Zone. Rocket attacks into the Green Zone became more frequent, although mostly ineffective. A colleague came home one day and found a hole in the ceiling and an unexploded rocket embedded in his couch where he usually sat to watch tv. Another evening, lots of gunfire erupted around the Green Zone, and I thought that we were under attack. Found out later that the Iraqi national football team had won an important soccer match, and it had been celebratory gun fire – lots of it!

     “We got him!” – On December 13^th CPA summoned all staff to a large auditorium for a major announcement. With great anticipation, we watched as Amb. Bremer and CJTF-7 Commander LTG Ricardo Sanchez came onto the stage. Bremer only said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him”, and we all knew who the ‘him’ was, the Ace of Spades in the military’s card deck of High-Value Targets. The place went wild; Iraqi staff and media were screaming and crying tears of joy.

Based on intelligence and painstaking analysis of the Sunni tribal networks near Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, a Special Forces task force and units of the 4^th Infantry Division found him hiding in a spider hole. Saddam’s sons – Uday and Qusay – had been killed in a firefight with the 101^st Airborne Division in Mosul in July. Other High-Value Targets like Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz (died in prison 2010) and Chemical Ali (executed 2010) – the general who used chemical weapons to kill at least 5,000 Kurds – had either surrendered, been killed, or were captured. Saddam was executed by hanging for his crimes on December 30, 2006.

     Violence escalates – Starting in the fall of 2003,there was a dramatic increase in attacks against the Coalition, and then the Sunni insurgency pivoted in March 2004 to attack Kurds and Shi’as. Al-Zarqawi led one of the most lethal Sunni insurgent groups. 200 Shi’a were killed by car bombs in early March. April became a turning point in the sectarian conflict when well-organized Shi’a militias, including the Mahdi Army led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, entered the conflict against Coalition forces as well as Sunni terrorists. The intense First Battle of Fallujah pitted Coalition forces against Sunni insurgents in April. The fighting against Coalition forces would continue until late August 2004.

     Reconstruction work, especially in Baghdad, slowed. But Bechtel’s local Iraqi staff of 300 engineers were able to continue supervision and quality control despite the violence. Rocket attacks on the Green Zone were daily occurrences. USAID made contingency plans to evacuate most expat staff to Jordan and operate from there but never had to implement an evacuation.

Bechtel Corporation Camp in Uday Hussein’s Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone  (courtesy of TW)

     In May, I decided that after a year in Baghdad, it was time to go home. I remember flying out to Amman and upon arrival felt a great weight being lifted off my shoulders – the stress of being in Iraq. I was so tired and drained. A few weeks later, our classmate Rick Whitaker took my place in Baghdad. CPA transferred full sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government on June 28, 2004. CPA was no more.

     What do I think about OIF? – First of all, Saddam was pure evil, and I supported the OIF objective of overthrowing his regime. The trick was how to assist Iraq to become a democratic regime, when the conflicts and sectarian differences among Sunnis, Shi’as, and Kurds were so strong, and not have this new regime be co-opted by Iran, its powerful Shi’a neighbor to the east. 20 years later, my judgment is that the transition to democracy – while bumpy – has largely succeeded. Iraq has a working democracy despite the internal sectarian and religious divisions.

     Iraq certainly has assisted Iran diplomatically and militarily, for instance by allowing transit of supplies from Tehran across Iraq to Syria. Iran trains and backs Shi’a militias. Baghdad balances this by allowing bases for US forces, mainly to train Iraqi forces and fight ISIS. Iran has significant influence in Baghdad, but I don’t see Iraq as its lackey.

     However, USG’s stated justifications for removing Saddam — Iraq was developing WMD and had links to al Qaeda — while sincere were not anywhere close to reality. These were based on faulty analysis at the CIA and elsewhere. Remember CIA Director Tenant’s comment to President Bush about the case for WMD, “It’s a slam dunk.” I asked a top UN weapons inspector before the invasion what he thought about Iraq’s WMD. He replied that he believed that Saddam got rid of them in late 1990s after his son-in-law, an Iraqi General, defected to Jordan and revealed what he knew. That appears to be what happened. Little evidence of WMD was ever discovered after the occupation, and there never was a connection proven between Saddam and al Qaeda.

