The View from a Coup

[posted by Callimachus]

Our friend Kat, in Thailand, sends along a link to this set of pictures. Helpful, since coverage of the situation there seems to have quickly fallen off the radar screen of U.S. news organizations. Click on them to keep scrolling through.

Greetings from Thailand

[posted by Callimachus]




Here is your language back. Some settling of content may have occurred during transit.

Sent by our friend Kat as part of an explanation for why she sometimes slips out of idiomatic English when she goes back to Thailand.

Teed Off

[posted by Callimachus]

First Part

Second Part

Third Part

Fourth Part

Fifth Part

This is the final post in a six-part series of posts was written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Kevin's questions are in italics, and quotes. Emphasis added, in boldface, is by the editor.

October 18

I had one more thing to add. Cal chatted with me earlier and looked over my response. He seemed to like this one part especially.

“For example, it was not unusual to replace an obviously damaged valve on a water supply system only to find that once pressure was placed on the balance of the line, three other valves (not to be found anywhere in Iraq) promptly blew, or whole sections of pipe split, or leaks developed around hundreds of packing joints and gaskets.”

In thinking about it, just so you or anyone else reading can understand, the above represents a great deal of what was encountered in Iraq, and in many cases is still being dealt with. It also illustrates one of the reasons for things such as open-ended contracts. The U.S. knew Saddam had neglected his country to a fair extent, but we were not prepared for the level of dilapidation we encountered. As it worked out, Saddam had basically turned Iraq into his own oil company for himself and his friends, while turning the rest of the nation into his own at-gunpoint cheering section.

Ultimately somebody has to either pay for these additional problems to be fixed, or accept systems working at 20% capacity and rapidly becoming nonfunctional. Saddam didn’t have to worry about it as long as he could turn tricks for oil and keep his guns loaded. But the rest of the nation, the free Iraqi nation of today, requires functional systems for their future.

A lot of companies had to make hard decisions concerning what they were dealing with, including accepting the possibility that the systems or structures in question were simply too degraded to be salvaged. With repair parts already difficult and expensive to obtain, some repairs simply had to be abandoned in favor of total system redesigns and replacement. Band-Aids may be cheap, but it you have to use a hundred of them a day just to keep your systems running at 30% capacity, you’re not really saving anything.

And yes, in other cases Band-Aids were applied. Parts and pieces aren’t always easy to find, and in many cases with twenty-year-old equipment and older, they don’t exist. So when something has to be done NOW, you patch it up and hope it holds together until better replacements can be obtained. But this, too, costs money.

So again, somebody had to pay for this. In most of the open ended contracts seen early on, it was actually the contractors, including those big and evil ones, that were footing the bill. They were often working months, even over a year in some cases, ahead of contract approvals and payments. They also understand that arguments or discrepancies will ultimately become billing problems, so wherever possible they avoid them.

But when there are this many unknowns, this much neglect to so many systems, and this many difficulties in securing parts and qualified labor, you’re going to have additional expenses, period. And when you hand over money to a country with no tradition of handling money well, you’re going to have even more of them.

There is at least one writer currently making great political hay out of the reconstruction process in Iraq. Great emphasis has been placed on a missing $365 million out of some $60 billion in a land where bribery to tribal leaders is common, knowledge of proper government level accounting techniques is virtually unknown, security costs are ten times the those originally estimated, and parts and equipment are like gold. In my opinion, this man is a partisan deadheaded fool with no more business experience than my dog, yet he is a major writer for a major U.S. newspaper who hopes you will rush out and buy his new book – on business in Iraq.

Well, I did, and I read it, and it was a gory bunch of elementary school level garbage. The man cannot even understand the reports he has been fortunate enough to stumble upon. If you ever want an example of one side of a story being presented with as many attempts to camouflage the rest of the story as possible, maybe you’d like his book. If you want to do this while being led to his own predestined conclusion, you should buy it. But if you don’t want to pay for the book, relax. He’s already written most of it in his newspaper, the Los Angeles Times.

Free to Warp

[posted by Callimachus]

First Part

Second Part

Third Part

Fourth Part

This is the fifth of a six-part series of posts was written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Kevin's questions are in italics, and quotes. Emphasis added, in boldface, is by the editor.

October 17

"... I think Bush could have changed the game early on by actually admitting there was an insurgency and highlighting the efforts being made to stop it and to rebuild the country. By the time the Admin finally admitted this, it was past too late. The most effective propaganda is honesty or at least the cloak of honesty. Also, if you call people your enemies (unpatriotic press) often enough, they will become your enemies."

I’m probably poorly equipped to argue this point with you. I’m fairly ignorant of the media in general. But I believe the media in the U.S. is considered to be “free” in that the government cannot directly control what it airs on TV or prints in newspapers and magazines. The last time I heard, the media, major or otherwise, is privately owned, and unless seized under very unusual circumstances, fully controls its own content, free of government interference. And while the government may technically own public broadcasting, it cannot be used to advance any particular political position by government officials. If I am wrong about this, please correct me.

But if this is true, then it decisions concerning the direction content will take, or the degree of how much bias will be seen, rest squarely on the shoulders of the reporters, editors, and owners who control their various media outlets, not unlike you control your own website and the content therein.

They may point to the bad actions of politicians, but they cannot then point at those actions to validate their own. If they act dishonestly or allow their bias to unduly influence their decisions, it remains that they have made their own decisions. Anything else, anything beyond this, suggests a level of coercion in the government that in itself could not be maintained in a truly free and honest press. Somebody would speak, somewhere, some time, and the whole thing would come tumbling down.

Instead, I would suggest that the mainstream media is bought and paid for commercially, not by the government, and as such are free to bend and warp whatever tiny bit of news they pass along to any extent they desire as long as, A. They don’t offend their audience, and, B. They don’t get caught in BS so deep they cannot recover their audience. For most of the media, I believe “A” is a greater concern than “B.”

Even politicians have to live up to higher standards than that. Even politicians live under greater scrutiny than that. Even politicians have to accomplish more in real terms than that, if they expect to remain in office.

Hoping that I do not speed the creation of yet another monster, I will point out that everything you do as an individual is based upon what you know or think you know. Every decision is bound up in the knowledge you gain that you hope is complete or at least accurate. Every bit of that knowledge is subject to being presented in several different ways, and it is only the honesty of the situation or those who present it who can provide you with everything you need to know.

If I have control of what you know about Iraq, your subsequent view of it can be that Iraq is a complete failure or that Iraq is a resounding success. Because you can’t be there, and all you know about it comes from me. In a land with thousands of positives and negatives, if you hear a few positives by accident, I can slam those right down to the ground with a longer list of negatives. As long as you don’t know the whole story, I am in control. If I don’t tell it to you, it didn’t happen, and there’s nobody around you who has my power and can prove me wrong.

Eventually, you will be forced to make decisions that affect your future and those of others around you. Because you cannot know any different, you will base your decisions on what I have told you. If I have done my job well you will make the decision I want you to make.

That’s power. That’s a lot of power. If you don’t think anybody has ever realized this…? Puuuuleeezzze. Our greatest asset is our system of government. It also provides our enemies with our greatest weakness. Our best defenses are honesty and the desire to know the whole truth. We can remove dishonest politicians, but there is no formula or set of laws available to remove a dishonest media. So if we are content to be foolish, which is potentially more dangerous?

I want to thank you for the questions and the forum. I really do appreciate your patience and the thought you’ve given to what I have said. I may have a day, maybe two left in BKK and after that I’m pretty much out of touch.

Sixth Part

Catfish Farm

[posted by Callimachus]

First Part

Second Part

Third Part

This is the fourth of a six-part series of posts was written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Kevin's questions are in italics, and quotes. Emphasis added, in boldface, is by the editor.

October 17

"Third Question – I imagine most people, if they think of what we might be doing there at all, would think we’re rebuilding utilities and the oil industry. Is that an accurate assessment of the contracting effort? What other projects received attention?"

I mostly addressed this question in response to your second, but I think here I can provide a little more of what I think, based on what I’ve observed and know of our efforts.

Most people in the U.S. have no concept of either the operations or their requirements in Iraq. For that matter, most of the people in the world don’t, because the press of most nations has done a terrible job of passing on information. You can say what you will about the administration or politics, but this administration couldn’t sit down and explain much of this without the majority of the press treating it with cynicism or simply failing to print it.

Even if they did, most people in the U.S. or Europe wouldn’t pay much attention. To get that kind of attention you have to go to the Middle and Far East, where they actually care about things like that.

Yes, we are rebuilding utilities and the oil industry. Those are major points in our efforts, and as such are major targets for insurgents. Simple fools look at our efforts and take the easy route, claiming it’s all about us getting cheap oil, while never understanding a thing about Iraq.

What else are you going to do to rebuild Iraq? Turn it into a catfish farm? Are you going to turn it into the tulip capital of the world, or develop it into a tourist Mecca? No way. Unless you’re insane, you’re going to redevelop the oil industry, because it’s Iraq’s life blood, just as it is Iran’s or Saudi Arabia’s. If you want Iraq to prosper, if you want Iraqis employed and enjoying life, you rebuild the oil industry. It’s as simple as that. After that, Iraq can make its own decisions, and if catfish or tulips or tourists are part of those decisions, then they’ll at least be in a position to attempt it.

Iraq can be a lot of things in the future. But for now, they require oil, they require electricity, and they require water. They require roads and basic care and security. Most of these are things that we in the U.S. cannot provide for ourselves individually, but instead must band together to do as townships, states, and a nation. It is not a sin or an abomination that one nation or group of nations attempt to help provide these things to another. It is also not foolish to believe that these efforts may produce a degree of trust, appreciation, and even cooperation in the future. If these things are not true, we might as well wall up our borders now, and cease our efforts to be a part of the rest of the world.

