by Nathan Hodge
But the real mission of living and working with populations that are vulnerable to extremists requires a degree of cultural sophistication that we are not even close to attaining. After the Soviets launched Sputnik, the United States began a crash effort to fund engineering and science. If the main existential threat to the United States does come from militant extremism in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Somalia, then we need a decades-long investment in real social science research, language studies, and higher education, not cheap solutions delivered by contractors. Long term, continuing the kinds of nation-building projects we are involved in today without contractors would require a massive realignment of our foreign policy objectives, or a reinstatement of the draft.
The real locus of U.S. ingenuity is in places like Silicon Valley and New York, not Washington. Mobilizing capital to invest in developing countries is far superior to exporting aid workers with guns. Some of the most innovative thinkers in aid and development are now broadly skeptical of the ability of state institutions and multilateral organizations to foster effective development. As Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of Afghanistan, put it: “A dollar in private investment is equal to twenty dollars of aid.”5 Rebuilding broken states is not purely a task for the military or for government consultants.
The American public has, in the end, been divorced from the reality of nation building. While boots were on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans were at the mall. When a small fraction of the population was engaged in the bloody business of repairing war-torn, failed states, the class of nation builders had become estranged from the American people, widening the divide between civilian and military. We have failed to have a national conversation about the real cost of this commitment, the limits of what nation building can and cannot achieve, and what place nation building plays within the larger national interest.
Acknowledgments
Anton Mueller, my editor at Bloomsbury, helped shape this book from its inception. I am immensely grateful for his enthusiasm, his guiding vision, and his belief in the importance of this subject. I am also indebted to Michelle Tessler, a wonderful literary agent and incisive reader.
This book grew out of a decade spent covering U.S. military operations around the globe. As I followed the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq, I saw the military taking on more and more nonmilitary tasks: building roads, digging wells, and repairing schools. Over time, it became clear that these were not unusual cases. Armed development work was the new norm, and I wanted to tell this story from the point of view of the practitioners: the people putting themselves in harm’s way as part of this ambitious experiment.
It would have been impossible to tell this story without the active assistance of many men and women in uniform, as well as civilian employees of the military. The relationship between reporters and the Pentagon’s public-affairs apparatus can sometimes be adversarial, but units in the field often showed extraordinary willingness to open up to me. This speaks to their democratic values and respect for an independent press.
At Fort Riley, Kansas, Army Sergeant First Class Ken McCooey helped arrange my stay at FOB Army Strong, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Eric Borgeson and the members of Team Mohican were kind enough to let me follow them through part of their training. At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Stephen Nolan and Army Colonel Steve Boylan lined up a series of valuable interviews.
In 2002, Army Major Bryan Hilferty set an excellent precedent, encouraging an open-door policy for military reporters at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. Army Lieutenant Lory Stevens and Captain Scot Keith helped organize several Afghanistan embeds in the summer of 2009, and understood the focus of my reporting. Air Force Major David Faggard opened many doors as well. In 2004, Army Captain Jacob Larkowich and Lieutenant Steve McKeon of Alpha Company, 1–4 Infantry, part of the first U.S. contingent under the NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, brought me along on a security mission outside of Kabul. And in 2008, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Henderson, commander of First Battalion, Sixth Marines, and Captain Charles O’Neill, commander of Bravo Company, First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, hosted me in Helmand Province. Thanks are also due to Major Kelly Frushour, public affairs chief for the Twenty-fourth Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Colonel Peter Petronzio, commander of the Twenty-fourth Marine Expeditionary Unit.
In Washington, Navy Lieutenant Jennifer Cragg of the Pentagon’s new media directorate played a key role in helping ensure that online reporters had fair access to important news stories. Jaime Wood and Army Lieutenant Colonel Holly Silkman showed great patience and persistence in helping arrange my visit to Timbuktu. Tom Cooney and Todd Calongne of the State Department organized several key interviews.
