What's Next For Fallujah?

Here is a report from someone who was on the ground during the rebuilding of Mosul.

If you want more good news from Iraq, scroll down to my link to Chrenkoff's Good News Iraq Part 15.

Once it became obvious that this operation was working, Division Headquarters decided to step things up. We were soon authorized to draw $250,000 at a time (usually about one draw every two weeks- and the maximum withdrawal amount continued to grow), and spend up to $10,000 on a single purchase (more if we obtained the CG's approval).

MG Petraeus (the CG) then decided to split up responsibilities, to avoid duplicating our efforts. My brigade (the 159th AVN BDE) was told to focus on the University, since we had already built up a habitual relationship with them. Our umbrella of responsibility soon began to include all Higher Education through out Mosul (the University, 3 technical schools, and 1 private school). My brand new Brigade Commander, COL Harrison, arrived at about this time (mid-June). At COL Harrison's in brief, the CG told him that Higher Education in Mosul was our #1 priority, not flying helicopters (we had 102 Black Hawks and 34 Chinooks). COL H ordered me to put together about 30 teams, each led by officers from within the brigade, to increase the work effort. Each team had a specific responsibility, i.e. one team was in charge of the Medical College, another was in charge of the Library, another took on the College of Science, etc.

Each team would go out twice a week, arrange projects with their Iraqi counterpart (usually a Dean or a professor), and I would make the payments as required. We held weekly meetings where teams would submit their project requests, and I would prioritize them and approve them based on the amount of money I had left to spend. When I drew more money, I'd approve more projects, get bids on the contracts, hire labor forces, etc. We continued on like this until we left in January of '04. Other units within the 101st did the same thing, but within their own areas of responsibility. The Artillery BDE was in charge of rebuilding security, the Support Brigade was in charge of Lower Education (schools for kids), the 2nd Infantry Brigade was in charge of rebuilding buildings and industries within the City of Mosul, etc. This is how we implemented what came to be known as the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP).

There's lots more.
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