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Austin Teaming Up With Coalition Forces To Help Iraqi Government

In order to aid the Iraq local governments move to the point where they’re sefl-sufficient, Coalition Forces from the 1st “Ironhorse” Brigadge Combat Team are teaming up with officials from the City of Austin, Texas. They’re putting the expertise from the Austin City Managers office to work in teaching local officials in Iraqi communities, how to use these experiences as a model that can be applied in the country in reconstruction efforts.

The partnership actually began prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom II, formed by both 1st Cavalry Division and 4th Infantry Division, using examples of how local governments work by examples from the City of Austin. Meetings and information sharing is held with officials from Austin through video teleconferencing and conference calls. According to the deputy commanding officer of 1st BCT, Lt. Col. Peter Andrysiak, having the ability to use a real local government for advise and reach back capabilities is extremely helpful in guiding the locally elected Iraqi officials with issues that might arise.

“They’re showing us great models that can be applied in teching, coaching and mentoring local Iraqi governments,” said Andrysiak. “It’s good to have professionals, that do this everyday, to advise us.”

“We’re focusing solely on policy-making and administrative aspects,” he said. Toby Hammett Futrell’s team is showing us ideas that work, giving examples which they have used and saying ‘here’s something that we’ve used before and it works.’”

Military officials realize that Iraqi officials have their own systems of government and they’re working within that system and attempting to give examples of systems that have worked in Austin, that way work there as well. Some things in government, regardless of the country or culture are inherent to the government process. Some models in places are essential to running any government. The Iraqi’s are able to take the models gleaned from the City of Austin and adapt them as necessary to fit their own culture .

The brigade has experts in place from the US Agency for International Development and the State Department in the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams(ePRT), however the partnership just enhances that and fills in the gaps where some of the experts on the ePRT team might not have experience in, due to the difference between National government and local government. The members of the ePRT welcome the advice and assistance from Austin. In the past, with information from Austin, the focus has shifted, from using a one dimensional approach to the approaching it from a more three dimensional way. According to Col. Mike Briggs, the ePRT team leader, a local government is one with a large number of players involved and in the past, they weren’t helping the Iraqi’s leverage all the aspects that made up the local government.

As work has progressed with the advice from Austin officials, they discovered that the piece they had been missing was helping to create a leadership team which could administrate the provision of services and manage the staff needed for these services.

“We (the coalition) were actually acting in roles of the mayor and technical branch of government by delivering products and services to the people, which wasn’t helping the local government become self-reliant,” said Andrysiak.

Emphasis has now been placed on the establishment of a local Qa’im Makam or a city manager/mayor who could work with the city councils and oversee technical branches of the government. This person will serve as an administrator to manage the services and bring in experts in fields such as medical, emergency services, wtaer, electricity, waste management and other fields of expertise, in order to best deliver services to citizens of the cities. As in an American city, the Qa’im Makam would be in charge of hiring, payroll and firing of people who would be working in the local technical departments. According to Andrysiak, the ability of the Qa’im Makam to work closely with the people will be integral in the successful functioning of the local government. Officials feel that the local Qa’im Makam working with city councils and technical branches will be much more representative of the local populace, than when the coalition forces were acting in that capacity.

“As elected officials, they need to get out among the people and bring local citizens into the process,” said Andrysiak. “Under Saddam Hussein the people had no say in anything, so thy may be a litte hesitant to get involved in the government.”

“They will see that when you take part in the government process, it benefits you the more you participate,” he said, also explaining that Iraqi citizens will eventually be the voice behind their government with the ability to speak their opinions without fear of reprisals - giving them a much larger say in how their government operates.

It’s great that the Coalition Forces are recognizing that in order to best help the Iraqi’s become fully self-sufficient, that utilizing the expertise of other entities in the United States who’s expertise is outside the scope of the military, can only serve to make the transition much easier and give the Iraqi government and it’s people a much better chance for success. This will be something to continue to watch, to see how well this works.

1st Cav Division Daily Charge, Tuesday July 10th

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