Fifth Part

Sixth Part

Second Question

[posted by Callimachus]

First part

Second Part


This is the third of a six-part series of posts was written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Kevin's questions are in italics, and quotes. Emphasis added, in boldface, is by the editor.

October 17

“Second Question – Which projects appeared to have priority?”

In terms of answering the taxpayer's question, “What have I been paying for?” the first projects were primarily the establishment of U.S. military base requirements. These include the securing and establishment of the so-called Green Zone, but also a series of major bases, outposts, and forts scattered throughout the country.

Everything required to secure, feed, and bed soldiers and marines had to be either built or improved. Equipment required secure locations for storage and maintenance as well. Just as importantly, these facilities had to be constructed quickly, with all materials and equipment required for their construction obtained and placed on site, and construction completed ASAP, often under poor security conditions.

The infamous KBR convoy massacre is a fair example of what had to be dealt with during that process, with blame rightly being placed on both KBR and the military, but with little or no consideration of the actual mission or the map-reading mistake that ultimately set the scene for the disaster.

Second in importance were vital services, such as electricity or repairs to damaged water and sewer systems. This proved to be substantially more difficult than initially expected, partially due to war damage but largely due to long-term neglect under Saddam. For example, it was not unusual to replace an obviously damaged valve on a water supply system only to find that once pressure was placed on the balance of the line, three other valves (not to be found anywhere in Iraq) promptly blew, or whole sections of pipe split, or leaks developed around hundreds of packing joints and gaskets.

Simultaneously, work began on the restoration of oil and natural gas production facilities and refineries. A great deal has been made over the U.S. decision to immediately begin these efforts, fueling the “We only did it for the oil” argument. But the idea behind it was actually quite simple and far from sinister.

Oil and gas production in Iraq is the primary source of that nation’s income. It is also a significant source of employment for Iraqis, both directly and indirectly. As such, it was felt that restoration and improvement of this industry would allow the nation to immediately begin to restore itself economically and thus reduce the immediate and future costs of restoration to the U.S. and other donor nations.

Additional projects included the restoration or construction of schools, hospitals, and government offices for basic services including police. Port facilities in Basra also required work.

Somewhat below this level is the restoration of facilities for the Iraqi military. Restoration of southern marshlands was also included within the scope of the original work being planned and funded.

The methods by which these projects have been completed has varied wildly, from volunteer activities carried out by members of the military to open-ended contracts initially held by U.S. corporations. The success levels have varied as well, as has the quality of the finished products. Some schools are on par with European examples, while others are little more than empty shells with doors and fresh paint.

Hospitals have been a major problem, but they actually bring us up to the latest efforts being made in Iraq. Hopefully you will understand the strategy.

In all of the above efforts, as well as in the efforts made to establish the base of a new Iraqi government, it was discovered that Iraqis, on the whole, were simply not sufficiently educated or experienced in higher level government, manual, and business skills to properly run their own government in an open type of society. Rules and organizational capabilities were remarkably absent, and highly skilled labor was almost unknown.

Iraqis are well educated in a general way, but few have had any cause to exercise their educations in real-world situations for the last twenty years. And where labor is concerned, skilled trades people such as millwrights or machinists are virtually nonexistent. That’s not because we killed them all, but because there was so little new construction or repair work done for almost a generation. So from the top down, Iraqis are simply not ready to handle their own government, their own services, or their own industries without first receiving advanced training and supervision. It’s not that they’re stupid, and not that they’re unwilling to learn or don’t want to do the work. It’s just that they don’t yet know how to.

As a result, a lot of expensive equipment has been left sitting idle, or worse, is now damaged from lack of skilled operation or repair. A lot of money has been wasted, and a lot of time has been lost. But we have begun to address this issue with new training programs. We have also backed off of certain projects until Iraqis are sufficiently trained to carry them out on their own.

As a result, reconstruction has slowed somewhat for the time being, but in the end projects should employ more Iraqis and allow them to fully understand what they have built and maintain them properly for themselves. That tends to develop their pride, and a desire to protect what has been built. With luck, these aspects will strengthen Iraqi will against those who wish to see their society in chaos.

You may ask the obvious question, “Why on earth did you let people who couldn’t manage things be in charge of expensive stuff?” Well, the world didn’t exactly throw itself into Iraq to help rebuild it, and in truth, the idea from the start was to let Iraqis take control of their own country. Additionally, Iraq, like many other places on the globe, has a culture wherein not knowing how to do something is considered bad, and lying about capabilities to save face is the norm. It takes a while for Americans to get used to this, whether we’re dealing with it in Iraq, India, or Thailand. When you have efforts this big, with cultural and educational differences this large, you’re going to make some mistakes. It happens.

Fourth Part

Fifth Part

Sixth Part

Picking Up the Pieces

[posted by Callimachus]

(continued from here.)

This is the second in a six-part series of posts was written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Kevin's questions are in italics.

October 17

You can congratulate me, I think I’ve worked through presentation of a major contract as our front person, which for me is a nearly unbelievable first. Anyway, on to your questions and comments. I couldn’t answer them so briefly, so I’ve broken it up. Hope that works. I’m not a blogger.

“First question – How much of the contracting work in Iraq would you say is related to rebuilding things destroyed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and how much of it is related to fulfilling needs that existed before that? I don’t want this to sound like a loaded question because regardless of why we’ve taken on a particular project it’s still the right that we took it on.”

This depended on where you were in Iraq. The military primarily used air power to destroy air and heavy defenses and the command structure, so the communications system took a lot of damage, as did air defense locations. Other command and known military installations also took damage, but not all of them. These defenses were scattered pretty much everywhere, but often were suitable for destruction by precision weapons, so most of the damage is very isolated.

The power system was not a prime target, and you’ll recall most of the power stayed on in Baghdad for the majority of the initial battle. Water systems and bridges were also not specifically targeted. Beyond the humanitarian aspects of that, our own troops needed these systems intact as they advanced.

Still, there was sporadic heavy fighting on the ground. Wherever that occurred, damage varied from light to very heavy. It was a war, and Iraqi defensive positions took severe damage in several cases, as well as the roadways where U.S. troops were traveling. Obviously, there was collateral damage produced by both sides. An RPG that misses a tank can fly into the window of a hospital and blow it up, just like a tank round.

There are some places just outside of Baghdad where businesses and homes on both sides of the road are heavily damaged. These were places where Iraqi fighters attempted crossfire ambushes on advancing U.S. forces. But for the most part, severe damage during the war was relatively light, and most of it was simple and isolated in nature.

Iraqis have mostly patched up their own walls, cleaned up most of that debris, etc. As I understand, smaller amounts of cash were distributed to Iraqis through various means to help with the costs of doing the more significant work. Other such work was addressed during the course of road repair operations. Debris can still be found in lots of places, but then debris seems to be part of the standard Iraqi way of life, so it’s nothing new.

The vast majority of work in Iraq as it relates to U.S. expenses has been related to military servicing, initial repairs to services, and subsequent latent or unforeseen repair requirements.

Third Part

Fourth Part

Fifth Part

Sixth Part

Outside, Looking In

[posted by Callimachus]

This is the first of a six-part series of posts written by our friend Kat, the contractor's employee who worked on reconstruction projects in and around Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Her story is told here and here among other places (listed in the sidebar at left).

As far as I know, the only anti-Administration blogger to really take up these pieces and accept then into his broader view of the war was Kevin Robinson's My Thinking Corner.

Kevin asked Kat some questions about her impressions and her experiences, which she answered, with elaborations, at his site. With Kevin's permission, I'm reprinting her answers, lightly edited, as posts here, since they are interesting in their own right and they broaden and deepen the story she told in the series of posts last month.

Emphasis (in boldface) is my doing throughout.

October 13

At this point I’m one day ahead of you, happily wading through work and trying out business suits I bought for a few days work here in Bangkok. Here I can use DSL and run at slow dial-up speed (by US standards). After that I fly north and it’s almost too slow to access American websites and chat has some wild time delay effects.

Glad I didn’t change your mind about the war. I only wanted to tilt it a little, or shake it up some. I too, have LOTS of problems with the present admin, and I’ve got more reasons than you do to feel that way. But I want to be very careful about something when I say that. Don’t even confuse what I’m saying with a downing of the administration for the concept they’ve taken on. I’m dissing them on the execution of the whole affair, not on the direction. Let’s go down my list of complaints, if you’ve got a sec…

The administration should have been up front about the strategic purpose and the challenge (as far as they could see it) we faced in overthrowing Saddam and rebuilding Iraq.

Reasons I can see why they didn’t? First, as a people, we’re pretty weak and self-centered. Also not very worldly or well-traveled. We’re pretty ignorant and spoiled, on the whole. This administration can’t actually tell us about a world that up to 9/11 we were pretty well happy to ignore. Disco on and make a few bucks, and “oh, that’s so sad ... let’s go get a latte.”

Telling us all about it now is a little late, probably. But it doesn’t mean we can’t learn. We’re ignorant, yes. But we’re not dumb.

Problem is, many of us refuse to learn. Our poor and our career representatives of the oppressed seem to confuse being downtrodden in the U.S. with being “poor” elsewhere in the world. Kevin, those two situations should NEVER be confused between each other. They are worlds apart.

Oddly, it’s the Americans who tend to consider themselves the most worldly who usually end up being the most ignorant and simultaneously vocal. Bead-braiding your hair, growing a beard, smoking weed, or teaching at a university doesn’t qualify you as experienced in the “world.” It just means you’ve got a job, can get stoned, and have the functional skills to tell people about it.

As a side note, it also means people will laugh at you behind your back when you finally do get out in the world and “mingle with the locals.” Dreadlocks, btw, are the international symbol for “I am an idiot, please come rip me off.”