In Baghdad, Army Lieutenant Colonel Craig Simonsgaard and the members of his transition team brought me along on their missions in Sadr City. Major Michael Humphreys and Scott Flenner of the Army’s Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, helped facilitate my stay at FOB War Eagle. Air Force Major Jason “Fitz” Kirkpatrick and Tarah Hollingsworth organized a unique 2007 visit to Iraq. Steve Bird helped arrange a 2005 visit to Baghdad. In Kabul, I enjoyed the support of Gillian Sandford, Wali Azizi, Wahidullah Amani, and many other friends at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. David Trilling, Sanjar Qiam, Saira Shah, and Hugo MacPherson were great companions in 2004.
During my research, I also relied on Michael Bear Kleinman, Nancy Lindborg, and Roman Ponos for insights into the world of aid and development. I’m also indebted to Lynda Granfield, Dan Green, and Ramon Negron, who helped explain the mission of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which helped support one of my trips to Afghanistan.
Many friends provided valuable comments and criticism on various chapters and drafts. Thanks go to Noah Shachtman, my friend and co-writer at Danger Room, Wired’s national security blog: an immensely talented writer who helped refine an early version of the manuscript. Kris Alexander, Sally Cooper, Steven Lee Myers, Jonathan Hayes, Kathryn Schulz, and Askold Krushelnycky all provided me with key feedback. Tara McKelvey, Robert Wall, Richard Whittle, Greg Renoff, and Kathleen Kuehnast offered encouragement and advice during the writing process. Sean Allen and Nikolai Firtich were patient friends. Thanks also to the staff at the library of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I conducted some of the background research.
My gratitude as well to Evan Hansen of Wired; Peter Felstead and Nick Brown of Jane’s Defence Weekly and International Defence Review; Pavel Bykov of Expert; Llewellyn King of King Publishing; John Robinson of Defense Daily; June Thomas of Slate; and Chuck Holmes of Cox News.
My father, Brien Hodge, served in Vietnam as an Army advisor in the Mekong Delta region from September 1967 to September 1968. His experiences during his tour helped inform my reading of history. My mother, Marjorie Hodge, and my sisters, Miriam and Naomi, gave tremendous encouragement during my travels.
Finally, I am forever grateful to my wife, Sharon, whose support has been beyond measure. She has been a sounding board for every story idea, a capable editor of every draft, my closest friend and collaborator. Without her, I would not have had the courage to start. This book is dedicated to her.
Notes
Prologue
1 John Kruzel, “Colonel Describes Orderly Traffic at Haiti Airport,” American Forces Press Service, January 17, 2010.
2 Kelly Webster, “Lessons from a Military Humanitarian in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,” Small Wars Journal, March 28, 2010, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/401-webster.pdf.
3 Yochi Dreazen, “Military Finds an Unlikely Advisor in School-Building Humanitarian,” Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2008.
4 Lin Wells, “Tides Week One Summary by Lin Wells,” Star-Tides blog, http://star-tides.blogspot.com/2007/10/below-is-summary-of-first-week-of-tides.html.
5 Donna Miles, “Obama Cites Responsibility to ‘Get It Right’ in Iraq, Afghanist
an,” American Forces Press Service, February 28, 2009.
6 Robert Gates, National Defense University (Washington, D.C.), Speech, September 29, 2008, www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1279.
7 John Hillen, “Superpowers Don’t Do Windows,” Orbis, Spring 1997, http://www.fpri.org/americavulnerable/03.SuperpowersDontDoWindows.Hillen.pdf.
8 Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” report, February 2, 2009, www.sigir.mil/files/HardLessons/Hard_Lessons-Report.pdf.
9 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “Quarterly Report to the United States Congress,” April 30, 2010, www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/Apr2010/SIGARapril_Lores.pdf.
10 Robert Gates, “Eisenhower Library (Defense Spending),” speech, May 8, 2010, www.defense.gov/speeches.aspx?speechID=1467.
11 Ken Dilanian, “Clinton: U.S. Will Try to Repair Broken Aid,” USA Today, April 1, 2009.
12 USAID, “Budget Justification FY 2001,” www.usaid.gov/pubs/bj2001.
13 Max Boot, “The Case for American Empire: The Most Realistic Response to Terrorism Is for America to Embrace Its Imperial Role,” Weekly Standard, October 12, 2001.
