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Winning the Peace in Baghdad

Tuesday, May 13, 2003
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

"We're involved with a myriad of things. Every time I turn around I find my soldiers are involved in another aspect, and my challenge is keeping track of them. There's a proposal to start building councils for the neighborhood of Baghdad. Civil affairs soldiers have already been working with leaders. You can see that the city is functioning. So many people have called this a humanitarian crisis I've lost track. Truth is, it is not a crisis, there are problems but they can be managed -- the Iraqis themselves are managing. There is a vulnerable population here, but it's entirely within the resources to handle this."

American military officers turn over emergency money to leaders of the Iraqi electrical power network. Officials will disburse $20 payments per employee from this fund. It is designed to alleviate some of the financial problems electrical workers are having.
Image Credit: Jim Garamone -- AFIS

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
Winning the peace takes a different type of soldier.

"Somebody this morning called the command 'the complaint department,'" said Army Brig. Gen. Jack Kern, the commander of the 352nd Civil Affairs Command during a May 6 interview in Baghdad. "I guess that's fair."

Kern's civil affairs soldiers are the bridge between the coalition and the Iraqi population. They are the men and women concerned with getting Iraq running again.

The unit also works with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and serves as the contact point for nongovernmental organizations.

"These people have risen to the occasion against truly asymmetric threats," Kern said. "These aren't things that the normal Army thinks about: getting schools started, public health, introducing a currency, running a city. These are things the 352nd does all the time."

Elements of the unit have been deployed in the Balkans and Afghanistan, but the Operation Enduring Freedom theater is the largest deployment for the command. About 1,800 Army civil affairs personnel are in Iraq, the Marine Corps has two civil affairs groups, and the British have a number of similar units in their area.
(More: DefenseLINK.mil)
2003 © U.S. Department of Defense.

Dan