     US planning for OIF was highly successful on the military strategic and tactical side but woefully inadequate on the Phase IV side, how to stabilize and rebuild the country. The White House would not or could not bring together DoD and civilian departments to form a plan.

    Finally, the irony is that US set out to disrupt what was thought to be state support for terrorism where, in fact, there was none; and then CPA’s decisions to disband the Iraqi Army and fire Ba’athist party members helped create one of the most vicious terrorist groups ever — ISIS with which we are still fighting.

     The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, ushered in a new phase of warfare for the United States that became known as the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). It started with American paramilitary forces entering Afghanistan in late 2001 to eliminate al Qaeda leadership and then in March 2003 became an invasion of Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and destroy what was thought to be Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries encountering terrorism and insurgency, the US Government also funded through State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID) ‘soft power’ programs: governance, health, education, reconstruction, stabilization, and countering violent extremism (CVE).

     This is the story of my involvement on the civilian side of GWOT across 16 countries from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria and points in between, where instability and violent extremism were the norm.

     The saga begins in early January 2003, when I received a phone call asking me to interview for an undisclosed position: “You have a military, Mideast, infrastructure background and we’d like to speak with you about an infrastructure position that we can’t disclose right now but you can read the papers and figure it out.” Long story short, by mid-January I became the USAID Director of Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction seconded to LTG (ret.) Jay Garner’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) and thus began a 16-month journey in Iraq overseeing on behalf of the US $3.2 billion of reconstruction contracts primarily implemented by Bechtel Corporation.

     Much has been written about how unprepared the US was for “the day after” Saddam’s defeat when the Coalition would become the occupying authority with total responsibility for all state functions. I can only say that the criticism is well-deserved. The Defense Department did not prioritize planning for Phase IV — activities conducted after decisive combat operations to stabilize and reconstruct the area of operations (AO), and the White House did not push together DoD and the necessary civilian departments to develop a detailed plan. Senior Defense officials shut out civilian departments from most planning, and the CENTCOM Commander, in particular, had no interest in Phase IV.  I heard that there had been one civ-mil Phase IV planning conference in late December 2002, but there was little coordination or follow-up after that initial meeting. No one at senior levels heeded Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule: “You break it, you own it.”   

     On St. Patrick’s Day, we flew to Kuwait City, and Coalition forces attacked Iraq three days later. By April 9, the V Corps led by LTG Scott Wallace (https://thedaysforward.com/scott-wallace/) had entered Baghdad. In late April, the USAID contingent drove up the Euphrates River valley to Baghdad. I remember playing Meatloaf and Abba CDs at high volume all along the way. President Bush declared an end to hostilities on May 1.

     ORHA and CPA – We set up shop with the rest of ORHA at the Palace, Saddam’s garish palatial monstrosity located on the Tigris River next door to the palace of Uday, his sadistic son.

This secure area became known as the “Green Zone”.

The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) supported the USAID reconstruction program by providing an outstanding team of officers and civilian engineers for the Owner’s Engineer role overseeing contractual compliance and quality of design and workmanship. Bechtel’s first task was to propose an infrastructure reconstruction program by mid-June for all sectors except the oil industry that was separately handled by a USACE task force. We had to determine needs and prioritize them across the sectors of power, water & sanitation, telecoms, schools, health clinics, Umm Qasr seaport, and the Baghdad International Airport.

     Two Major Mistakes – In April, we learned that ORHA and Jay Garner would be replaced by Amb. L. Paul Bremer, head of the newly created occupation governing body, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). In mid-March before our departure to Kuwait, Jay had told the President and National Security Council that it would be a huge mistake to disband the Iraqi Army and to fire all Ba’athist party members, most of whom were the technocrats running the government. He ended by saying that if that was what they wanted, he was not their guy. So, it was no surprise 4 weeks later when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called to say that Amb. Bremer and CPA were taking over.