14 American Foreign Service Association, “AFSANET: Telling Our Story: October 17, 2007,” factsheet, www.afsa.org/101707presupdate.cfm.
15 See Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “The United States: Development Assistance Committee Peer Review,” 2006, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/57/37885999.pdf.
16 Corine Hegland, “Pentagon, State Struggle to Define Nation-Building Roles,” National Journal, April 30, 2007.
17 An updated version of this document, dated September 16, 2009, is available at www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/300005p.pdf.
18 August Cole, “Defense Firms Look to Fill Gaps as U.S. Policy Shifts,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2009.
19 Nina Serafino, “Peacekeeping and Related Stability Operations: Issues of U.S. Military Involvement,” Congressional Research Service report, July 13, 2006, www.history.navy.mil/library/online/peacekeep_stab%20ops.htm#evolution.
20 Michael Siegl, “Clarity and Culture in Stability Operations.” Military Review 87, no. 6, November–December 2007.
Part I: Winning the War, Losing the Peace
1. Absolute Beginners
1 Patrick Cockburn, “Cluster Bombs over Charicar,” The Independent, October 5, 2001.
2 For photos of the Salang Pass, see the Web site for former students and teachers of the American International School of Kabul, www.aisk.org/aisk/return2kabul200501.php.
3 Linette Albert, “Afghanistan: A Perspective,” in Louis Dupree and Linette Albert, eds., Afghanistan in the 1970s (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 254.
4 Ibid.
5 U.S. Government Accounting Office, “Contingency Operations: Army Should Do More to Control Contract Cost in the Balkans,” report to the U.S. Senate, September 2000.
6 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, factsheet on LOGCAP I, “Transatlantic Program Center’s Involvement in the First Contract Awarded for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (1991–1997),” www.tac.usace.army.mil/Organization/lcap.html.
7 Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 387.
8 James Dao, “G.I.’s Fight Afghan Devastation with Plaster and Nails,” New York Times, June 24, 2002.
9 Sandra Erwin, “Civil Affairs,” National Defense, May 2005.
10 Sean Naylor, “Demand Skyrocketing for Active-Duty Civil Affairs Brigade,” Defense News, October 5, 2001.
11 Chemonics, “Helping Rebuild Lives in Afghanistan,” press release, www.chemonics.com/projects/default.asp?content_id={17C6D697-B36B-4B95-8A3F-424816235E18}.
12 Ken Dilanian, “Short-Staffed USAID Tries to Keep Pace,” USA Today, February 1, 2009.
13 Ruben Berrios, Contracting for Development: The Role of For-Profit Development Contractors in U.S. Foreign Development Assistance (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), pp. 1–2.
14 Matt Steinglass, “The Pitfalls of Pacification,” GlobalPost.com, March 27, 2009, www.globalpost.com/dispatch/vietnam/090327/the-pitfalls-pacification?page=0,2.
15 Berrios, Contracting for Development, pp. 7–8.
16 For a list of USAID implementation partners in Ukraine, see http://ukraine.usaid.gov/link.shtml.
17 Matt Bivens, “Aboard the Gravy Train: In Kazakhstan, the Farce That Is U.S. Foreign Aid,” Harper’s, August 1997.
18 Ibid.
19 Janine Wedel, “The Harvard Boys Do Russia,” The Nation, June 1, 1998.
20 Zachary Seward, “Harvard to Pay $26.5 Million in HIID Settlement,” Harvard Crimson, July 29, 2005.
21 Joel Hafvenstein, Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2007), p. 61.
22 Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Field Commander (New York: Crown, 2005), pp. 194–95.
23 Luke Harding and Matthew Engel, “U.S. Bomb Blunder Kills 30 at Afghan Wedding,” Guardian, July 2, 2002.
24 Philip Smucker, “Liabilities of Using Afghan Informants,” Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 2001.
25 “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Town Hall Meeting at Bagram Air Base,” July 15, 2002, Department of Defense news transcript.
