Previously, I discussed the role of providing services (health, education, sanitation, etc…) in counterinsurgency. After security, services represent a critical component in winning hearts and minds and strengthening the legitimacy of the state. With threats to personal security in Iraq on the decline (but still high), the provision of services is gaining increasing importance and this fact has not gone unnoticed by the US military.
Iraq contains a massive and intricate irrigation system of canals and pumping stations. The water it supplies and the flooding it controls are essential to the agriculturally dominated southern Iraq. Much of this canal system was left unusable after the initial 2003 invasion, either through direct damage or simply lack of maintenance. The fields the canal system supports are a sizable proportion of the Iraqi domestic economy.
The fact that a provisional reconstruction team (PRT) is repairing the irrigation canals and their pumping stations is mildly interesting, but nothing to write home about. However, what stands out is the fact that they are using a valuable security resource in an unorthodox way to do it:
In order to help the GoI monitor and maintain the canals, 2nd BCT Soldiers came up with a high-tech solution. In addition to Soldiers performing foot patrols and SoI guarding key points, 2nd BCT Soldiers regularly keep a watch on the canals with unmanned aerial vehicles.
“We’ve done this with every single canal,” Clegg said. “We had (the MoWR) supply us a map, showing the direction of flow. Then we stepped it up with UAV coverage. This actually allowed us to see where the water is flowing.” [Emphasis mine]
Clegg says the images are declassified and shown to MoRW officials every week to give them the information they need.
Simply put, the PRT is using UAV surveillance flights to monitor the status of irrigation canal flows. This is the first example I have found of UAVs being used in a non-security function to improve services to Iraqi civilians. The use of UAVs, a much prized resource amongst commanders, hints at the new importance placed on providing services (particularly water); a ’service surge’ if you will. It is also a reminder of the remarkable flexibility of the US military.
Last March, IRIN reported that Taliban forces were blocking polio vaccination programs in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. In one case, a government polio vaccinator, doing field work, was kidnapped by Taliban forces:
“They slapped my face. They held me for eight hours before releasing me,” the 35-year-old said. “They made me promise that I would not vaccinate any more children – threatening to kill me if I did.”
The targeting of health workers was confirmed by purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmad, stating “If [aid workers] won’t stop their work, we will target them, like we’ve targeted them in the past”.
Open warfare against health workers is a de facto acknowledgement by the Taliban that health services are a successful counterinsurgency strategy. Afghanistan is one of only four countries with endemic polio and, as such, vaccination programs can be an effective strategy for winning hearts and minds.
The concept of polio vaccination programs as a COIN strategy fits into a larger argument I have been developing, that health represents not just an indicator of success / failure in war, but is itself a front. That is, health in war is not simply an effect of battle but, in some circumstances, a cause of battle.