     New CPA staffers – the “true believers” politically connected to the White House – soon arrived in Baghdad and began to enforce what the White House wanted. In mid-May, CPA’s first decree, despite opposition from the US military, was to prohibit any Ba’ath party member from working in the new government and ministries; up to 100,000 well-educated Sunni individuals were out of a job. In late May, again against the recommendations of the US military, CPA disbanded the Iraqi Army, thus alienating several hundred thousand soldiers and setting the stage for the formation of al-Qaeda in Iraq that later became ISIS.

     Chaos Rules – Meanwhile, chaos was erupting across Iraq as gangs and ordinary citizens looted and plundered Ministry office and infrastructure facilities. Coalition forces could only secure oil facilities, power plants, and the airport. In mid-April at the end of hostilities, there were only 14 high-voltage transmission towers damaged from the fighting. By mid-July there were more than 600 towers destroyed as well-organized gangs harvested the copper for sale to Iran. All the major water treatment and sanitation plants in major cities were vandalized as gangs took everything – generators, office equipment, etc.

The power generation sector was in shambles from years of neglect and deferred maintenance. Out of roughly 11,000 megawatts (MW) of installed generator capacity, at the most it could only provide 4,400 MW, an efficiency of under 40%, and usually it was much less. Preventive maintenance was not enforced, and spare parts were hoarded. Plant staff were afraid for their livelihood and lives if Saddam became upset when power levels dropped because a generator had to be shut down for maintenance. Instead, they rewired systems to bypass alarms so that when a generator finally gave out, they would be able to say, “It was God’s Will.” Needless to say, rolling blackouts were the norm because the power system could only provide half of the estimated demand of 7,000 MW. CPA made an important decision that power-rationing would be shared equitably across Iraq unlike under Saddam where Baghdad received 20-24 hours per day at the expense of the rest of the country that only received 2-8 hours a day.

     Looting also significantly damaged the national and regional control centers that were essential to managing the power system. Communication between the control centers, power stations, and switchyards was only restored after Coalition forces distributed satellite phones to Iraqi managers around the country. Looters also helped themselves to warehouses of arms and ammunition.

CJTF-7, the Coalition military headquarters, simply did not have enough troops to guard all infrastructure, and the military’s rules of engagement precluded them from initiating deadly force to deter these gangs even if troops did come upon acts of looting. CPA and the Iraqis could only watch in frustration as the system was dismantled. I estimate that the Coalition’s inability to stop the looting probably doubled or tripled the cost of rebuilding the power sector.

Reconstruction underway – By July 2003, the USAID reconstruction plan prepared by Bechtel was approved. 50% of the funding went to the power sector to repair transmission lines and increase generation of electricity. Other major projects were rebuilding water and sanitation facilities in Baghdad and other major cities; reopening Umm Qasr port near Basra so that imported grain shipments could resume; rebuilding three major bridges damaged during the conflict; and refurbishing primary schools and health clinics. As the general contractor, Bechtel did an excellent job of mobilizing to Baghdad, conducting assessments, preparing the reconstruction plan, recruiting and building capacity of local Iraqi staff and construction companies, and providing quality control on construction sites. But the scale of what needed to be done was only now coming into focus: Congress approved appropriations of $20 billion for reconstruction work that would fall under CPA authority and be implemented by USACE.

We learned that doing business in Russia requires a kryusha – a roof for protection, of which there were two kinds: the unofficial Russian mafia one, or the official government one that usually included the KGB. Our Russian partners handled relations with the kryusha, in this case the municipal government of St. Petersburg whose Deputy Mayor, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, oversaw international business relations. He was a serious, somewhat reserved, calculating yet pragmatic Russian patriot. He hosted and participated in many international conferences seeking to improve Russia’s relations with the West.

