Letters from Iraq: Kansan adjusts to his new environment

The Hutchinson News ^ | 02/04/08 | Martin Miller

[kathsua]

Hutchinson’s Martin Miller, Kansas Department of Transportation public affairs manager, left in December to take a one-year post as a public diplomacy officer as part of the U.S. State Department’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq.

PRTs are the civilian component of the U.S. surge strategy – designed to support and reconstruct Iraqi neighborhoods.

Miller writes about his experiences based in Kirkuk, Iraq’s fourth-largest city, with a population of about 700,000. The city is 155 miles north of Baghdad at the foot of the Zargos Mountains in northern Iraq.

Hello All,

I tried to stay up to watch the Super Bowl, but it started at 3 a.m., so I woke up around 4 and saw a little bit of the second quarter, but that was it. I did watch the highlights later on the sports programs.

We had a military appreciation lunch here at the PRT today. The army folks that work with us will be leaving in a month and a new group will be coming in. The new Army Civil Affairs Unit is from Belton, Mo., and some of their members are from Kansas, including a former city administrator from Harper.

In the attached picture, I am with Naz. She is one of our BBAs (Bicultural Bilingual Advisors). The BBAs for the PRT cooked traditional Kurdish food and Naz was dressed in traditional Kurdish dress.

The BBAs are Iraqis who have lived in the U.S., and most are U.S. citizens, and they have accepted employment to be part of the PRT staff. Their language skills and cultural awareness are very instrumental in our work.

You can see our CHUs (Containerized Housing Units) in the background of the picture. I have a large room, 18 foot by 10 foot, with a queen-sized bed and my own bathroom with a shower, so the living conditions here are some of the best in Iraq. We eat in a DFAC (dining facility) that is at least 100,000 square feet, and the food is very good. I can’t send pictures of a lot of these things because it is not allowed because of security.

I want to say hello to everyone back at KDOT and Hutchinson. Getting here to Kirkuk, Iraq, has been a struggle. It has been a little bit like the movie “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” except it has involved Boeing and Airbus jets, a USAF C-17, a Rhino (armored bus), an Army Blackhawk helicopter, a USAF C-130, an armored Toyota Landcruiser and now uparmored Humvees.

I work with local Iraqis Sunday through Thursday and with U.S. State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team staff on Friday and Saturday. The work I am currently involved in includes working with my PRT Public Diplomacy co-worker, Joanne Joria, to set up a Media Review Cell that will monitor local TV, radio and newspapers to provide translated reports of important news events taking place in Kirkuk Province and how the different media outlets provide a biased version to fit their political leanings.

Our PRT Team Leader meets daily with the Provincial Council Chairman and the Governor of Kirkuk, and they consider him to be a key adviser in bringing the different ethnic groups together in Kirkuk. This province is home to Kurds, Arabs, Turkman and ChaldoAssyrians, so it has the potential to be volatile, but through PRT assistance it continues to become more stable and inclusive of all people.

I have already contacted a couple of people from KDOT to ask advice concerning things I am working on here and will probably be asking others.

I also work on a daily basis with U.S. Army soldiers and this working relationship has given me an even greater respect for our military. They are very professional, have great morale and have been invaluable for all of us State Department civilians. We could not do our work without them.

[kathsua]

The State Department is also working to help Iraqi neighborhoods.

[David Isaac]

My son was based southwest of Kirkuk, just a few miles, for 15 months. His battalion lost 18. His Brigade Command was in Kirkuk, with Maj. Gen Mixon, being in charge of the Northern Sector. I shall always remember that place.