Tales of war and peace from Iraq

Intellectually, Americans know that their nation is at war in Iraq. They read the news items about U.S. soldiers’ deaths and hear the sound bites as politicians argue pro and con about surges and withdrawal and timelines and benchmarks.

But most Americans are emotionally detached from the fight against terrorism because they don’t have a loved one or a friend in Iraq — or Afghanistan — nor have they themselves served overseas. They’ve sacrificed nary one creature comfort as their part of the effort.

Not everyone gets the opportunity to speak directly with people who have been there, done that, worn out the T-shirt. I have, and so I bring you the thoughts of three Americans who’ve had boots on the ground in Iraq.

From west of Baghdad

The reference point in Stephen McFarland’s life is Meridian, Texas, where he was born. His mother’s family has lived in Bosque County since the 1850s.

It can’t be easy to remember the normalcy of life in central Texas — or even that of northern Virginia, where his wife and children live — when one does what McFarland does these days. The career foreign service officer is the team leader for one of 10 embedded provisional reconstruction teams (EPRTs) working with the military in Iraq.

McFarland is part of President Bush’s “clear, hold and build” strategy for Iraq. Additional combat troops weren’t the only ones sent overseas in the “surge.”

The main focus of McFarland’s work is to support municipal government in the al-Asad region along the Euphrates River, west of Baghdad. McFarland’s team of nine, which includes a banker and a budgeting specialist, is integrated with civil affairs specialists in Marine Regimental Combat Team 2 to engage tribes and increase their links to provisional and central government.

Reception by the locals is “generally positive,” McFarland said during a recent phone interview from Baghdad. “Certainly, there are people out there who want to shoot us and blow us up. We’ve lost Marines who have worked with us. But the insurgents also are killing their people. They’ve tried to be neutral, but it’s not an option.”

When asked if the surge is working, McFarland replied like the State Department careerist he is.

“I’m probably not the person to give the view from 30,000 feet, but in this province, things are progressing. The men and women in the U.S. military are doing remarkable jobs under stressful conditions, and they do it with professionalism and determination.”

From south of Baghdad

Like McFarland, Thomas Timberman is career foreign service. He leads an EPRT effort that is focused on re-establishing agricultural programs in North Babil, an area south of Baghdad.

Timberman stressed the practical importance of partnering with the military.

“The civil affairs teams have relatively easy access to funds” to purchase equipment, such as tractors and water pumps needed to irrigate fields, Timberman said during a recent phone interview from Baghdad.

“There is a global sense that all Iraqis are anti-American and opposed to U.S. presence,” he said. “Most of that rests on the kinetic relationship of the U.S. forces and their combat engagement with militant forces.

“But we’ve been here four months and have witnessed the desire and receptivity to learn how to take care of themselves. We are trying to restore the ability of the people in rural communities to do what they’ve done for 100 years and reduce their requirement to have much to do with the central government.”

Timberman, who worries that a drawdown of troops would mean the embedded teams would have to “pull back into central locations,” signed up for a 12-month stint but has asked for an extension. “I think it will take 18 months minimum to train and coach the model communities to solve their own problems, earn their own money and knowledgeably spend it.”

From Mosul

Army Reserve Major Scott Baum admits that his was not the standard assignment in Iraq.

He “went native,” said the now clean-shaven and neatly dressed intelligence officer from a corner table Thursday at a cafe in Fort Worth.

Baum, who’s been back home in Fort Worth since early July, was embedded with the 3rd Iraqi Military Transition Team in northwest Iraq.

Forty Americans. More than 1,500 Iraqi troops. In an area readily recognized by anyone who’s studied the Bible: Nineveh, on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in modern-day Mosul.

Baum said he spent 40 percent of his time training the Iraqis on strategies and tactics of war. The rest was spent acting as a mediator and negotiator in a process known as atwah.

“I can’t change the culture or the religion — same thing — and I can’t change the history,” he said. “I had to work with it.”

News from home about the divisive political debates about the war was “not discouraging for me, but I’m not a 17-year-old private.”

“By design, debate about the war should occur. There probably should have been more debate before the invasion. But it’s the very public and political nature that’s disheartening. Looking back at how we got here and pointing fingers isn’t helping. Political slap fights are not helping what’s happening on the ground.”

And the public discord, Baum believes, fuels the global strategy of the terrorists.

“And there is a global strategy. It’s not just five or six guys sitting in a desert deciding to attack the infidels.”

X Jill “J.R.” Labbe is deputy editorial page editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.