[Ed. note: In conversation, Kat taught me a delightful term for the airhead rich kids of Western countries who troll through the Third World, full of smugness and hedonism: "Trustafarians" -- Cal.]

When crouching to eat becomes second nature, when locals are trying to fix you up with a husband (or wife, for you), when the water and spices no longer bother you, when people go off on you because you screwed up on some cultural formality without holding back because you’re a stranger, and you can smile at the opportunity to go walking out to a country party, then you’re mingling with the locals, and not before.

How do you tell Americans –- so many of whom are convinced that the church-going generation of their parents is primitive, that there’s a stone-aged sect of religious idiots seriously out to get them? For an American, the whole concept is so far off the edge that you can’t really grasp it unless you see people actually being ripped apart as a result of it elsewhere in the world.

Yes, I know there are those in the U.S. who believe we are the whole problem. They believe we are the only real evil in the world. They are sadly, and mortally, mistaken. There is a reason why we are the enemy for those who butcher and murder in the name of religion. And that is because we offer a freedom and a very obvious opportunity to those who cannot otherwise see those things. Does that make us right and them wrong? Well, it depends on whether your idea of right and wrong includes murder or not, and how you feel about it. Personally, I put it in my “do not do” list.

We (Americans, plus a host of other Western-type countries) don’t offer a better religion, we only show a better result. Like it or not, we end up being the envy of the world, and that creates problems.

The biggest problem is that it’s not a simple task for much of the world to get from point A -- Where they are -- to point B -- where we are. We don’t even know how we did it, so how are they supposed to figure it out? If they can’t, it turns into fenvy, and with some, who become convinced it can’t be done honestly, into hatred. There are just too many questions for certain minds to solve.

“Why CAN’T a Muslim country that degrades women and doesn’t believe in education achieve greatness?” Well, I dunno, maybe it’s because women like me are kinda smart, and beating us into corners for your national pastime isn’t a good use of your economic resources.

I’m back here in Thailand, in another country where this animal rears up its head at least once every month, killing total innocents. Killing Buddhists, of all things, in a country where EVERY religion is sacred and protected. For the journalists in Iraq looking for another child running down the road naked with burned skin, or another monk on fire, they only have to come here and go to the south. There they can photograph the school girls and monks butchered with machetes. They can get their fill of blood for Pulitzers.

They won’t do that, of course, because to get a real Pulitzer, the evil needs to be based in the U.S.A., not where it’s actually breeding like bunnies. To the press, evil can’t originate in “oppressed” countries. Oppressed countries can only react, they can’t actually originate anything.

You say it’s not the media. I think you’re dead wrong. I don’t disagree about politicians. I’d wipe the slate of all of them and start all over again if I could. But don’t believe the media isn’t a factor. If you do, you’ve shown a degree of ignorance I seriously doubt you possess.

I apologise for blowing off steam, rambling. I’ve had a hard last three days and I’ve got more ahead of me. (I work with those evil big corporations for a living, and it’s tough to get my evil face on every day.) Seriously, I’ve got to get reports up to the north for water line pipes and meet with company-making or -breaking officials this afternoon about oil pipeline work. Ergo, I have to get myself into this new dress. get my brain on contracts and engineering, and, and … ummmm, sparkle. If I do a good job another twenty Thais will have a good job for another two years or more and I’ll get to stay here for a bit longer. :::grins

Second Part

Third Part

Fourth Part

Fifth Part

Sixth Part

'I Wasn't Chasing Blood'

[posted by Callimachus]

Third and final installment in a series written by my friend Kat, who was a contractor's employee in Iraq for almost two years.

She refutes the media's excuse for not covering the Iraq reconstruction. The introduction to the series is here. The series hinges on an interview with Dexter Filkins of the "New York Times" in which he says the media can't cover the reconstruction work ongoing around the country because doing so would be too dangerous to the media.

Her post about that drew a faintly hostile comment from "Bob," insinuating she was just pushing "a larger GOP talking point," implying her work in Iraq was less dangerous than that of a New York Times journalist, and challenging her to prove her right to criticize the media.

This is her response. Part one is here. Part two is here.

[by Kat]

I wasn't chasing blood. I wasn't trying to find the worst things. I wasn't intentionally looking for the right opportunities to stick my head in front of a gun barrel so you could see a splash of blood on your TV. Instead, I was actively involved in trying to produce the good things, and the bad things would sometimes just find me, like they do many normal Iraqis.

I was relatively mobile, which tended to sometimes place me in more dangerous locations than maybe the average Iraqi experienced. But I think it still allowed me to gain a more complete view of what was really going on than any reporter who trapped himself in an armed compound could experience. I also think it allowed me to keep my eyes open to the myriad things that were important, and not isolate my mind just on violence and bloodshed.

I also admit I wasn't embedded with the military. I spent some time at camps by necessity, but I certainly never went on any patrols, and I'm happy I didn't have to. At the same time, I also wasn't making my forays out into the world of Iraq surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. I wasn't the biggest target, but then I wasn't a well-protected one, either. And that's one reason why contractors and those working under them have been targeted far more often than members of the press. We're just easier to pick off because most of us have daily jobs that we simply have no choice but to go out and do.

You can put yourself in my skin and decide how all that makes you feel. Marine losses in Fallujah were, by Marine standards, rather light in historical terms. The Marines who fought there will tell you it was a very violent fight, but they'll also say they had little doubt about what the outcome would be if, politically, they were allowed to win. Dexter was indeed brave to accompany them, and undoubtedly the battle needed on-the-spot coverage. For that, I applaud him.

What I don't appreciate is the coverage that followed the battle. Because after it started to draw down, all those fighting there were immediately forgotten. Instead, the decisions about the battle turned into masses of political BS for the MSM in the U.S., and not a single Marine from the battle ever gained long-term recognition. After the battle, the media crawled back in its hole and waited for the next big, photogenic pool of blood to form on the ground.

Meanwhile, I, the women working with me, the engineers on the road and our few security members kept chugging along doing the boring stuff, and living a lot like the Iraqis around us, minus the ancient social baggage. We just kept seeing the real day-to-day blood and flowers and concrete all mixed together.

So you tell me, how am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to think about the soldiers who pulled us out of a street during a fire fight, but who didn't make the news? I wonder why nobody knows the names of the people who patrolled that highway to Fallujah, or even why they were guarding it in the first place. Why so few stories in praise of our soldiers, like the ones who didn't shoot us when we drove up on them in the exact same way the insurgents liked to do? Wouldn't it be reasonable to see more of the professionalism they display countless times each day, so that when they do screw up, you've at least got something to reasonably weigh their mistakes against?

I wonder why the driver who shoved me down to the floor when I didn't even know we were being shot at will go unknown to anybody in the U.S. What am I supposed to think for the Marine whose face got blown off in front of Dexter, whose name you don't even know? I wonder why Dexter’s got the hero's book deal while the guy who may have caught his bullet goes unknown.

Why am I supposed to revere these armored, highly secured journalists who only occasionally had to participate hands-on, in the field, under threat, in the actual day-to-day experience of living and working in Iraq? When so many others do their own jobs, under the same conditions or worse, every hour of every day? No matter the danger. On a daily basis.

I have feelings about this, Bob. My feelings are that the mass media is very quick to recognize its own if they show some bravery and accomplish something but are incredibly slow to recognize the bravery or accomplishments of others. I recognize that the media is a business, so members have to choose what they can spend money to do, and what they can't spare the time or money to cover. In Iraq they must also weigh these decisions against safety. Like the police or the military, they can't cover everything, and they can't be everywhere at the right time.

But they have made decisions here, Bob, and some of those might actually be lethal. It is the media's choice to focus on the insurgents' war instead of ours. This war is being fought by our military and civilian contractors. But they're able to do it only through the support of the U.S. civilian population. Knowing your enemy is important, but only if you know enough about yourself for comparison. And as civilians, you've got little idea of your own side's efforts and accomplishments.

If you had any idea of the sheer volume and breadth of work being done in Iraq or the difficulties being overcome in order to complete it, you, too, would feel very cheated by the media you're defending. It is their choice to ignore the accomplishments being made in order to reserve their time and efforts for every bomb blast or drop of blood spilled. It is their choice to focus their attentions on any failure they can find in our efforts, particularly if they can be tied to the present administration.

This last is something that has been impossible for me to ignore, from Iraq, the U.S., Europe, or Thailand -- and, Bob, that's coming from a Democrat. Everything in the media seems to circle around Bush and how he can be negatively portrayed, much as a Republican congress tied themselves in knots trying to dig up dirt on Clinton. It's all wasteful, stupid, worthless politics.

But this time there's a difference. This time we're fighting a war, and to some of us that's more important than politics. Most of us who have gone over there would like to have believed those back here could understand that, particularly the press. But apparently bombs have to be dropping on U.S. houses for it to be clear.

And you'd be a little upset to see the media so self-congratulatory for the occasions when they rose up from their armor-plated cubbies and ventured out into the world the rest of us occupied daily.

I can congratulate Dexter Filkins for his personal bravery and his achievements. I can do the same for other reporters who braved dangerous conditions to bring stories to the U.S. But I cannot congratulate the press on a job well done, or share in their glowing appreciation of themselves for occasional good work. There is just too much important news being ignored and too little effort to correct the problem.

Unlike the contractors working in Iraq, who must produce concrete and undeniable results in order to achieve success or gain even minor accolades, the press doesn't have to meet any goals beyond those they set for themselves. To the MSM, if the majority of the U.S. population doesn't see it, then it must not have happened. And that's the level of quality that you're really stuck with, Bob.

'I Learned to Handle Myself'

[posted by Callimachus]

Part two of three in a series written by my friend Kat, who was a contractor's employee in Iraq for almost two years.

