Iraq `Getting Better,' Local Reservist Says
By JOHN VAUGHAN
jvaughan@tampatrib.com
TAMPA - Through the televised smoke of a recent bombing in Iraq, Bill Falkner saw a sign of progress. ``What struck me was that it was not American soldiers running to the scene and doing things that would control the situation,'' he said. New Iraqi police officers, ``these folks in their blue shirts, were actually controlling the scene. This is actually becoming a working police force.''
That's particularly important to Falkner, a Pinellas County lawyer who's a long way from home these days. In Iraq, he's an Army Reserve colonel working with the U.S. civil affairs operation to bring democratic forms and functions to a former dictatorship.
What bothers him, he said Monday in a telephone interview from Baghdad, is that he thinks few Americans see what he sees through the daily violence of postwar Iraq.
``Why are we focusing on the vehicle that blew up outside the building when there are ... buildings being constructed, water lines being built, people's lives being improved?'' he asked.
President Bush's administration is concerned about the same question in the effort to maintain public support for the occupation of Iraq. And that explains the role of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in arranging the interview with Falkner.
``What I've seen is that the `ground truth' of what's going on out there is simply not known,'' said Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson of Central Command public affairs. ``What I've been doing is [arranging] interviews with the people who are actually doing the work.''
Falkner, a senior assistant county attorney in Pinellas, is among about 1,700 Americans doing the ground- level work of ``nation building'' in Iraq.
These professionals in various vocations are helping to improve health care, upgrade utilities and reopen schools. They are training security forces and establishing local governing councils.
They are spending months away from their homes, their families and their careers to tackle the challenge of creating a stable democracy amid frequent attacks from insurgents.
Falkner and others say the work is progressing better than many realize.
``My sense is that across the board each day, things are getting better, whether you're talking about energy or water or security or schools or medical,'' Falkner said. ``Progress is faster in some areas than in others. It's certainly not as fast as those of us are used to in the West. ... There's still a lot of work to be done.
``I think the thing that stands out the most to me, with my background dealing with county government and previously being a military police officer, is the progress being made in police services and the Iraqi civil defense corps.
``The Iraqi police force under Saddam Hussein was not comparable to what most of the civilized world would recognize as a police force. ... There was really no effective law enforcement.''
Violence Can't Be Ignored
Lawlessness and violence remain the most pressing challenge, though.
Ten days ago, Central Command announced that as many as 400 staff would leave Tampa for wartime headquarters in the Middle East to help their leader, Gen. John Abizaid, respond with what he called a sense of urgency to increased guerrilla attacks in Iraq.
Abizaid has acknowledged his concern that a few thousand enemy fighters have been able to create an impression in the news media that ``they are stronger than they are.''
Falkner echoed that point.
``We probably hoped there wouldn't be the type of danger that we see on a daily basis,'' he said. ``I'm sure I didn't expect, and the other forces didn't expect, it would be free of any kind of violence. But I think we're dealing well with it and continuing to do our mission.''
Abizaid has resisted putting a timetable on a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued a confidential memo warning his top staff of a ``long, hard slog.''
Seeing The Job Through
Falkner is a Stetson University law graduate who became a lawyer in 1984. His wife, Linda, works at a Christian school, and they have two daughters, Heather, 15, and Holly, 9. He spent 5 1/2 years on active military police duty, then the last 22 in the Army Reserve.
None of it fully prepared him for what he has done during the majority of his nine months of deployment - because there is nowhere to get formal training in constructing a democracy in the Middle East. He also acknowledged being ``one of the folks caught up'' in the unexpected decision to extend service time in the region. Falkner can't expect to be home to his family until spring.
He wouldn't say whether he, like some others, plans to call it quits with the Army after that.
John Vaughan can be reached at (813) 259-7524.
This story can be found at: http://tampatrib.com/floridametronews/MGAY2Q1JFND.html
