To the Secretary

by Mary Thompson-Jones

  They reported that educational institutions lacked adequate labs, computers, and other tools of educational technology. One frustrated student asked, “How can I learn biology from a book?” A greater problem was lack of opportunities for graduates, most of whom used to go into government service for lack of alternatives. But government jobs are no longer the sinecure they once were, and students felt caught in a world in which old ways had withered without being supplanted by newer and more exciting options. “Students have been told since they were small to work hard, go to university, and plan to get a nice, secure government job. They are unable to think of a world in which that might not happen,” explained the chairman of a local Chamber of Commerce. University leaders who profited from Fulbright grants or other academic exchanges said the answer lay in curriculum reform and expanded vocational training. “We are not training students to perform different types of work that have to be done here. We are training students to get degrees,” said one university president, “and they have no idea how they will use what they have learned.”

  In higher educational systems with such limited opportunities, study abroad takes on added importance. While the cable enthuses about the intense interest among young people to study in the United States, it also notes competition from other countries. Even students with full scholarships from the Iraqi government were having a hard time deciphering the U.S. system and deciding where to study. “Conversely, for students looking to study in the UK, a very large and active British Council office in Erbil provides first-rate advising services.” 20 Thanks, perhaps, to cables such as this one, Iraqi students soon benefited from State Department–sponsored EducationUSA advising centers in Baghdad and Erbil, with trained advisors walking students through the many steps of the American college application and selection process.

  Another 1991 Generation—this one in Dhi Qar, a province in the Shi’a heartland of southeastern Iraq between Wasit and Basrah—fared far worse, educationally. PRT officers found that young people were less likely to be literate than their parents. Post believed the illiteracy rate was a legacy of Saddam’s reprisals targeted at southern Shi’a provinces that had also taken part in the 1991 uprising. They found that dropping out of school was a growing trend. About 20 percent of primary school students stayed away as poverty forced children to work, security risks and tribal disputes dampened attendance, and administrators lacked the legal authority to compel schooling. The cables described schools that were often overcrowded, with shabby facilities, incompetent teachers, and corporal punishment.

  Coalition forces had built many new schools in the province and refurbished others, but the PRT got a unique opportunity to address the problem when the Iraqi Army administered literacy tests and 50 percent of its soldiers in one division failed—a cause for dismissal. The division’s general asked for help, and two Iraqi-American PRT staff members volunteered their time and soon had a class of forty.

  “The PRT literacy effort, designed to prevent twenty-something soldiers from joining the swelling ranks of Dhi Qar’s unemployed, was done on a shoestring, with photocopied articles for the more advanced and photocopies of three dog-eared adult literacy books for beginners.” As word of the class got out, the ranks swelled to sixty. Then one day, only two students showed up for their lesson. “Basim, one of the hardest working students, reported that his brigade was moving to Amara, and everyone else was packing up to go. But he packed early so he would not miss class. His teacher didn’t bat an eye. He taught Basim and the one other student for an hour and a half.”

  Pride in being able to help suffuses the cable, but so does incomprehension at why the province leadership was not more committed and engaged in the literacy problem. “The PRT program to reach young men at risk of being kicked out of the army is aimed at a critical group that could potentially feed insurgent or militia troops . . . Iraqis blame educational institutions and facilities for poor education, but many poorer countries with worse facilities do better at educating pupils.” 21

  The thirst for improved education at all levels was nationwide, and the need in Iraq was so great that embassy officers could have easily filled their calendars with nothing but visits to schools and universities. While they were surprised at the high levels of illiteracy, they also had opportunities to interact with well-educated university students. Political officers visiting Baghdad University’s political science department found their encounter with students and professors challenging. They heard some frank views and what they described as “hard versus soft” power issues: in the Iraqi context, it meant students advocated for a reduced U.S. military presence and more cultural and educational initiatives.

  The cable set the scene: Baghdad University is Iraq’s leading institution of higher learning and one of the largest universities in the Arab world. The deputy president recalled the dark days of sectarian violence that were recent (2006–2007) and real—seventy of its three hundred and thirty faculty were murdered. “Classes continued to be held in order to keep the university alive; the studying never stopped.”

  Students questioned U.S. involvement in Iraq, touching on sectarianism, the long-term role of the United States, and its commitment to repair environmental damage caused by the invasion. One of the professors referred to former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer’s book My Year in Iraq, in which the former American official conceded he knew little about Iraq. The professor argued, “Americans would only really understand Iraq by talking to its poor and ordinary people,” a comment that was met with loud applause by the assembled students.

  The officers commented, “Our two hour engagement with the animated gathering of political science students showed that while most had seen a lot of American hard power since our 2003 invasion, not enough had experienced (or received answers to tough questions) our soft power and overall policy objectives.” 22

  Not all outreach was academic in nature. PRT Najaf members attended an Expo Najaf business promotion event organized by the Small Business Development Center, a partnership between USAID and the Najaf Chamber of Commerce. The idea behind the event was to diversify Iraq’s economy away from oil, encourage expatriate Iraqi businesspeople to return home, and build a foundation for a thriving and diversified private sector. Iraqi business had struggled under years of international economic sanctions targeting the Saddam regime along with a dangerous security environment and lack of connections to overseas markets.