She refutes the media's excuse for not covering the Iraq reconstruction. The introduction to the series is here. The series hinges on an interview with Dexter Filkins of the "New York Times" in which he says the media can't cover the reconstruction work ongoing around the country because doing so would be too dangerous to the media.

Her post about that drew a faintly hostile comment from "Bob," insinuating she was just pushing "a larger GOP talking point," implying her work in Iraq was less dangerous than that of a New York Times journalist, and challenging her to prove her right to criticize the media.

This is her response. Part one is here.

[by Kat]

You're apparently upset that I come down hard on Dexter and the NYT. That's understandable, but stay with me a little here.

I didn't have lots of guards. I had Iraqi nationals working for me who had to worry about being shot. I had to help them figure out safe lies, figure out safe ways to go home. I had to teach the girls working for me how to do their jobs because they'd never had a really good job before. I also had to try to protect and watch out for them. Girls working for us sometimes also needed support with lies about their jobs, travel information, and occasionally security for travel.

The lying extended to producing false job-related paperwork for their cars and to carry on their persons. From three different offices we "sold" orders for detergents, orders for cell phone batteries, and sandals, and produced an array of paperwork to support those claims.

And that's not about me taking care of myself, Bob. That's about my people, my employees, who half the time couldn't get their jobs done unless I was there to help them.

So what did I do for my security? What did I do when I needed to move? Well, my bosses got us security, kinda. And we had pretty good trucks, even if they weren't armored. My security for much of my time in Iraq was a 19-year-old kid who more than anything needed a job and owned his own gun. He was a big kid for an Iraqi and I'm more than sure he was hooked up on the street, so he was actually pretty safe to have around (unless you were one of the younger women in my office, but that's a different story).

My other guy was in his mid-40's and Iraqi army. He wasn't suitable for regular duty. But he was filling Iraqi obligations as the coalition began handing over government responsibilities to the interim Iraqi government. He was a true sweetheart, but nothing like U.S. soldiers or the Iraqi soldiers you see on TV today.

You wonder about what I saw, in terms of blood. That appears to be, beyond my pierced belly-button, what will provide for your comparison of me to Dexter and the "Times" crew. Okay.

• We had one Iraqi subcontractor whose son and wife both worked with him. I saw him and his son at the morgue dead after both of them were found shot in their truck. I tried my best to comfort his wife, but there wasn't much I could do.
  
  
• During the same year, 2004, we lost another 14 American, Iraqi and third-nation —i.e., neither U.S. or Iraqi — nationals in the various crews we worked with: some shot, some hit by IEDs, but some also through robbery and murder. I didn't see all of those bodies because of our locations, but I saw enough of them, and as a group we knew what the deaths meant to the families.
  
  
• We lost two managers from one company back-to-back, one killed the day after the other. One was shot up sitting in his car; the other was just unlucky enough to be buying food when a car blew up, killing him and eight Iraqis. I knew both of them, and that both had families back in the U.S.
  
  
• Another time, we came up behind a patrol that had just been hit by an IED that took out a humvee and one soldier's arm and part of his face. He lived, but I know his life has changed.
  
  That experience was crazy because we came up on them fast and they didn't recognize our IDs and we came very close to being shot. We nosed the truck to the side of the road, had to get out of it, and lie on the ground while we and our vehicle were being looked over. We had come up on the fast, immediately after the explosion, and that's a no-no.
  
  On this occasion I was in Iraqi clothing, my security was in civilian attire, and it was too confusing to get myself identified. Fortunately, our soldiers are pros, we obeyed their signals, and we didn't get shot. You just lie face down and wait until they're ready to deal with you, but it's difficult to live through that time. On the other hand, if they'd shot me by accident, you can bet your life you'd have read about that in the news. Those guys have zero room for mistakes, and their lives are always targeted.
  
  
• In another situation, we were finishing dropping off food and candy at an orphanage when another IED popped off half a block away. We later learned it killed one Iraqi who was my brother's age and severely injured two others. Some gunshots were fired, and it took two hours for U.S. troops to arrive and things to settle down enough for us to be able to leave.
  
  As we were leaving, more rounds started going off; I didn't even know what was going on until we were suddenly swerving and my security person was yanking me down to the floor in the truck. One of our (American) soldiers caught a bullet in his thigh and another in his knee and was close to dying from loss of blood when they got him out of there.
  
  We spent the next hour huddled against our truck with it wedged up next to the outside wall of the orphanage until two hummers drew up next to us and escorted us out of the area. It's only by chance that they even saw us, because of where we were, and if I'd been veiled at the time we might have been shot instead of rescued because we both had our guns in our hands.
  

Our first office was west of Baghdad, along the highway to Fallujah. That was a prime killing ground for several months, but it was better than Fallujah itself, which was close to one of our primary projects at the time. For my bosses and other contractors going in or out of the area, it was just as dangerous as it was for any Army or Marine personnel -- and certainly as dangerous as it was for news crews.

Western contractors and supply vehicles were targeted much more regularly than were military vehicles. They were softer targets, and insurgents often could see what materials were being delivered, and they usually knew what they were being delivered for. The insurgents understoood that halting the reconstruction work we were doing was an essential part of their plan to win in Iraq. The biggest prizes were, of course, major military vehicles. But trucks and materials could be taken out with less trouble and explosive materials, as could key workers if they could be identified.

So the least-safe circumstances involved a contractor hauling materials for rebuilding. As things got worse in the area, my bosses moved my office further north and east into an area that at the time was safer but ultimately proved to be just as violent, though for entirely different reasons.

There, instead of having to worry about myself or others I worked with being blasted by a IED or RPG, we had to worry about snipers and kidnappers, rapists and thieves. I began dressing “local” more consistently and wearing a veil more at this time. And you are right: It is easier to blend in when this is done.

On the other hand, adopting the look and dress and manners of locals also subjects a woman to a different set of scrutiny usually reserved for Muslim Iraqi women. If you intend to blend in, you must accept that there are certain things you may do and things you cannot do. Wearing the clothing brings certain expectations, and it does not pay to let people know you aren't who they thought you were and then hang around long enough for them to feel foolish. In the wrong neighborhoods, the entire event can become a highly complex theatrical act, particularly if you have something important that you must accomplish. This is true for men, but it is especially true for women.

Ultimately, I learned to handle myself, as myself, around some very hard people. I also learned to appreciate the softer people who were trapped there alongside the hard ones. And in doing so I gained a rather deep appreciation for the situations that existed in certain areas. In those areas, people sometimes died for what seemed to me to be nothing, but in truth there were reasons as complex as you could imagine.

Regardless of the reasons, I shared some of the pain, and I certainly saw a good deal of the blood. In doing so, amongst other revelations, I could understand the limitations of our military and realize the depth of their responsibilities. And, Bob, this is where the differences are.

Continued tomorrow: 'I Wasn't Chasing Blood'

'Prime Targets for Terrorists'

Part one in a series written by my friend Kat, who was a contractor's employee in Iraq for almost two years.

She refutes the media's excuse for not covering the Iraq reconstruction. The introduction to the series is here. The series hinges on an interview with Dexter Filkins of the "New York Times" in which he says the media can't cover the reconstruction work ongoing around the country because doing so would be too dangerous to the media.

Her post about that drew a faintly hostile comment from "Bob," insinuating she was just pushing "a larger GOP talking point," implying her work in Iraq was less dangerous than that of a New York Times journalist, and challenging her to prove her right to criticize the media.

[by Kat]

Bob, before I go any further, I should say I wrote in reaction to the whole article, and my reaction may have seemed resentful. But the reaction wasn't as much to Dexter himself as to what he said. To me, the whole piece looked like just another media-on-the-media-in-Iraq story.

Within four hours of Cal posting what I wrote, I was awake in bed regretting it, because it's not really my nature to be so harsh, especially to people I haven't met, like Dexter Filkins. But now that you've brought this up, I find myself not really sorry I said what I did, or that I allowed Cal to post it. That picture he chose of me, on the other hand, I'm not sure was a really good idea.

I believe I understand your questions. I'd like to say from the start that I'm not a hero and I don't think I'm one. I'm just your basic person, and whenever Cal isn't being over-protective of me, he'll admit that, too

I'm also not trying to cut the throats of everyone in the media. As I've said before the media is full of good people who do excellent work. But where Iraq is concerned, I can't congratulate the MSM on a job well done unless I believe they are organizationally incapable of delivering any better coverage than they do. Perhaps that is what Dexter is attempting to explain in the article Cal showed me. In Filkins' opinion, it seems, or maybe that of the Times, any better coverage than what they've provided is simply impossible for security reasons.

Perhaps he is correct, but I doubt it. I believe that MSM companies that can afford to pump money into finding ways to never miss a moment of bloodshed should also be able to find ways to cover the less-exciting but materially important events, too. I believe that if their top management said, "Hey, you know what? These other things we're doing in Iraq are really important for Americans to know. I think we should cover them, too," they would suddenly find ways to get that coverage on your TV screens and in your papers. But that hasn't happened, has it?

You are correct. I didn't dress like I'm going clubbing while I was in Iraq. I also admit I had physical advantages in Iraq just as I do now in Thailand. I'm small; my hair is naturally black and straight. My eyes are black, and unlike the picture Cal posted, which was taken in the U.S. during winter, my skin tans very deeply and doesn't burn easily. I'm part Native American and I know how to use makeup with my natural coloring to blend in with the natives of other countries.

And if you must know, a good German surgeon took care of that ugly nose you saw (yes, it's a woman's prerogative to do things like that, and I won't apologize for it), so slipping into the Arab and Asian world is pretty easy. In the U.S., I might stand out, assuming you don't walk over me. But in those other locations I don't stand out like your average big, tall, white guy.

