MAL:

Hate to be boring, but, in March 2008, I was standing at a river bank at Bayji watching families and bongo trucks full of produce trying to cross five cars at a time on a gypsy ferry.

The problem was not street cleaning in the village, and could not be addressed by quick-hits and low-hanging fruit.

The problem was that there was a pre-existing market pattern for goods to move across the Tigris at that spot, and that a bridge was needed. Period.

There was a ministerial contract to repair the old bridge, but no contractor willing to go on it (after being attacked a few times)

The other legitimate problem was that every time a bridge was replaced, it was destroyed.

So, the other problem was security.

Know how I know the bridge was really needed? The lines of trucks and cars that started queueing for the Mabe-Johnson bridges (two) before they were even completed.

The solution was, in the end, for serious and effective IA security installations on each side of the river. Then MG Hertling literally had to fly contractors and ministers up to the bridge to prove that it was safe.

Then, with security and Iraqi financing/contractors, it got rebuilt.

Once trade restarted, security started to become a self-fulfilling virtuous engine. Nobody wanted the bridge attacked again. Trade restarted.

That's wartime "re-construction" and not just gratuitous nation-building.

The only economic consequence was positive---reopening the pre-existing bridges to restart prior trade and economic activities.

PS: There was no Iraqi farmer on either side of that bridge that did not already know how to farm. He did not need a week-long course in Jordan, or a new tractor, refrigerated bongo truck or center pivot (unless his had been blown up).

He just needed the damned bridge reopened so he could go back to what he had always done. Grow stuff and sell it in the market.

If, once the market is restored, you can show him ways to improve output or reduce costs, you can be a hero. But, no bridge, no security, no market, no point.

As with the Bayji Bridge, the place & market-specific problems and solutions always seem to get lost, on the US side, in these measurables and programmatic objectives.

Hey. They built a bridge at Bayji and farming restarted! Where else can we build a bridge? How many bridges is equal to PEACE?

Wrong track.

Reconstruction is a remorseless effort in documentation and restoration of things that were before, together with enough security to let things start again (even if by martial law).

The seminal question: What was hear before, and what would it take to return that?

Nation-building is going around and asking what would you like?

In my neighborhood, the answer would better schools, smoother roads, better equipped local hospitals, lower taxes, more police patrols, escalating property values, and a closer Starbucks (but not in my neighborhood). Did I mention lower taxes?

Post-conflict humanitarian aid is a whole different thing. Ask the Red Cross. Food, shelter, treatment, refugee/resettlement assistance.

Why don't our programs focus, for example, on documenting and resettling refugees? Isn't that a valid way to stabilize a community in conflict?