  In the way of things in Iraq, the event was organized with the explicit support of the national spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Bashir Al-Najafi. An internal tug-of-war over the guest list led to an invitation for the PRT leaders, followed by one faction’s move to disinvite them. That decision was overruled by the head of the Chamber of Commerce, who had recently returned from a Najaf-Minneapolis sister-city program and insisted on U.S. participation. Sister Cities International was started in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower to encourage people-to-people diplomacy. It works by pairing an American city with an overseas counterpart. The partnership is meant to promote mutual understanding and foster economic development, culture, education, and humanitarian assistance. Najaf is one of eleven sister cities paired with Minneapolis, part of a global program with 2,100 partnerships in 145 countries. The power of citizen diplomacy is easy to see in the case of the Najaf Expo. The trip to Minneapolis gave the head of the Chamber of Commerce the insight to see that U.S. support for the Najaf business community could be enormously helpful. In the end, the keynote speakers publicly praised the PRT and USAID’s support for the business community.23

  To understand why a business promotion event might need the blessing of a grand ayatollah, a cable from Najaf provided extraordinary background on all four grand ayatollahs, referred to collectively as the maraji. For Americans used to separation between church and state, the description of how these religious leaders flowed seamlessly between religious and public life was a revelation. One was deeply concerned with economic devel
opment and was the biggest supporter of an international airport in Najaf. Another was outspoken on electricity shortages and anticorruption efforts. Still another asserted that while clerics should not be politicians themselves, they should communicate important messages to politicians. Given the description of the constant stream of visitors to the ayatollahs and the media’s willingness to grasp at any hint or rumor of their pronouncements on laws or proposed reforms, this seems an easy task. Such a nuanced account suggests that here, too, FSOs were making steady and valuable inroads in their understanding of the complexities of Iraqi society.24

  Not every effort was instantly successful. A report covering summer 2010 (just after the end date of the leaked cables) disclosed the embassy’s embarrassingly inadequate outreach efforts through social media, especially Facebook and YouTube. After an initial burst of interest with “friends” and “likes,” the number of active users plummeted from a peak of four thousand in February 2010 to just over one thousand six months later. The author cited problems with English versus Arabic, embassy efforts to control what was posted, and, worst of all—Facebook management by committee. With careful neutrality, the author noted that the Public Affairs Section required the committee’s clearance for every item, twenty-four hours before posting. 25

  Eventually the embassy learned from its errors and banished the Orwellian Facebook committee, broadened the content to include non–U.S. government material, increased the frequency of postings, and, perhaps most important of all, expanded Arabic language content. Instead of nameless administrator posts, the Facebook page used first names and pictures of the administrators—a challenge in a high-turnover post with high security threats. The embassy also began making better use of its YouTube site, posting films of cultural events. Hits went up when the embassy revamped its postings into Arabic and called them “Window into the Embassy.” In both cases, the embassy regrouped quickly and took (for government) breathtaking risks to get the approach right.

  Of course, not all public diplomacy efforts engage the soft side. Officers also worked to combat violent extremism. In a 2008 cable enumerating a depressing number of violent and deadly attacks on different ethnic groups, the embassy argued, “The pattern of violence demonstrates that Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has absorbed the blow of the surge, adapted its tactics and introduced a new phase to its continuing campaign to undermine public order. We have initiated an information campaign to highlight this threat, including television spots, op-eds, interviews and talk shows. The message is simple: Al Qaeda remains a ruthless, relentless enemy that can change its tactics but will stop at nothing to destroy those who oppose it . . . Virtually the only significant ethnic-sectarian violence in Iraq today is that perpetrated by Al Qaeda itself.”

  The cable posed three questions:

  How do you break these extremists and their apparatuses throughout the region? How do we talk about Al Qaeda’s setbacks, how they have responded and what this says about their continuing capabilities and intentions? What are we and others doing (and need to do) to stay one step ahead of the enemy? The answers to these questions—and how we and our partners talk about them—lie at the intersection between the operational and public diplomacy communities. To do this right will require some creative thinking and coordination between operators and communicators.26

  A second cable discussed how the United States might help to extricate Iraq from its vicious cycle of extremist violence.

  Public Diplomacy can do its part through programs that promote strong, enduring linkages between Iraqi and U.S. institutions . . . There is no shortage of credible, persuasive Iraqis, who speak out publicly against extremist violence.

