BAGHDAD, Iraq – 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, Walton has spent as much time dealing with electric 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 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 work, and such projects are regularly brought to a halt by insurgents. But they are the third pillar of the U.S. exit strategy, along with combat power 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 past 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.
“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. “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 (O’Neill) will be the new head garbage man in Baghdad.”
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.
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