Bill Murray from The Long War Journal has a good article about a new water distribution site in Baghdad. The $400,000 water facility will provide free water to 3,000 families and cover 60% of the need in the area. Two additional sites under construction will provide the remaining 40%. However, the most interesting fact about the facility is its location:
Water from the site, located within the walls of a US-operated Forward Operating Base, is then piped underneath the 15-foot-high reinforced concrete barriers surrounding the base to taps at a drive-through location.
In that community, Iraqis receive their water directly from a US FOB, a fact that speaks volumes about the securitization of services. Specifically, this is notable for two reasons. First, the placement of the water facility inside the FOB might very well discourage attacks, since an attack on the FOB is also, literally an attack on the community’s access to water. Second, the location gives US and Iraqi security forces full credit for providing the service. That is, the population physically visits the FOB to collect their water and knows clearly who provided it, winning hearts and minds. This point was apparently not lost on the Iraqi security forces:
As services return to the area after many years of sanctions, neglect and civil unrest, police expect increased access to information about the Shia insurgency, because the area has been a haven for arms caches and terrorist cells associated with Muqtada al Sadr’s Madhi Army and Iranian trained “Special Groups.”
Winning hearts and minds, gaining useful intelligence, and providing free, clean water to a poor community. That is a trio anyone can appreciate.
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.
How many Iraqi insurgent attacks will occur next year causing 1 casualty? 10 casualties? 200 casualties? How many FARC attacks will occur next year causing 30 casualties? How many Tamil Tiger attacks will occur next year causing 500 casualties? One very interesting research paper just released argues it knows the answers, and finding them requires a simple number: 2.5.
The paper by Neil Johnson, Mike Spagat, Jorge Restrepo, Oscar Becerra, Juan Bohorquez, Nicolas Suarez, Elvira Restrepo, and Roberto Zarama argues modern insurgent attacks all obey the same power law. In plain english: in all modern insurgent conflict, attacks causing many casualties will occur with the same relative frequency to attacks causing few casualties. Simply by knowing the average number of attacks per year, the authors argue it is possible to predict the number of future attacks causing a certain number casualties in a future year.
Want to calculate your own predictions? It is easy: First, take the average number of attacks per year for the conflict. Second, select a level of attack deadliness (number of casualties) you want to predict. Third, plug them into the formula below.
For example, imagine a conflict with an average of 1000 insurgent attacks per year and we want to calculate how many attacks will cause 10 casualties in a future year:
The model predicts slightly over 3 attacks causing 10 casualties will occur in a one year period.
Are the authors correct? I have no idea, but it is a very interesting approach to an important question. If you want to know more, check out this Physorg article containing a link to the original paper (might be gated).
Update: Check out Drew at Zero Intelligence Agents for a more informed discussion of the paper.
Political scientist Nicole Suveges was killed in a bombing inside Sadr City on Tuesday. Suveges was part of the US military’s Human Terrain System, supporting U.S. Army’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT).
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Nicole Suveges,” said Doug Belair, president of the company’s Technology Solutions & Services (TSS) line of business. “She came to us to give freely of herself in an effort to make a better world. Nicole was a leading academic who studied for years on how to improve conditions for others. She also believed in translating what she learned into action. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and colleagues.”
Suveges began her current tour in Iraq in April of this year. Before joining BAE Systems, she had worked in Iraq for one year as a civilian contractor. Previously, Suveges served as a U.S. Army reservist in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, supporting the multinational SFOR/NATO Combined Joint Psychological Operations Task Force.
She held a Master of Arts in political science from The George Washington University. Suveges was soon to complete her Ph.D. in political science with an emphasis on international relations from Johns Hopkins University, where she also served as managing editor for the “Review of International Political Economy.” Her dissertation was on “Markets & Mullahs: Global Networks, Transnational Ideas and the Deep Play of Political Culture.” She presented numerous papers to international relations organizations and served as a graduate teaching assistant.
During her time with the 3rd BCT, she brought a wealth of skill and knowledge to support the mission in Iraq. Her experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina, coupled with her academic credentials contributed materially to the success of the brigade in reducing the level of violence in the local community and in improving critical infrastructure. She worked closely with her HTS team members to help Iraqis achieve peace, stability and prosperity.
Rest in peace Nicole.
Update: HTS website has updates.
Update 2: Nicole Suveges on HTS:
HTS is the first effort to make social scientists and other HTT personnel available at the brigade - read local - level. This is where the war in Iraq is being fought, and it is about time that they are afforded the same capabilities that their higher echelons have.
I could not agree more.
Update 3: CNN has another update.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a talk given by Colonel Peter Mansoor. Col. Mansoor is a member of Petreus’ inner circle and has been influential in the development of the US Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine. Mansoor is also an architect of the surge strategy in Iraq and recently published Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq, an analysis of counterinsurgency in Iraq from a mid-level officer.
During the questions and answer section I asked the Colonel what was the role of providing health and social services in modern counterinsurgency doctrine. He took the (very reasonable) position that the primary concern of civilian populations is security. That is, without security, nothing else matters. However, once a certain level of security has been established, the population looks for the provision of services (including health services). In this ’second stage’, of counterinsurgency the provision of health services plays a major role in winning hearts and minds. Mansoor’s position is that Iraq was just barely in this second stage.
