Muntheria

Hello everyone,

I trust that everyone has been getting their fair share of the Olympics, and more importantly, pre-season football. I haven't had the opportunity to see much of either. I didn't even get to watch the 9 year-old Chinese girl lip-synching during the opening ceremonies, so I guess I am missing out on some good stuff. I did read an Op-ed where the writer blames that incident on the US because of the emphasis on beauty in the States. The "Hate America First" crowd doesn't let up.

As part of my ongoing collection effort, I spent some time out east on the Iraq-Iran border gathering information on Port of Entry Transition Teams (POETT). Closely related, but not quite the same, is the Border Transition Team (BTT). The BTT works with the Iraqi version of our Border Patrol, and the POETT works with the customs, passport, and immigration people at the (legal) border crossings (as my wife asked, "Do they really have people immigrating to Iraq?).

The Port of Entry (POE) which I visited is called the Muntheria POE, which sits near a city called Khanaqin. Khanaqin is in the northeastern area of Diyala Province. This area has a heavy Kurdish population, and the Kurdish tribal affiliation crosses the border into Iran. Interestingly, the water and electric lines coming into Muntheria come from Iran. The cell tower sitting on Muntheria is Iranian. Unfortunately, although electricity still flows to the POE from Iran, the Iranians cut off the water when the US POETT moved onto the port. A somewhat high level priority is for a desert based port of entry to have water, so that issue is being worked by someone (I think).

The terrain up in the Muntheria area is similar in appearance to eastern Utah, with hills and rock outcroppings everywhere. The trip out there could only be accomplished partially by helicopter, with the final two hours being accomplished on the road in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP. The ride was somewhat like a 2-hour serpentine course, with the vehicles weaving in and around holes from previous IEDs. In addition to the IEDs, the whole area up there still has its fair share of mines from the Iraq-Iran War in the 80's. Tank and field artillery fighting positions are still present, and they face both east and west, which speaks to the back and forth nature of that fight. On the way to Muntheria, we passed by a small village that sat probably 200 yards off of the road. As we approached, it was obvious that the kids in that village had ears for the MRAPs. These kids came pouring out of the village and running towards the road. The gunners threw what little toys and candy they had out to the kids, and, as in any survival of the fittest situation, the big burly kids made sure that they took anything that the little kids picked up.

The POETT at Muntheria has done a great job at building up trust with the Iraqi personnel at the POE. Overall, the Iraqis working there seem to possess a good deal of competence. The POE commander, a Brigadier General (BG) Kahlid, comes down hard on corruption, and he even signed paperwork to fire a corrupt employee while we were meeting with him in his office. The POE only handles pedestrian traffic at this point, with buses (or relatives) transporting Iranian visitors to their destinations once they are inside Iraq. Many visitors come from Iran to visit the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. The exception to the pedestrian traffic is that oil tankers roll from east to west continuously. The tankers transport unrefined crude oil into Iran, and they return empty or with refined fuel. The goal of the POE is to eventually open up to other types of commercial traffic. Prior to 2003, the POE supposedly processed 2000 people per day. That number today is somewhere around 300 people per day. The POE commander does not believe that he receives enough funding from Baghdad to get the port to the performance or appearance level that he wants. Being that this is a Kurdish region, and since the area might end upin the Kurdish autonomous zone after the elections, the central government is not eager to spend money up in the Khanaqin area, although the government is more than happy to receive the income from trucks coming through from Iran.

Besides US military personnel working on the POETT, there are also Department of Homeland Defense and Border Enforcement Administration employees assigned there. These guys are the experts at running border ports and securing the border (go ahead - insert wise crack about the US border security). Despite the well run nature of the POE, there are unofficial border crossing points where other types of products and people enter the country, just as happens in the US. Some of those people belong to the Iranian Special Groups. With the new toned down nature of the Shiite Mahdi Army in Baghdad, the Iranians are supposedly training operatives to get back into Iraq to target US forces and Iraqi leaders for assassination.

As always, I had the opportunity to visit with Iraqi leadership and drink Chai tea while I was traveling. I was able to meet the POE Commander, the POE fire chief (he wanted the US to buy him a bigger TV), and the Director of Passports & Immigration. In the first attached picture, I am seated next to COL Shugart, who is the Director of Passports and Immigration. He reminded me of my grandma in that he wouldn't stop sticking those pastries in our face. The next picture is of BG Kahlid, who is celebrating in traditional Iraqi fashion after the grand opening of a shooting range complex on his POE. First lesson - stop shooting your weapon straight in the air when there are people standing around you. The third picture is obviously towards the Iranian side of the border.

Let me do something different and share a couple of observations from outside of Iraq. If anyone still tries to make a moral equivalence between US and Russian forces as they did during the cold war, they only need to look at the Russians today to see the major difference. Saddam and his cronies raped and pillaged their own people all across Iraq until the US showed up. Now that type of behavior is unacceptable in this country. The Russian army showed up in Georgia, and now they are running around raping, pillaging, and looting that country. While a Russian officer was forcing some Georgians to work for him, he said to an AP reporter that, "You can even make a monkey look human by putting him to work," and then he threatened to arrest the reporter if she used his name or took his picture. I hope people are paying attention.

While the US Army is conducting plenty of non-traditional missions over here, it is now resorting to non-traditional missions back in the US. Acouple of years ago, someone warned the nation's youth that they had better do well in school or they will end up in the Army. The reality is that they had better do well in school or else they will need to get a waiver to have the privilege of serving in the Army. GEN William Wallace, the commander of the Army's Training & Doctrine Command (under whose command I currently fall), is extremely concerned about studies that show that only 28% of US 17-24 year-olds meet the Army's physical, intellectual, and moral criteria for enlistment. As a result of his concern, the Army is opening a charter school in South Carolina to get students qualified to join the Army. The Army charter effort will soon move to other states as well. Yes, we have a crisis in education in the US, and yes, it does ultimately affect our national security.

I will be pulling a different type of duty for the next couple of weeks. I will be sitting on a board at a US detention facility in southern Iraq in which we will be reviewing Iraqi detainee files to make recommendations for the release or further detention of the Iraqi prisoners. It should be interesting.

Take care.