So, yes, I had a physical advantage over Dexter and many other western journalists. But I'd also remind you that it gave me the same advantage over my bosses and many other western contractors and workers, none of whom used their disadvantage as an excuse to stay home and not go to work. I'd also point out that it offered no advantage whatsoever to any of the Iraqis who took jobs with those companies.

But working in Iraq wasn't just about covering myself up. Our company took steps to protect ourselves, just like the NYT did for its employees. I was fortunate to be working for close friends who have strong military backgrounds. As I've mentioned in another post, I carried a submachine gun with me much of the time. I had to train with it for a couple of days until it didn't scare me and I could consistently hit something the size of a man on his knees from a number of positions and while moving.

I had fired guns before in the U.S. and am licensed to carry one. But I'd never fired anything as violent as the gun I was given by my employers. As one of them explained, mine was the most effective gun I could easily carry for my body size, assuming I hit what I was aiming at. But sometimes men just talk too much. Their reasons for the choice, "You've got to be able to shoot through a car," and, "You've got to be able to shoot through light steel," didn't sound very reassuring to me at all.

Iraqi men aren't particularly accepting of their women walking around with machine guns. They tolerate it to a greater extent with western women, but they're not pleased about that, either. And concealing the gun under traditional Iraqi clothes makes it harder to get to or control. For that reason mine more often than not stayed under my seat when I'd be out of the truck.

Then there were security issues I dealt with almost exclusively. As the person responsible for scheduling travel, I had to learn what times were best for movement and what routes were safest, and if possible, I scheduled our movements with those of other companies. On rare occasions we were able to move with military, mostly through the personal connections of my bosses.

Not being a big company or one with the budget of the NYT, we didn't have the armored cars or buffer vehicles crammed with trained security. Instead, we had a number of boring-looking used vehicles that were changed out between engineers and traded for different ones on a somewhat regular basis.

Doing this reduced the chances of our trucks becoming recognizable and those driving them becoming targets for insurgents. On the downside, we also had to be just as careful as normal Iraqi citizens when near the military, lest we be mistaken for insurgents. It also meant that on many occasions we would be required to leave our vehicles in order to speak to military and police security. For our big white guys, that wasn't an ideal thing to have to do.

For a while, the military wasn't friendly about some of our individual movements over the countryside, but those movements were often necessary, and it was up to me to at least try to keep them to a minimum and as trouble-free as possible. Every day’s route was different whenever different was possible. It's not that we got bored with the scenery, but where travel is concerned it's important to alter your routes.

There are times when you can't do that, because there's only one way in and out. When that's the case it makes it easier for the bad guys to target you. Then all the need to do is pin down your approximate travel schedule, and they can hang out to IED you. Changing routes was important, but so was knowing the routes chosen were actually safe, open, or in some cases, that they even existed. For this kind of information we traded info with our client companies and the military, and we developed a series of maps as a result.

Within our own company these ended up working successfully, because none of us was killed or wounded. But they weren't infallible, because several contractors and workers from other companies who used these same routes were. So after all the attention and work, we could only reduce the chance of violence, not remove it entirely. Every time one of us hit the road we were rolling the dice, and it's as simple as that.

Most of us took comfort in the fact that in a way, it wasn't much different from what we'd do back in the U.S. Because in the States, we — and you — take risks as well. Blowouts, drunks, other drivers, they're all out there, and one of them maybe has your number and you know it, but you still get up and go do your job. For a couple of us who ride motorcycles on the street, that's something we're used to just keeping in our heads. You work to reduce your risks to a reasonable level and then go deal with it. It's maybe harder for people who don't ride to accept, but if they think about it, it's all the same.

The roads and routes in Iraq I’m referring to are the same ones that members of the MSM would have traveled if they had chosen to visit any of these job locations. They were welcome to use their armored vehicles if they wished. Several larger contractors usually chose to use them as well. And many contractors had additional security traveling with them. But I'll point out that sometimes they experienced big trouble, and some of them got killed, while others got kidnapped.

Right now, I couldn't say whether our covert methods of security worked any better than the armor-plated-guns-bristling versions. No contractors drove right into firefights by choice, but violence still happened. But unless the violence became absolutely ridiculous, we still went to work and did our jobs. According to Dexter and the Times, those risks weren't worth taking, unless -- and I didn't see the coverage of his that you mentioned -- he could be embedded or, apparently, the story was sensational enough to merit it. That's not my fault, Bob. I didn't write it, and I didn't live with that as a part of my job. Then again, I didn't take a job as a war reporter.

The body count for contractors as posted by Cal is pretty impressive. But that doesn't count all of the support labor killed or otherwise harmed. When it gets into those people the numbers grow considerably. Throw in the security personnel and it gets worse. By the time you add in Iraqi government workers associated with the projects, I believe the number is in the thousands. I don't believe anybody in or outside of Iraq can deny that contractors and those associated with them have been prime targets for terrorists and insurgents.

Continued tomorrow: Part two is 'I Learned to Handle Myself'.

Media's Choice

[posted by Callimachus]

This opens a series of posts that will run here over the next few days. It expands the account written by my friend Kat, who worked in Iraq for a contractor in infrastructure reconstruction. That story was told in outline here.

A large part of her message is her frustration with the lack of media coverage of work such as she did for almost two years.

[O]ut of the more than 200 project completions and section completions we and government sources reported to the press, only two that I know of ever reached outside the country in the MSM, and those two were buried in a report about an increase in oil production. That's it. That’s the whole show. That's all of the reporting anyone ever got from four major irrigation systems, twelve major water supply systems, and twelve major oil and natural gas systems.

... Unless reporting can be described as burying oneself in a few relatively safe places with others of one's own kind, [the Western press] have missed far more than they have covered. It is difficult for myself and many others to have respect for western journalists in Iraq because they so very rarely committed themselves to actually going out and covering what was going on.

... Instead, we have been rewarded with many opportunities to watch the MSM congratulate itself on its outstanding job performance. It has been particularly interesting to watch as press members critiqued their own performances, with all of them sincerely questioning if they’ve indeed covered the war in a balanced and fair way. Their verdicts have been predictable, of course, and always raised a good hollow laugh from the rest of us who long ago realized that we’d never have the power to say otherwise.

The piece was well-received and got a lot of link love, and it might even have changed a few minds just a little bit.

A week or so ago I sent her a link to an interview with New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins. As the interview was written up, it justified the MSM in its lack of complete coverage of Iraq by presenting Iraq as a place too dangerous for them to go out and do their jobs. I knew this would get under her skin, and I hoped it would provoke her to writing a rebuttal to that attitude.

She did, privately, and later she agreed to let me publish it, here.

This drew a response from a commenter who calls himself "Bob." He said:

I guess your point is that the New York Times and their reporters, being part of the famous “liberal media” that we hear so much about, are just a bunch of wimps. Of course, there’s always a tie-in with a larger GOP talking point, which is that reports of chaos and violence in Iraq are just figments of the NYT’s imagination.

I read some of Filkin’s posts from Fallujah, and I remember one where he was steps behind a Marine whose face was blown off as he climbed a stairway in a minaret going after a sniper. He recounted numerous such incidents where he was in the immediate proximity of lethal violence and death. Did your friend Kat have any such experiences? I read recently that 77 journalists have been killed covering Iraq from 2002 through part of 2006. It is the most dangerous place for journalists ever, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. I assume that the death toll for foreign contractors is even higher.

This is not to diminish the courage of your friend Kat in any way. But I wonder what kind of work she did there, and whether her appearance might have allowed her to blend in easier (she looks like she could easily pass for a local, especially if she were dressed in local-style clothing with a veil—somehow I doubt that she was baring her pierced belly button on the job in Iraq). I’m sure that the level of danger depends a lot on what kind of work one is doing, and where their job takes them. Journalists are essentially out looking for trouble, which makes them relatively vulnerable. So, just for background, it might have helped to contrast the kind of work Kat does with someone who follows soldiers around in volatile hot-spots with a target on his head.

We all get the sneering put-down of the supposedly effete liberals who work for organizations like the NYT. But anyone who tries to claim that Iraq is not a dangerous place for foreigners seems to be arguing against the facts. Since you mock Filkins courage in your piece, I wonder, how many soldiers have you seen killed in action? How many mortars have blown up in your immediate vicinity? Please share . . .

And later:

I have to say again, I suspect that the subtext of your piece is to paint journalists as effete and cowardly, and imply that anyone who works for the NYT is inherently ridiculous. Let’s see: mocking those in the press who provide factual rebuttal to the overly-rosy fantasies of the Bush administration . . . what could the motive for that possibly be?

Kat would like me to be nicer to him. But I couldn't resist alerting him to the fact that the "partial listing" of non-Iraqi contractors killed in Iraq was 352, almost five times the official and carefully tallied number of dead journalists.

Add to that the fact that she, like me, voted for Gore in 2000, and you've got the bare-bones background of what follows. Originally she wrote this as a comment response to Bob, but it got too long for that. I think the girl's got a lot to say.

First post.

Second post.

Third post.

Ouch

[posted by Callimachus]

You can see a picture of New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins here. And there you also can read about how dangerous Iraq is for him and other U.S. MSM reporters, and incidentally read about his book deal.

And I've told you about my friend Kat, who worked for almost two years for a contractor in Iraq, the place that is too dangerous for reporters to cover, yet somehow not too dangerous for her to work in.

Maybe it's time I showed you Kat:



That's the whole thing. All there is. I'm 6-foot-3, and looking down, that's what I'd see.