     Starting in 1992, we got into other entertainment projects. We were producers of a Hollywood film “Russian Holiday” in which Victoria starred with Barry Bostwick and E.G. Marshall.  We were asked by St. Petersburg municipality to help organize and promote its annual White Nights Festival occurring at the summer solstice. We organized rock groups and performers for the festival to include Blood, Sweat and Tears; Salt n Pepper; Jose Feliciano; Ricky Martin; and Falco. To promote the 1993 festival, we brought Deputy Mayor Putin and his wife to New York. We held a reception at the Russian Tea Room attended by Henry Kissinger and other notables and introduced Putin to leadership of the Council on Foreign Relations. Regretfully, I have to say that we hosted Vladimir Putin on his first visit to the United States.

     On the business side, Russkoye Video, our partner in St. Petersburg, always had  cash-flow problems. On each visit we would see new faces in the hallways, former KGB types or local investors looking for a quick buck from their illicit earnings. Strange things then happened. One of the investors was killed in a late-night car crash in the city center; two weeks after his funeral, his partner suddenly died of an asthma attack. The KGB guy then organized a Russian Orthodox priest to sprinkle holy water throughout the headquarters building and purge it of evil spirits. You can’t make this stuff up. But the lesson here is that mafias — unofficial and official – were moving into the private sector and business disputes were not being resolved by lawsuits.

     To punctuate the message, ten years later, the founder of Russkoye Video ran afoul of his kryusha protectors and was imprisoned in the notorious Lefortovo prison where he languished and died. The founder of Video International later became Minister of Communications under President Putin and established the Russia Today international television network. In November 2015, he died from blunt force trauma in the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington DC under mysterious circumstances, officially ruled an accidental death. Rumor has it that he was in DC to testify before a grand jury.

     In October 1993, I witnessed the last gasp of the Communists as they nearly toppled Yeltsin’s Government of the Russian Federation. President Yeltsin was in the midst of a constitutional crisis with hard-liners in the Russia Parliament. On a warm, quiet Sunday afternoon of October 3, Russian Federation Vice President Rutskoy led a mob of Communist sympathizers to attack the White House housing the Russian Parliament and the Ostankino complex housing the national tv and radio channels. Fighting was fierce at Ostankino, and the mob came close to occupying it. If they had, the outcome for Yeltsin might have been a disaster. The mob did seize the White House.

     That night I walked with Nikita through the streets of Moscow and passed by the Ministry of Defense headquarters where all the lights were on. Later I learned that President Yeltsin was there striking a late-night deal with top Army generals allowing them to profit handsomely from the pending military withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Equipment and supplies were to be sold off as the troops pulled back to Russia, and the proceeds were not expected to reach the coffers in Moscow.  

     That deal brought military units into Moscow early October 4 to surround the White House.

I went down there and perched myself along with thousands of Muscovites on top of an adjacent building to witness the battle.

Tanks were firing into the White House. Automatic gunfire was indiscriminately flying about.

Crowds of onlookers along the banks of the Moscow River were cheering as if they were at a boxing match. Finally, around 3 p.m. a white flag emerged from the White House, and the occupiers came out with hands up only to be severely beaten by awaiting soldiers. The rebellion was over.  

Time to Pull the Plug – 1994

     Major changes forced us to pull out in 1994. Russian mafias had moved into the advertising business, and we had no desire to compete against them. Then, Western media companies began to set up in Russia and no longer needed the middleman to deal with Russian broadcast entities. Russia Television did its own deal with the US distributor to broadcast “Santa Barbara”. The handwriting was on the wall, and we pulled out.

     After five years working in Russia, what did I learn? First, Russians for the most part are amoral – they have little concern for what is right and wrong. They may have heard of what’s right, but it does not influence their actions very much. That leads to the second point: Russian society is not based on right vs. wrong but on strong vs weak. Only the strong survive and anything goes to acquire and maintain strength. Third, the near absence of legal or moral boundaries leads to corruption throughout the government, business, and the military. And finally, why were we and NATO so afraid of Russia’s conventional military power? Yes, they have nuclear weapons, but otherwise to me, the country was “70 years of deferred maintenance”. Little worked well in the civilian economy outside of the Moscow subway system, and I can’t believe that the Russian military was much different. After seeing the Russia Army’s performance in the first year of its war in Ukraine, I still hold that opinion.