The Foreign Service Journal, March 2004

Training for Baghdad To help rebuild Iraq, what was the best training to work at Jay Garner’s Office of Reconstruction and Humani- tarian Assistance? Arabic language? Certainly helpful, since many of Iraq’s English-speaking civil servants, given their past associations, were looking for other employment. Iraqi history and area studies? Also useful, given the baffling duplication of political groups and the fog of ethno-religious politics, in which alliances change daily and outside powers back rival groups simultaneously. And don’t forget about com- bat training: the chic fashion wear in Baghdad was a flak vest and Michael Dukakis-style helmet. But all the above missed the essentials of coping with life in Baghdad in the earliest days of the ORHA: an Iraqi society that found itself without moorings after decades of rigid dictatorship; and staff living conditions that vio- lated all standards of health and decency. What was the best training for that? For me, it was my experience over 20 years before: spending 75 days as an embassy political officer on the streets of post-revolutionary Iran in the summer and fall of 1979; and then spending 444 days, beginning Nov. 4, 1979, in the Ayatollah Khomeini’s jails as a hostage, or “guest,” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Those first 75 days were the best of my 30 years in the Foreign Service. The next 444 were the worst. But they were both excellent preparation for Baghdad in the spring of 2003. In that first period I had to work in a soci- ety where all the certainties — for better or worse — of a regime that had once seemed invulnerable were gone. In both cases, nothing fixed had yet replaced the earlier, harsh system, and ordinary citizens, now able to talk freely for the first time in their lives, saw both enormous new possibilities and dangers. The immediate question both in Tehran in 1979 and Baghdad in 2003 was: “Now that the tyrant is gone, what will become of us?” The larger question was, and is: “Now that we are masters in our own house, which of us shall be masters and in what kind of house?” Iran in 1979 and Iraq in 2003 were settings a Foreign Service officer dreams about. There were no congres- sional delegations to care for, no receptions to attend, no briefing memos to prepare, and no embassy housing committees to serve on. There was only the reality of competing social and political visions, and the certainty that when you went out the door you would never encounter what you expected. But whatever you did encounter, it would make your head hurt, and put maximum strain on your ingenuity, inventiveness, patience and sense of humor. So much for my training time “on the street” in Iran. The rest of my time there, spent doing hard time in the cells, was much less fun, but still excellent preparation for Baghdad 24 years later. It taught me how to cope with bugs, bad food, senseless rules, infrequent showers, sweaty roommates in close quarters, poor sanitation, dirty clothes and isolation from the outside world. In both situations I became a pack rat, hoarding precious objects such as plastic spoons, paper, detergent, candles and matches. Baghdad in April and May 2003 and Tehran in the summer and fall of 1979 were not entirely the same. But much of what we saw in Iran — the uncertainty, the hopes, the new possibilities and the anxieties — we saw among our Iraqi friends 24 years later. I also learned, once again, that one can survive bad food and bad smells, and that even an infrequent shower can be a joy to be recalled and savored for days. — John Limbert Amb. Limbert is president of the American Foreign Service Association. Diplomatic Maneuvers When I signed on as Senior Coalition Adviser to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, I understood that my job would be to go to the ministry, take the elevator up to the min- ister’s office, find out who was in charge and take it from there. The reality was very different. Daily life in Baghdad combined elements of a backpacking trip and prison camp. It took three days just to link up with mili- tary civil affairs officers who could physically get me to the ministry. We found the main building systematically burned and looted by departing Saddam loyalists, who had stripped the outbuildings of all windows, furniture and electrical and plumbing fixtures. Windblown docu- ments served as ground cover. An affable young Iraqi materialized out of the rubble and identified himself as Hamid from Protocol. Hamid agreed to get word to as many ministry employees as pos- sible, and we would all meet back at the ministry in two F O C U S M A R C H 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 55 The chic fashion wear in Baghdad was a flak vest and Michael Dukakis-style helmet.