Now I have been reading NYT copy since the war began, and I think Filkins has done some brave reporting and some competent reporting, too. But I wasn't in Iraq. Kat was. I showed her the Filkins piece. Maybe it was the way the interviewer wrote it up. She wasn't pleased:

"According to Filkins, the New York Times is burning through money "like jet fuel" simply to securely maintain its operations in the country. In addition to the 70 local reporters and translators, the Times employs 45 full-time Kalashnikov-toting security guards to patrol its two blast-wall-enclosed houses -- and oversee belt-fed machine-guns on the roofs of the buildings. The paper also has three armored cars, and pays a hefty premium each month to insure the five Times reporters working there."

Gods, it looks like I could have hired somebody to carry my gun, as I see it. I never realized that could be done. I guess it doesn't matter, since I'm still here. Apparently the terrorists were frightened by my steely black eyes and 5ft tall, 89lb muscular body. They must have known when the saw us that "hell is coming with me." (giggles to self)

       If it wasn't that, it must have been either my nineteen-year-old "security" boy or my mid-40's best Iraqi Army buddy with the one stinky uniform and 5-7 missing teeth. Nothing says security like a pot-belly in an army uniform. And if I happened to be able to load his gun faster than he could ... well, you know. He needed a job, and I needed somebody, anybody, who could speak ... preferably really fast. I think about Laurel and Hardy. Nah, they were funny. We were just goofy.

       Great to see the press is well equipped, though. Really. I'm thinking all the armor would have slowed our Toyota down while we sped down those nasty roads they're talking about. No convoys for me, hell no. Got no time to wait for no freakin convoy and armor. If they're coming your way, yippie. But if they're not, just duck your head a lot, pretend you're busy with things in the truck and go. Not hi-tech or expensive, but it seems to have been effective. (No, I wasn't driving, just in case you guys are worried I broke traffic laws. Truth is, I was not allowed to for security reasons ... which is another story.)

       But I'm also checking out this burrow of which Dexter speaks. I'm kind of jealous in a way, but he doesn't make it sound so nice. Still, chances are, if I'd known we needed bomb shelters to keep us all safe, my company would have built them ASAP, definitely. I mean, when you're a country, dedicated to rebuilding another country no matter (f***ing) what, you don't pause to build or even locate those kinda things, do you? We didn't think so. I mean, it wasn't on our "A" list of things to do. Others, such as the NYT, might differ.

       I have to say, though, belt-fed machine guns on the roof is kinda overkill. Those are really cool things, so I saw. I mean, if you need to kill something they're good I guess, and if you just want to blow lots of stuff to pieces, they're kinda fun. But for where you're working, they kind of make you stick out like a sore thumb, and yell "shoot at me, ya dumb Iraqi bastards!" From my experience, that might be helpful for producing good news ops, but I believe it might also make it impossible for you to blend in with the locals.

All in all, I'm really thankful that Dexter was able to share his experience with the rest of the press. It's difficult to live in a hardened bunker, not going out to do your job, and relying on others not too skillfully chosen to do your job for you. I can almost taste the fear as he describes it, and my first response is certainly to slap him and his co-hibernators on the back for their selfless display of courage, innovation, and integrity in doing their job.

I'm sure that Dexter will remember me and all of the other contractors and civilians who worked in Iraq slightly shorted of all the elaborate defence mechanisms dedicated to those in his profession. I'm sure he could appreciate the depth to which one of my rather small size five appendages could install itself within his and his cohort's posterior sections. It would be pleasurable to me at any time to let him accompany myself on one of our less important or threatening rides to a place of little or no interest to anyone but ourselves. Thank goodness for the New York Times.

Unlike Dexter, nobody offered her a book deal.

UPDATE: Kat responds to "Bob" (introduction here) beginning here.

Thailand - Coup or Countercoup?

[posted by Callimachus]

I asked my friend Kat, who has lived and worked in Thailand for the past year and a half, to explain what she sees as going on there. Though she's currently visiting in the States, she has her perspective and her contacts. Here's her answer:

Last night -- Thai time -- Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister of Thailand, apparently attempted to make his third stab at assuring his position as head of the Thai government. Unlike his other attempts, it may be that after this, he will retain no power or chance of assuring it in the future.

Thaksin is the elected prime minister of Thailand. He came into office some four years ago riding high on the rhetoric and promises of the TRT (Thai Rak Thai - meaning literally "Thais love Thais") party. As it was formed, the party represented all that was good about Thailand in traditional terms, but also represented the Thai desire to bring that nation back to the forefront of southeastern Asian development. Thais are particularly nationalistic, and as such are very proud of their culture and accomplishments. In a promising nation with an abundance of talented people, the picture painted in TRT political speeches seemed entirely possible to Thais, and the promises of the party brought Thaksin and TRT into power.

Thaksin was a very promising figure to Thais. He was a native son who had completed his education in the USA, had returned to Thailand, and had created a telecom company that led the nation and had expanded regionally. He was, to most Thais, a thoughtful and promising personality who appeared to be trustworthy.

But to most Thais today, that appearance was just a front. Shortly after taking office, Thaksin pressed to pass laws that limited competition to his own company. This allowed him to expand his business with little opposition, thought many people and members of Thailand's legislature complained. As a result, he transferred his personal holdings to his family, to present the appearance he had nothing to gain by the laws he pressed forward. After his (family's) company became powerful on a regional basis, he entered into a sales agreement, but performed his sale through Singapore, allowing him to collect billions in profits outside of Thai taxation laws. When this information became available to the Thai people, a growing number of Thais began to call for Thaksin to step down.

Thaksin responded as if he had done nothing wrong. As if he was being informed of some outside breach or faith and law, he instead passed laws to ban other businesses doing exactly what he had done himself. It was as if he had no belief or understanding that he had done those things he was then denouncing, and in fact publicly declared those angry with him to be wrong and himself to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing.

That didn't sit very well with Thais, who value honesty, character and face above everything. Thailand is a Buddhist society, believing in a sort of yin-yang form of good and bad, or basically "what goes around, comes around." Therefore a leader who is a cheat, or worse, a liar, is only going to bring bad luck on the rest of the country.

Elected officials in the legislature began to complain, and complain loudly. Others outside of the government began to write and complain as well.

This started coming to a sort of crest late last year. By January, Thaksin had taken advantage of a loophole in the Thai constitution and abolished the elected legislature that had begun to call for investigations. In effect, in response to protests against his own actions and those of members of his party, he completely removed the elected government of Thailand.

In abolishing of the legislature, Thaksin took advantage of his position and weaknesses in the Thai constitution yet again. According to the constitution, it became the prime minister's job to create an interim or "caretaker" government. This allowed him to legally step into the position of head of the "caretaker" government, which essentially preserved his leadership. In this position he was required to appoint a committee for elections, and then set dates for elections. His solution was to appoint TRT cronies and call for snap elections, to be held in March.

By February, the first major protests were being held in Bangkok by outspoken critics of Thaksin and the money-oriented government he led. These protests in BKK were week-long events, with thousands showing up. The main complaint of these protests was alleged actions by Thaksin or the TRT, and the snap elections that most members of the opposition claimed were to be held too early, leaving opposition parties without candidates to put on the ballots. Thaksin ignored the protests.

So when the elections came around, the people responded in the only way they really could, that is, by essentially boycotting them. Another feature of Thai constitutional law holds that candidates without 30% of the registered vote cannot be certified for office. At the end of the elections, TRT candidates who ran unopposed collected less than 15% of the available vote, so some 23 positions within the legislature were left unfilled. Legal challenges were immediately filed, and eventually Thai courts ruled the election to be invalid. On top of that, accusations about the conduct of the elections had been filed against Thaksin's election committee for election fraud.

In the meantime, the King of Thailand, the most revered man in the nation, had celebrated his 60th coronation jubilee in June, with world dignitaries and every Thai who could possibly come attending. During a rare speech to the nation, he urged both the Thai people and the government to look inwards for what was right, and to strive to do those things that were necessary to keep the strength and quality of the Thai people. At about the same time, he also urged Thaksin to make right on elections. Subsequently, Thaksin bowed to the wishes of his more respected leader, and called for new elections to be held in October, even while claiming those preceding them were valid.

Vast quantities of political BS have passed between then and now. But one prevailing feature has been Thaksin's attempt to proclaim innocence, and to legitimize himself and his government. This has gone as far as to point an accusing finger, lightly veiled, at the King himself, as the cause for his and his party's problems. This hasn't sat well with Thais, who do not tolerate insults to their king well, especially from other Thais. Meanwhile, in August, all three members of Thaksin's self-appointed election committee were found guilty of election fraud and sentenced to some 15 years or so in jail.

My understandings from my boss and friends in Thailand has been this. While Thaksin has been in NYC for U.N. meetings, members of the military and police loyal to him have moved to arrest and push aside opposition members prior to the coming elections in a sort of coup. This has been expected by other members of the military and police loyal to the King and the Thai people. In response, they have moved in, sealed off the government house of the interim government, have sealed off the home of Thaksin, and have placed guards around the palace of the King, presumably for his protection.

The soldiers doing this are wearing or showing yellow flags or ribbons from uniforms and equipment, which is a sign of devotion to the King. This suggests that they will hold themselves loyal to the King, who has opposition to Thaksin and a well known loyalty and affection towards his people and fully supports their efforts towards a workable democracy.

I suspect that Thaksin made his move while he was out of the country because there was a good chance he might not be successful. For whatever reason, he does not share the humility towards his fellow Thais that most have. In a country where shame is incredibly horrible, he feels none, though he is literally buried in it.

I also believe the army has stepped in to stop what has been impossible to stop otherwise. If the Thaksin of the past can be compared to that of the future, the October election will be no more fair or valid than that which proceeded it. And the Constitution provides for nothing beyond more of the same. Thaksin has made the faults of the present constitution abundantly clear to most Thais, and I believe this is why the military has, for the moment, abolished it.

