The report looks like what I saw a lot of from disconnected civilians dropped on a FOB without a whole lot of movement/access resources, clearly defined missions, or good translators.

They didn't see much, couldn't go out much, generated a lot of powerpoints, though, surfed the net, and sent a lot of emails home. Always billed overtime.

One of my PRT colleagues at a faraway satellite in Northen Iraq was visited upon by a CIA team. He said he was surprised by their questions; suggested they really didn't understand what was going on or what to ask.

If a CIA team couldn't effectively engage the problem, how could you expect a "windshield" anthropologist, often with little contact or support from the military, to reach it?

As just a dumbass technocrat, I would look at the quality and character of translations and just scratch my head. I read one report requesting urgent repairs for electrical generators that demonstrated the problem. The provincial DGs were asking for funding for enclosures to protect their generators from dust and heat. The translator turned ity into "porches" which the US civilian funders thought was something unnecessary for the Iraqi's to sit out on while watching the generator.

The sadder mistranslation stories, which most of you know first hand, suggest that even if you were told the right answer, you may not have gotten it.

More often, too, we got two answers---the first at a meeting with others present, and the second later in private (180 degree difference).

You have to be pretty good to punch through all of that as a visiting civilian.

Like the AAA report indicates, there were buck sergeants on their second tour whho knew more than most of the reports they got.

More important, the HTS after-action comments sound pretty reminsicent of the PRT de-briefs done by USIP. A tremendous amount of wasted human resources, there at great very great costs (not just monitary).