Posted on 04/01/2008 8:35:50 PM PDT by kathsua
My work here in Kirkuk, Iraq is falling into a normal routine that I, and probably everyone else who is aware of my current U.S. State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) employment, would not have thought possible.
The normal Iraqi work week is Sunday through Thursday. On those days, I travel to the KGB (Kirkuk Government Building) to work with local Iraqis. Friday and Saturday, I stay back at the PRT office to work with all of the PRT staff. The PRT staff is divided into several smaller sections focusing on infrastructure, rule of law, education, economics, agriculture, governance and public diplomacy. I am part of the Public Diplomacy Section.
The KGB is the seat of government for the Kirkuk Province. The Provincial Council meets in their chambers in this building, the governor and deputy governor have offices here, and the PRT sections also have offices spread around this government complex. The governor, provincial council chairman, and a majority of the Provincial Council are Kurdish but as part of the reconciliation effort between the different ethnic groups, an Arab was appointed as deputy governor. The Arab politicians had been boycotting the Provincial Council before an end to this boycott was negotiated, with assistance from the PRT.
Some of the work I have been involved with includes providing American Corner Books to a provincial council member who is on the education committee. These English-language teaching books were then given to the Kirkuk University’s English Education College library. Additional Scholastic Books in Arabic have been ordered to provide books to the public school system. I am also involved in meetings with nongovernmental organizations such as Kurdistan Save the Children. KSC has a project to test the eyesight of grade school children in Kirkuk and buy glasses for children who cannot afford them. I was part of three meetings with KSC and the Kirkuk Provincial Directorates of Health and Education, to coordinate this effort. KSC also brought to our attention the conditions in the Kirkuk Juvenile Detention Center and that they have Kurdish language story books to provide to school children.
Our Public Diplomacy Team has involved the Public Health, Education, and Rule of Law sections from the PRT to respond to these issues.
Another area of work our Public Diplomacy section has undertaken is to establish a local news media review office to provide English language translations of local TV, radio and newspaper stories. This translated news product is provided to the PRT staff and also to other State Department officials in Baghdad, to monitor local public issues. Our section also sets up interviews with Iraqi media for our PRT team leader to provide information concerning issues of interest to the local Iraqi population.
To staff our media review office, three skilled multilingual journalists and a staff interpreter were hired to translate the local Arabic, Kurdish and Turkman language news reports to English. Of my four Iraqi fellow coworkers, two are Arab and two are Kurdish. After they translate these stories to English it still requires a native English speaker to put it into an easily readable format and sort the stories by topics to produce a final product. I had done some of this work for the first information we produced but fortune smiled on our office and we had a new US Army Civil Affairs Unit assigned to the PRT.
With this new unit we were able to add Sergeant Zach Zerger to our Public Diplomacy team. He brought with him excellent journalistic and language skills that definitely upgraded the quality of the information we were able to provide.
A little background on Sgt. Zerger, he lives in Lawrence, is a KU graduate, and is naturally still rooting for the Jayhawks in the NCAA tournament. He is with the U.S. Army Civil Affairs A Company 418 based in Belton, Mo (Kansas City area) and his father lives in Hutchinson, so he has a local connection.
A final side note, I was able to celebrate the holiday known as Nowruz on the Friday before Easter. Nowruz, which translates as “new year,” is the beginning of spring and is widely celebrated by Iraqi Kurds. This holiday was my first opportunity to be outside the high security of the FOB Warrior or the high security compound that houses the KGB. I attended this celebration near Altun Kapri city, which is in northern Kirkuk Province. The governor and deputy governor of Kirkuk Province were also at this celebration and there were big and little groups celebrating all over the countryside as we drove north out of Kirkuk. It was wonderful to mingle with the local people and take part in their traditions. All of the people I met that day consider America a friend and expressed their appreciation for the freedom they enjoy.
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.
Thanks. Kirkuk, where the Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’a hate each other so much that peace will never be possible, at least, according to lots of press reports.
The Department of State has two dozen PRTs thoughout Iraq. We all work on building the capacity of the local and provincial governments to govern and provide essential services. Here in Ramadi where I head a PRT we go every day out in the city and work with Iraqis. Our focus is helping the local levels of government connect with the national and get Iraqi money and resources down to the street.
The place looked like post WWII Stalingrad just a year ago and now utilities are back up, commerce is bustling, and there is good local government based on beighborhoods getting together.
thanks to you and the other members of your team for doing such a good job.
Great job, but I still don’t understand why anyone thousands of miles in a war zone would want their last name and hometown published.
A little background on Sgt. Zerger, he lives in Lawrence, is a KU graduate...
Another NCO with a college degree. This isn't an uncommon story but it still infuriates me to hear the droning on the left that one serves in the military only if one has no job, no money, no prospects, no hope. "Stuck in Iraq" as one particularly supercilious Presidential candidate once bleated.
We sent them our best, soldier and civilian.
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