The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

secure but is of better quality in general. “USAID housing is fantastic and very cost-effective and secure,” writes a mid-level USAID employee serving in Baghdad. “They should do a case study on how USAID did it versus how the other U.S. agencies did theirs, and [look at] the resulting impact on morale and performance.” A diplomatic security agent writes from Baghdad that the housing “is not nearly as secure as it should be.” An FSO in Baghdad comments: “Half a trailer with a minis- cule shared bathroom is pathetically inadequate. Stray bullets and shrapnel can, and do, pierce trailers.” “Not only is housing inadequate,” writes an FSO serv- ing in Baghdad, “[but] basic privacy is not respected. The F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 6 After a quick breakfast in the “DFAC” (dining facility) in the Republican Palace, joined by visiting U.S. speak- ers Leslie Gelb and Fouad Ajami, along with a Defense Department reservist whose “day job” is serving as a delegate in the Maryland State Legislature, I head off to my office to check e-mail and the overnight newspaper headlines before attending the 8:30 a.m. country-team meeting. Following country team, Gelb, Ajami and I — don- ning flak jackets and helmets — are escorted by my Personal Security Detail to the landing zone on the edge of the palace grounds for a Blackhawk flight to the regional embassy office in Kirkuk, where Gelb and Ajami’s embassy-sponsored speaker program would continue for the coming two days. The two-hour flight, with two refueling stops, flying about 100 feet above ground on a hazy morning, is scenic and uneventful (although it was probably worth asking why the crew didn’t bother to close the chopper doors). Upon arrival in Kirkuk we are transferred by armored motorcade from the military base to the embassy office on the other side of the city. After being shown our quarters and freshening up, we head to the food hall, where we are pleasantly (if enviously) surprised to find that the food at Regional Embassy Office Kirkuk is better than at Embassy Baghdad (something about the on-site food preparation capability and the “scale” of the opera- tion). In mid-afternoon we start putting our speakers to work. First, Gelb and Ajami engage representatives of Kirkuk’s various ethnic communities at a roundtable hosted at the REO, where the discussion centers on the multiethnic nature of the city, its recent history of “eth- nic cleansing” and displacement and the region’s great oil wealth. This session was followed by a dinner event with members of Kirkuk’s regional governing council, also at the REO. In these meetings, representatives of the various eth- nic communities invariably use “the floor” to outline their history, their grievances and their claims on Kirkuk’s resources and future. Anger is expressed by all communities that Kirkuk’s oil wealth has not benefited the city; under the old regime, 100 percent of the rev- enues from Kirkuk’s oil production was taken by the central government for use elsewhere in the country. When the issue of internally-displaced persons comes up, pandemonium almost breaks out, and the speakers have to intervene to move the discussion away from that contentious topic. One obvious aspect of these sessions is that they provide a “therapeutic” opportunity for those from the various Kirkuk communities — who rarely met and com- municated with one another — to air their grievances. Such dialogue facilitation is perhaps one of the most valuable contributions which we outsiders could make. After wrapping up the evening session, we adjourn for a walk in the warm spring air in a small woods on the REO compound, and then — after partaking of some “mid-rats,” or midnight rations, in the food hall — head to our rooms to prepare for an excursion the following day. We are going to the Kurdish regional capital of Sulaimaniya, a two-hour drive from Kirkuk, to meet with the newly-elected provincial governor, the Kurdistan Regional Authority deputy governor and a large group of academics, to discuss Kurdish needs in the new federal Iraq. A Day i n t he L i f e o f . . . Rich Schmierer Public Affairs Officer | Baghdad | April 2005