2. The PowerPoint Warrior
1 Donald Rumsfeld, “DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff—Bureaucracy to Battlefield,” remarks delivered at the Pentagon, September 10, 2001, www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=430.
2 Arthur Cebrowski and John Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” Proceedings, January 1998.
3 Thomas Barnett, “The Seven Deadly Sins of Network-Centric Warfare,” Proceedings, January 1999.
4 Charles Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,” Marines Magazine, January 1999.
5 Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Berkley, 2005), p. 180.
6 Ibid., p. 181.
7 George Gedda, “Bush Administration Speeds Up Help to Colombian Military,” Associated Press, February 22, 2002.
8 Paul Quinn-Judge, “Inside al-Qaeda’s Georgia Refuge,” Time, October 19, 2002.
9 Thomas P. M. Barnett, “The Pentagon’s New Map: It Explains Why We’re Going to War, and Why We’ll Keep Going to War,” Esquire, March 2003.
3. “Beat ’em Up and Go Home”
1 Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Patriot System Performance,” January 2005, www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA435837.pdf.
2 “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus [sic], Vanity Fair,” May 9, 2003, Department of Defense news transcript.
3 Ryan Chilcote, “Commander Shows Restraint, Prevents Unnecessary Violence,” CNN.com, http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/heroes/chrishughes.html.
4 Christopher Hughes, War on Two Fronts: An Infantry Commander’s War in Iraq and the Pentagon (Drexel Hill, Pa.: Casemate, 2007), pp. 106–11.
5 Jim Garamone, “U.S. Army Trains Free Iraqi Forces in Hungary,” American Forces Press Service, February 23, 2003, www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=29394.
6 Linda Robinson and Kevin Whitelaw, “Deploying the ‘Free Iraqi Forces’: What Role for the Arriving Anti-Saddam Iraqi Fighters?” U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 2003.
7 Christopher Griffin, “Revenge of the Staff Weenie: Mining the Military Bureaucracy for Nuggets of Humor,” Armed Forces Journal, October 2006, www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/10/2098845.
8 Jim Dwyer, “American Soldiers, at the Behest of an Iraqi Officer, Topple a Hussein Statue,” New York Times, April 4, 2003.
9 Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (New York: Mariner Books, 2006), pp. 237–39.
1
0 Ibid.
11 Fick, One Bullet Away, pp. 303–4.
12 U.S. Department of Defense, “Pre-war Planning for Post-war Iraq,” at Department of Defense Air University Web site, “Lessons Learned,” www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dod/postwar_iraq.htm.
13 “CONPLAN AURORA (releasable) 06-260,” CENTCOM Information Portal, Case H06-260, http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/default.aspx.
14 Kurt Schork, “Mission-Minded Dallas Man Confronts Disasters Hurting Third World’s Poor,” Dallas Morning News, July 1991.
15 Donald Wright and Colonel Timothy Reese with the Contemporary Operations Study Team, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign—The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003—January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 2008), p. 150.
16 John Guardiano, “ ‘Bush Good, Saddam Bad!’: A Marine Reports from Iraq, Where Things Are Far Better Than the Media Let On,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2003.
17 Peter Ford and Seth Stern, “Humanitarian Aid to Iraq Proves One of War’s Biggest Obstacles,” Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 2003.
18 Nick Cater, “Oxfam to Refuse Government Iraq Aid,” Guardian, March 4, 2003.
19 Jack Epstein, “Charities at Odds with Pentagon,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 2003.
20 See “USAID Press Releases,” April 2 and April 11, 2003, www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2003.
21 Andrew Natsios, “Agency Takes Right Approach,” USA Today, March 31, 2003.
22 Peter Mansoor, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 53–54.
23 Ibid., p. 27.
24 Jim Krane, “GOP Operatives Lead at Iraq Press Office,” Associated Press, April 4, 2004.
25 Ariana Eunjung Cha, “In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime,” Washington Post, May 23, 2004.
26 Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann with Donovan Webster, Babylon by Bus (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 44.