At present, the majority of the army and police appear to be in charge of the government, and they in turn are apparently sworn in loyalty to the King. The King in turn is dedicated to a democratic Thailand, so unless fighting occurs between the army and other armed portions of the government, most things should be calm. Fighting cannot be ruled out, however, because Thaksin gave substantial amounts of money to police forces and other armed security forces within the Thai government, apparently to preserve their support.

The news will tell you that many Thais support Thaksin. This is true. He is supported in certain parts of the business world, but more importantly, within the more poor and rural portions of Thailand. The business support is to be expected, as he threw open doors for certain supporters. But in the farm portions of Thailand where people are the most poor, he is appreciated because he stepped into the place vacated by the King as the ruler has grown older and less able to travel.

The King and royal family have a long tradition of working alongside farmers and laborers to improve their production techniques and provided additional help when necessary. These projects still hold the attention of the royal family, but Thaksin stepped in to present himself as a representative of the King. Traditions die hard, and Thaksin wisely took advantage of that. In these areas, education levels are typically primary grades and below, so political sophistication is out of the question. If a representative of the King can come to the village and show a new way to help reduce water loss in ponds during the hot season, then he's beloved, no matter how many baht he cheated the people out of in a telecom deal.

Hopefully this helps. It's hard to know that much right now, even for me. TV coverage is under strict control at the moment, but Thais aren't stupid. They find ways to learn about what's going on, including by talking to friends in the U.S. So if anything of great interest comes up that you don't see in the news, I'll pass it on.

Also, let me say, I'm not worried. In my opinion this has been coming for months. Thaksin has made it almost impossible for the Thai people to get him out of office. I consider that the army is doing nothing more than carrying out by arms what the people have been unable to do by themselves.

'You'll Never Know What We Did'

[posted by Callimachus]

My friend, Kat, worked in and around Iraq for roughly two years, for a U.S.-based contractor doing reconstruction work there.

I've picked up bits and pieces of her story as she's written to me from abroad, but recently she's been back in a place with regular Internet access and some time on her hands, and I finally got to ask her some questions and she got to write some full answers. We've talked a lot about her experience over there, and the more I read the more I wanted to tell it. She gave me permission to distill down some of her letters and our chats into a post.

Reconstruction is the eternally under-reported third leg of the Iraq story (the other two are overthrow of Saddam and removal of his threat, and establishing a stable Iraqi popular control of the country). It was part of what we went in there to do, and its success or failure is part of the full measure of success or failure of our entire operation.

Yet on this important story, our media blew it. Who can name a single contractor who did work in Iraq, besides the one that begins with "H" and maybe Blackwater USA? How many people can describe accurately the relationship between Halliburton and KBR? How many faces of Iraq contractors did you ever see in the news, except the ones who got kidnapped and beheaded? How many were the subject of news stories, or were quoted in any of them?

How does this whole process even work? When you say "contractor," probably the image that comes to mind is the guy you hire to replace your back porch or lay a new sidewalk. Is it like that -- he writes you a bid, you sign it, he works, you pay him?

I'm not trying to make anyone feel stupid: I had only the vaguest notion of these answers until I had a chance to catch up with Kat. And I'm an editor in the media and I've been watching the stream of reportage flow across the transom for three years now.

CONTRACTORS

Reporters in Iraq just don't do such stories. Only business reporters have the ability to write them, and apparently none of the big news agencies and networks thought to send any to Iraq. Even then, the contractor story could be explained only in long blocks of gray text. And there would be no evil corporations or jihadis or subpoenas or beheadings or conniving vice presidents in it.

"To the press," Kat wrote, "we might as well have been selling lemonade on little stands in front of our parents' houses." So here's her description, in answer to my questions, of her company's duties:

Without going into too much detail, those basically consist of providing added oversight and a separate control structure between governments and contractors. We act as a semi-autonomous break between the contractors and the governments who hire them. We often are contracted to provide oversight for critical phases of projects. If you aren't involved in a specific range of work, you'd not even know of us.

Unlike regular auditing firms, we have people on the ground full time with detailed knowledge of the contracts, including the structural and material requirements, the scheduling, and the payment process. We can review these against ongoing job conditions as well as the resulting expenses being reported, and we can provide recommendations where problems arise.

We are hired to help accomplish three specific tasks. First, to assure the quality of the projects being performed. Second, to reduce the possibility of waste or corruption through a critical review process of the actual product compared to contract requirements and submitted invoices. Third, to reduce the need for additional legal expenditures to contractors and completion expenditures for the government.

In other words, we exist for the sole purpose of assuring product quality and fair costs for governments, while at the same time providing additional sureity to the businesses who contract with them. The fact that our company, and at least three others like it, was so heavily involved in Iraq reflects the commitment of the parties who hired us to do these jobs properly at the most reasonable costs.

IN IRAQ

Our company had 28 contracts providing engineering and managerial review and oversight for more than 100 section projects. Within these were more than 200 individual contracts and subcontracts directly reported to three US agencies, the hundreds of contractors and subcontractors themselves, and four semi-autonomous agencies of the Iraqi government.

These contractual obligations were flexible, meaning they allowed for major changes in reporting obligations as the political situation evolved. This basically meant that as tasks originally contracted and managed by the provisional government were passed on to the interim Iraqi government, contracts could be altered to suit the structural government status the Iraqis arrived at. As a result, the method and means of fulfilling our obligations to these parties could change at midpoint in any given project or set of projects.

Our very small company had to expand considerably and completely change its business structure twice during the course of our work in Iraq. Conditions on the ground with supplies and security created scheduling problems on a number of jobs that left our company workload too broad and difficult to handle without additional personnel and equipment. These difficulties were shared by other contractors and the government, which increased our internal costs considerably.

HER JOB

I managed the hub. What started for me as a Girl-Friday job in the U.S. making travel arrangements and applying a few reports to contracts and data sheets with chat help from my boss turned into being the managerial hub in a foreign country, responsible for the schedules of two bosses, the engineers who worked under them, and the legal and accounting facilities we had expand back in the USA. I had been in college when I started, finished with a management degree in the medical field, and found myself in Iraq working between structural and civil engineers, government agencies and the legal and accounting sections back home.

If this is giving you a headache, you're not alone. It is impossible for me to express the strain of the workload taken on by my company and the many contractors and government agents we reported to. Factor in supply difficulties found in any large-scale job, add to that the fact that they were being performed in a war-torn country poor on finished resources, then add ongoing security problems to top it off, and you've got a work load of breath-taking proportions.

The contractors and government agency employees also often confronted major changes in requirements or massive amounts of recorded information they had no familiarity with whatsoever. It wasn’t any easier for them than it was for us.

Kinda dry? Maybe, if you don't really read business sections. Kinda important? Yes, if you want to have the faintest notion of "what we're doing in Iraq" and how well we're doing it. But the media were too busy being freelance statesmen and Roman censors and unelected fourth branches of the government. Too busy to do the dull job of reporting.

Kat also wanted to make something very clear, for the sake of the people who did the work over there in your name, and for the sake of the soldiers and marines who protected them, and for the sake of the Iraqis who cast their lots for freedom and independence. And for the sake of the rest of us, that we just might catch on and wake up about certain things.

I know that in comparative numbers there really won't be enough of us coming back from Iraq to confront or challenge the MSM. Even if we all gathered together in Washington for a week to bitch and moan about it, we still couldn't assure that we were covered. We know you'll never know what we did.

So what many of us are left with is a really nasty taste in our mouths. It's hurt me almost as much to be telling this as it has been to live through it, and I know I'm not alone in my feelings. I feel so very sorry for and protective of the soldiers and marines who protected me. They’re all my little brothers now, and I feel the same towards the inexperienced Iraqi soldiers who put themselves in harm's way for me.

OK, but what about that other company? The one that begins with "H"?

HALLIBURTON

There are probably only three to maybe five companies in the world with the types of expertise and experience necessary to take up this type of work. The scope of Halliburton's work in Iraq was far more extensive than the US government could readily oversee on its own. It would be monetarily impractical if not physically impossible for the government to plan and put into place overnight the kind of business structure Halliburton has taken years to build.

Our government can be more efficient than people usually prefer to believe. But in my opinion, even if it could put the people and the structure into place, the chances of it being able to run smoothly, be cost effective, and provide the flexibility required in Iraq would would have been slim. In this case, size and experience really did count.

Halliburton was only one of our clients of several hundred. Working with Halliburton directly on all projects would have been more simple than what was actually done. But you have to keep in mind the unique situation in Iraq. These contracting jobs were carrying political weight and the baggage that brings. Simply stated, some contractors who would otherwise not be qualified to perform work for Halliburton or another company inside of the US were politically needed to fill posts and help quell world complaints about US profiteering.

Remember that in the beginning, many people around the world believed the project would be a giant cash cow. International contractors also believed that breaking into the rebuilding scene in Iraq would open doors for them for other work in the future. As such, it was politically necessary for the US to promote the use of local and third nation country contractors.

As much mayhem as this caused, by and large the contractors and their subs still performed their jobs well under difficult business and security situations.

She's been a long-time follower of the media, and while she was in Iraq, or working from Turkey or Europe, she was able to see the range of news coverage that was reaching the rest of the world from where she was.

In the U.S., because of the nature of the news business, chances are you only see a story about, say, Lithuania, if something goes catastrophically wrong there. A plane crashes, people die, an epidemic breaks out, whatever. Most of us realize it doesn't mean Lithuania is a land of perpetual tragedy. We understand there is probably pretty much like here on most days, with nothing big to report.

But Iraq in 2006 is not Lithuania or Nepal or Argentina. Its condition and progress are essential features of our national political landscape. Its future is bound up with ours. We need to know more about it than we've been told, and the media is more than a passive observer. The Lithuania rules shouldn't apply in Iraq. But they did.