I agree with Mansoor, but believe the effect is more nuanced. The two stages (security and services) are not firmly separated. Rather, as the population gradually feels less security needs, people begin to look for the provision of services.
Iraqi forces swept unopposed into Baghdad’s Sadr City today after a compromise with firebrand cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Most commentary focused on the impressive showing of the Iraqi Army, which conducted the operation largely independently. However, I (and also Dr. iRack from Abu Muqawama) noticed something else:
By late Tuesday, Iraqi troops had pushed deep into the district and set up positions around hospitals and police stations, which the Iraqi government was seeking to bring under its control.
A primary target for Iraqi forces seems to have been the facilities providing health services in the area. In the recent weeks Al-Sadr’s militia has tried to use ownership of these services to gain support amongst the population. Now with Iraqi forces firmly in control of Sadr City’s hospitals, it is a race against time to expand and improve available health services to win the support and loyalty of local residents.
Dr. Irack put it well: “[counterinsurgency] is a contest to influence and control the population”. The provision of health services is a low cost, yet powerful, approach to winning that contest. Those providing health services have a significant advantage in winning hearts, minds, and legitimacy in the population. By providing services, the government is aligning itself with the population’s interest. From then on, insurgent attacks are not simply a strike by one side against another, but an attack against the providers of the population’s health. In turn, the population is more willing to cooperate with local security forces in routing out insurgents and sympathizers. If in counterinsurgency populations are the battlefields, then hospitals are part of the commanding heights.
At approximately 10:00am on May 3rd, the United States fired three precision-guided weapons at a small building next to Sadr General Hospital in the Sadr City slum of Baghdad. The building is alleged by coalition forces to be a “criminal element command and control center“. The first munition struck the small building, the second struck the hospital’s ambulance parking lot and broke the hospital’s water line, and the third hit a generator used by the neighborhood but not the hospital.
McClatchy’s Leila Fadel and Shashank Bengali described the damage:
Sadr Hospital, one of two main hospitals serving the massive Shiite Muslim slum, is operating on a backup water supply that wasn’t expected to last longer than 48 hours. On Sunday afternoon, a main street outside the hospital was flooded as workmen tried to repair a series of underground pipes that ruptured when the missiles targeted what U.S. military officials described as a militia outpost a few yards from the hospital.
“If there are no more attacks, we might be able to fix it. We don’t know,” said a hospital security official who gave his name as Abu Sajjad. “Otherwise, in two days we will run out of water and the hospital can’t go on.”
The official said that the U.S. strike also damaged 15 ambulances and forced many hospital staff to flee. Not everyone returned to work Sunday, leaving a Spartan emergency ward nearly empty of doctors.
The airstrike betrays an understandable ignorance in coalition forces towards the nature of health care delivery. While coalition forces avoid targeting hospitals directly, this does not protect the ability of the hospital to function. The rational for not striking hospitals is to keep them operating and providing health to the local population. However, any hospital’s functions are reliant on a large network of facilities and services. This network includes ambulance facilities and water lines. Most of these network nodes exist outside the hospital’s physical perimeter and whose presence is not calculated into airstrike planning. If policy makers truly want to maintain access to healthcare during armed conflict they must consider not only the hospital’s physical facilities but also key nodes in the area’s health care network, regardless of whether or not they fly the red cross.
Last month, American and Iraqi forces launched a major push into the Sadr City section of Baghdad. The operations led to intense fighting and crippled Sadr City’s already flimsy infrastructure. As a result, large swaths of Sadr City are currently without trash collection, sewer systems, electricity, food, and access to health services.
The situation in Sadr city represents not only a humanitarian disaster, but also a direct threat to winning hearts and minds. Michael Gordon, in his New York Times article, points out the problem:
On Saturday, three Sadr City residents gingerly approached an American Army position to deliver a warning: Unless the Iraqi government or its American partner did something to restore essential services and remove the piles of garbage, the militias would gain more support.
…
“Through a ‘Hezbollah-like’ scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country,” notes a recent report by Refugees International, an advocacy group. “As a result of the importance of nonstate actors in the delivery of assistance and security, civilians are joining militias.”
The lack of infrastructure, sanitation, and health services offer opportunities for militias to move quickly, winning hearts and minds by merely providing token services to residents. While the Iraqi government can provide greater levels of support, militias can provide support right now. For example, the Iraqi government is promising $150 million to bolster Sadr City’s infrastructure, however, it will not do so until the security situation improves. The speed of the Sadrists allows them to compete against the Iraqi government for public support at a fraction of the cost. That is, in the battle for hearts and minds, $100 today is worth more than a $10,000 a year from now.
Oops! Looks like some intern forgot to renew the domain name and now the Iraqi Ministry of Health website is owned by a domain squatter. H3r8?/\L V1AG4A ne1?
Sigh.
Hat Tip: FP Passport
The Long War Journal has a gallery of photos from the Sayafiyah Combined Medical Engagement (CME) clinic.
The CME was set up as an outreach program to provide needed medical care and help establish Coalition forces as an agent of goodwill amongst the people in Sayafiyah and Al Sur. The 5/7 Cav has conducted numerous CMEs during its time in Iraq, which helped the CME in Sayafiyah to come together smoothly.
The key to hearts and minds is jobs and health care. If the US is serious about rebuilding its image in the world, these medical operations must be more than token photo-ops and be placed at the core of US global strategy.