  At the largest embassy in the world, many different offices and agencies support programs to identify, support, train, equip, and empower voices for moderation and tolerance . . . There is always more that can be done. Our national leadership has called this struggle “the long war” which means that we have to take a long-term approach to the problem. For most of its modern history as a state, and certainly since 1958, Iraq has defined itself in opposition to, if not open hostility with, its neighbors and the West. We have now an opportunity to change history and reorient Iraq.27

  THE COSTS

  The cables make clear that the work in Iraq was absorbing and all-consuming, but it was also dangerous and occasionally cost lives. One of the more poignant personal stories is that of Paula Wikle, an office management specialist who had been serving in Guatemala. Long before the town hall meeting, she answered the State Department’s call in 2003 for volunteers to go to Iraq. In her first few days on the ground she thrived in the intensive environment, efficiently handling more tasks in a day than most people would complete in a week. Early in the morning of October 26, 2003, a rocket tore through the Rashid Hotel where she had been staying. She nearly lost her arm and would endure dozens of reconstructive surgeries. After recovering enough from her injury to work again, she went on to become a public diplomacy officer and continues to serve both at overseas postings and in Washington, DC.

  Others were not so lucky. For example, the name of Terrence Barnich, deputy director of the transition assistance team and co-chair of the New Electricity Projects Working Group, surfaces in many cables that detail the crucial effort to bring power to all parts of Iraq. Sadly, Barnich was killed in a bomb attack on May 25, 2009.

  Iraq is a challenging operational environment in many ways, and not every Iraqi is a charming and earnest future Fulbrighter, anxious to learn all about the United States. Every idealistic embassy officer proud to meet the challenges of rebuilding Iraq soon confronted a staggering level of corruption among venal officials. These unsavory characters were quick to take advantage of the U.S. presence. Their behavior, along with a pervasive culture of corruption that long predated the Iraq War, could dampen the morale of even the most gung-ho officers.

  A cable from PRT Muthanna, in the southernmost part of Iraq, reveals officers getting wise to the ways of Southern Iraqi tribal sheikhs, men who wield power and influence in a social structure in which loyalty is based on families and clans, rather than given to elected officials. One who had returned from a visit to Iran scolded the Americans for failing to purchase his loyalty. After he and other tribal sheikhs visited the White House and met President Bush in 2008, he expected to benefit financially but was disappointed that Americans had “done nothing” for him.

  By contrast, he described how Iran had catered to his needs. Ostensibly there for a medical checkup, he told the PRT’s local political advisor that it was really a pleasure trip with short-term “marriages” with state-sanctioned prostitutes among the entertainment. He said other tribal leaders had enjoyed similar privileges while guests of the Iranian regime.

  The post commented acidly, “Southern Iraqi sheikhs are well known for shifting their loyalties based on financial considerations. PM Maliki’s Isnad/Tribal Support Councils are particularly noteworthy in this regard. Susceptible sheikhs will trade their influence for financial support especially if the sheikh is not independently wealthy. In turn the sheikh can mobilize supporters when needed. The influence, however, is rented and not bought. If the financial contributions suddenly stop, much of the support may also cease. The PRT considers this true for Iranian influence in the region as well. If Iran continues to pay for support among influential sheikhs, the Islamic Republic will likely increase its influence. If and when the money dries up, so will the cooperation among these rented sheiks.” 28

  Between 2006 and 2010 more than a thousand cables described the various aspects or impacts of corruption. Some focused on election politics and coalition building; others dealt with the judiciary and rule of law; still others described how corruption tainted various administrative tasks inherent in running a modern state. A cable on efforts to secure Iraq’s borders predicted that the U.S. military drawdown, completed at the end of 2011, would decrease U.S. visibility on progress, noting that the borders “are clearly porous, and the administra
tion of borders is clumsy (multiple agencies are unable to coordinate) and riddled with corruption.” 29

  These cables are especially telling given the collapse of Iraq in 2014, the rise of the Islamic State, and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s troubled era. While U.S. political leaders focused on a military exit strategy, few imagined that such a massive investment could be undone so quickly and the earnest work of thousands of Americans and coalition partners would leave so little lasting impact. Within the United States, there was confusion over the role of the military (short-term) and the role of nation-building through State, USAID, and countless other agencies (long-term). Cable after cable describes the Iraqi people’s disgust with their own officials and their distrust of the system. While U.S. policymakers in Washington were certainly aware of the corruption, they were perhaps too willing to accept it as inevitable without understanding that it was in fact a fatal flaw that would undermine every effort to move Iraq to a functional democratic and multiethnic state.

  SOFT, SMART, OR TRANSFORMATIONAL? WHICH KIND OF DIPLOMACY?

  The on-the-ground realities for American diplomats serving in Iraq played out against a swirling intellectual debate in the foreign policy community on whether post 9/11 America should embrace soft power, smart power, transformational diplomacy, or some combination of the above. Joseph Nye’s 2004 refinement of his earlier soft power concept argued that the United States could accomplish more through attraction or persuasion than coercion.30 The term soft power had morphed by the time the Obama administration came into office to the new phrase smart power, also used by Nye to mean combining the tools of both hard and soft power.” 31 Hillary Clinton used the term smart power throughout her tenure as secretary of state, beginning at her confirmation hearing on January 13, 2009.