LEGACY MEDIA

I need to say, I have a lot of anger here, and I apologize for that. Unfortunately I think you’re going to see a lot more of it in the future from others, especially if this war continues to be played more like a political football game than a real war within the press and much of the government. There’s a lot at stake, from the kids like my little brother that we have fighting it, through the people who have tried to rebuild Iraq, to the long-term futures of several nations.

It’s just not as trivial as it continues to be presented, on any level. Some in the media tend to believe the Iraq story can only be related through scenes of blood. They are still trying to find the monks burning, or the naked children running along the roads of Viet Nam. But there is much more to this war than that, and now, just as then, they simply miss the big picture.

From what I saw, much of the media is simply lazy, and most of it is more concerned with money and personal politics than in delivering a good product with honesty. This is an opinion, and is a nasty, crappy thing to say to people who spend countless hours busting their asses in a tearing rush to deliver basic news to people. But understand, I'm not addressing that comment to the rank and file whose job it is to take what is available and deliver it to the masses. I'm speaking to those who decide what news to actually cover, and to those who actually provide the coverage.

As Cal pointed out to me in a personal discussion, there are some in the US who have chosen to shift their positions and I am watching as politicians and those who wish to always be part of the popular voice have twisted themselve in knots in order to assure themselves a bit of additional power or preserve their political dignity.

They will deny that US households typically take their news from only one or two sources. They will deny that most US households only know the name of one mother who lost a son in Iraq. They will deny that there is any effect in not hearing from other mothers with differing opinions. They will deny that almost no one in the US can name a single hero in Iraq or Afghanistan. They will deny there would be anything to be gained in hearing from our troops on a daily basis. They will deny anything has been lost by a public that never hears any news of the individual or group bravery of our military men and women, or the thousands of civilians in Iraq whom they protect.

They will deny that the media has played any negative part in US and coalition efforts in Iraq. But I will disagree with them completely. Instead, I would say that like any situation where a one-sided view was presented, the resulting public response has been totally predictable from the beginning.

The MEDIA in IRAQ

Beyond a couple of poorly received White House briefings that went all but completely ignored, I never saw a thing mentioned about the massive reconstruction projects underway in Iraq. There were no fact-filled and hard-hitting stories on those jobs. By and large, the US and European publics are completely clueless about the rebuilding process and the complexities that have been involved in it. Because the press ignored it completely.

Instead they waited like vultures for the first monetary discrepancies to hit, under Halliburton of course. Because of Dick Cheney, it’s what everybody on the left was wanting to hear, and nothing else mattered. The press lept on that with full claws fully extended, never paying a moment’s notice to the realities of large-scale construction projects.

Never mind that my company has worked for Halliburton before, and never mind that one of the primary reasons we have worked for that company and others is to find those types of discrepancies and work with the government and the companies to resolve them. Never mind that those issues were in their preliminary stage, and let’s never take note of the fact that they’re no longer news because the systems in place worked exactly as they’re supposed to work.

Within weeks of my arrival in Iraq, I knew exactly what would happen to US public opinion if media coverage continued as it was at the time.

Those of us working there saw no reason it had to be that way. For all of the difficulties, we were accomplishing monumental tasks that were truly worth noting. But where our work was concerned we were treated with even less interest than the press gives to similar jobs in the US or Europe.

The press missed something vital about Iraq, and as a result the American and world public never really understood. Nobody ever got it. Iraq wasn’t just another city in the US or in Europe.

And as a result US and European citizens can share no connection to and no pride whatsoever in what those of us in Iraq have accomplished. You can’t feel it, because you’ve never seen it. And those of us who have experienced it have few ways to convey it to you so you can relate to it and share it with us. There’s a pretty hollow feeling that comes with that. It’s like being a sixteen year old and winning a big talent contest, but your parents weren’t there to see.

GOOD NEWS, OR JUST NEWS

Halliburton and all its political ramifications aside, maybe the lack of other press coverage is because the details of these jobs were a little too confusing and boring to assure great headlines. (I get paid to work through all that confusing and boring stuff; I admit, it can be pretty bland.) Fair enough.

But you at least might expect that when major project sections or complete projects were finished, the press might come out, give it a fair look, and send something back on what they saw. After all, those things at least produce pretty pictures and opportunities to mix and mingle with a few big shots and some of the little people. It’s a nice chance to get right down to the things that really are making day-to-day Iraq better.

Part of the irrigation systems we worked with was literally responsible for providing the restoration of thousands of square kilometers of marshlands in southern Iraq, which in turn has restored an ancient way of life to thousands of people. When that’s considered, you’d think it might be worth making a bit of a fuss about.

But that's not what happened. Instead, out of the more than 200 project completions and section completions we and government sources reported to the press, only two that I know of ever reached outside the country in the MSM, and those two were buried in a report about an increase in oil production. That's it. That’s the whole show. That's all of the reporting anyone ever got from four major irrigation systems, twelve major water supply systems, and twelve major oil and natural gas systems.

So just from my own company’s position, I can see more than 200 lost opportunities to cover some good news. The excuses for this were always the same. Nobody available, or questionable security in transit.

The BIG PICTURE

While we were working on those projects, I and my co-workers watched, were protected by, and were assisted by US, British, and Iraqi Army and Marine units. These were often also engaged in various smaller infrastructure projects as well as local order security details that on several occasions stretched them well beyond the normal duties expected of them.

For all the complexities and risks associated with our work, (I carried two calculators, satellite and computer equipment, and a ridiculously heavy AKSU-74 submachine gun around with me most of the time) it was impossible for us to miss seeing what coalition and Iraqi forces were dealing with. Let me please emphasize that. If we simply woke up in the morning, walked outside and did our jobs, it was completely impossible to miss the profound efforts and accomplishments of coalition and Iraqi forces in securing and rebuilding the national infrastructure.

But it wasn't impossible for the western press to miss. In fact, as I think about it, it's quite possible they've actually missed the whole war. Unless reporting can be described as burying oneself in a few relatively safe places with others of one's own kind, they have missed far more than they have covered. It is difficult for myself and many others to have respect for western journalists in Iraq because they so very rarely committed themselves to actually going out and covering what was going on.

Most of us took our risks because we had to to complete our jobs. Others did so because we sincerely believed in what we were doing. For many if not most, we ultimately did so for both reasons. So it is difficult for us to watch or read much of what is reported here in the States. It is even harder to watch that same media mention their own "bravery and dedication" on those rare occasions when reporters would actually leave the safety of their burrows and venture out in clean flak jackets to cover some well-secured scene.

This didn’t go completely unnoticed by others who mentioned it on returning to the States. The media’s excuse has been that they are prime targets for armed thugs that routinely look for westerners to kidnap or kill. These people do exist and they are truly deadly. But far more contractors or Iraqi and third-nation workers employed by them have been killed, wounded, kidnapped, or raped, than journalists.

More international aid workers have been killed, wounded, or kidnapped, than journalists. More Iraqi doctors, police, government workers, social aid workers, teachers, government leaders, lawyers, businessmen and religious leaders have been individually targeted, killed, wounded, raped, or kidnapped than journalists. So as it works out, journalists aren't as high up on the hit list as they claim to be. But that hasn't moved them to go out and actually do their jobs, nor has it stopped them from trumpeting their own bravery, dedication, and ... uhhh ... integrity.

And so nothing will change. The press can simply sit and make excuses and the foundation of a good portion of those excuses will be that the rest of us who have taken the risks are simply foolish.

SECURITY

I don’t want to paint a rosy picture about security. I was relocated on three different occasions just to move myself and our office further away from violence that would flare up. There were even times when my bosses forbade me to travel under the threat of losing my job or relocating me out of country. While traveling I sometimes worried and was often simply scared. Even being well armed, I had seen enough of the tactics used by insurgents to know that if anything happened, neither of us would likely have the opportunity to do anything before being shot dead or worse.

Other aid workers, contractors, and yes, members of the military often faced similar situations or worse. Yet the fact remains, almost all of us did our jobs regardless of our situation. And in the case of Iraqis, many lined up waiting for the opportunity to get those jobs even while others who came before them sometimes died.

Of those people, few ever got any kudos or acknowledgment from the press. The press virtually ignores most members of the military and I cannot recall ever seeing detailed interviews with aid workers or contractors involved in rebuilding. I simply can't recall the press singling out by groups or individuals the people who have slowly been trying to put a new Iraq together. I’m sure I missed something at some time. But for an interested party looking for it, the fact that I and so many others missed it says a lot.

Instead, we have been rewarded with many opportunities to watch the MSM congratulate itself on its outstanding job performance. It has been particularly interesting to watch as press members critiqued their own performances, with all of them sincerely questioning if they’ve indeed covered the war in a balanced and fair way. Their verdicts have been predictable, of course, and always raised a good hollow laugh from the rest of us who long ago realized that we’d never have the power to say otherwise.

It's difficult to accept feeling lied about when you are unable to do anything to correct it. It's hard to feel unappreciated and unvalued when you have lost much while accomplishing sincerely worthwhile goals. But most of all, it is hard to accept profane vanity raising itself into the spotlight as it shuns the sweat, the courage and the lost lives of the more deserving. It makes you feel disrespected at a very deep level.

The size and complexity of the work being undertaken in Iraq was something not seen since the post-World War Two rebuilding of Europe and Japan. In truth, given the time frame available, the coalition bit off far more than it could chew, and ultimately it was forced to reduce its efforts. But that didn’t halt the most important projects from being completed or continuing to this day.

UPDATE: New related entry here. That post drew a faintly hostile comment from "Bob," insinuating her post was just "a larger GOP talking point," implying her work in Iraq was less dangerous than that of a New York Times journalist, and challenging her to prove her right to criticize the media.

Kat responds (introduction here) beginning here.