PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
05 August 2008
Notes from the Field
Look inside the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as they work to improve the lives and livelihoods of Afghans and Iraqis.
Future postings will focus on other teams across Afghanistan and Iraq and their work in fostering development in these emerging democracies.
Airport Offers New Opportunities for Afghan Farmers (Posted 08/05/2008)
Washington –- A $45 million project to refurbish an airport in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province could help Afghan farmers reclaim their country’s reputation as a leading regional producer of fruit and nut crops instead of opium and other illicit drugs, says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Afghan and U.S. officials gathered at Lashkar Gah Bost Airport’s dusty airstrip August 3 to break ground on a massive reconstruction project to transform the 1960s-era field into a modern regional airport for both passenger and cargo flights, accompanied by an adjoining agricultural processing center, opening the way for the region’s once-famous pomegranates, dried fruits and nuts to return to the domestic and international marketplace.
“This is a deeply important project for Helmand,” says provincial governor Gulab Mangal. “Reliable air transportation for both cargo and [passengers] is a critical component of developing Helmand province’s economy.”
U.S. deputy chief of mission Ambassador Christopher Dell joined the provincial governor at the ceremony, along with representatives from the Afghan agricultural and transportation ministries. The project, jointly funded by USAID and the Afghan government, is one of several initiatives across the province aimed at capitalizing on this trend, creating new opportunities for rural Afghan families to take part in a growing regional economy, says a USAID press release issued later in the day.
USAID will fund a 30-meter-wide, 2,200-meter-long asphalt runway, a new terminal, car park and perimeter fencing works, while the Afghan government will install ground-to-air communications, landing lights and additional aircraft parking apron. The agricultural center, also built by USAID, will be joined by a new police station and Helmand’s first fire station, both provided by a British Provincial Reconstruction Team, to service the airport and the surrounding community.
Historically part of Afghanistan’s agricultural heartland, Helmand is among five southern Afghan provinces that account for 83 percent of the country’s opium poppy cultivation, which in turn accounts for virtually all of the heroin and related illegal narcotics flooding into Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. But while 2007’s record-breaking Afghan opium poppy harvest captured headlines, the United Nations also says that poppy cultivation continues to shrink in the country’s other 26 provinces, including eight regions now regarded as “poppy-free.”
With expanding security, governance and development, farmers in northern and eastern Afghanistan have largely returned to traditional crops, but the south’s opium trade is increasingly dominated by drug kingpins and wealthy landowners who have partnered with the Taliban to take advantage of continued insecurity, says a March 11 report from the State Department’s Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL).
The Afghan government recently renewed its commitment to confront the opium trade as well as the violence and corruption it promotes through the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, released in Paris June 12 at the centerpiece of the International Conference to Support Afghanistan. (See “Afghan Development Plan Confronts Drug Traffickers.”)
Passenger flights at the new airport are expected to begin as soon as early 2009, with cargo flights to follow soon after.
“This project sets the foundation for improved access to markets and the transport of largess for the people of Helmand and for those wishing to do business in the province,” says Mangal.
Provincial Reconstruction Teams Reconnecting Afghanistan (Posted 6/17/2008)
When first lady Laura Bush touched down in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province June 8, she was greeted by a flock of Kiwis -- troops from New Zealand serving in one of 26 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) helping to reconnect the Afghan people to the central government with improved infrastructure, education and economic opportunity.
“Even though New Zealand's national defense force is not large, its PRT has been providing security and promoting development in Bamiyan since 2003,” Mrs. Bush said June 12 in Paris at the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan. “Their work shows the power of international collaboration in securing Afghanistan's progress.”
Security operations may dominate the news from Afghanistan, but behind the headlines the diplomats, soldiers, and civilian experts of these PRTs are helping the people of Afghanistan make quiet but unmistakable progress reconnecting their country after decades of violence and oppressive rule.
“Any effective counterinsurgency strategy will require more than just military action,” President Bush said during a March 13 White House videoconference with PRT leaders in Afghanistan.
In eastern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led Ghazni PRT has brought together diplomats, humanitarian assistance and development experts from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and farming specialists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help area residents equip a new hospital, acquire 19 new ambulances, and improve roads across the region.
Improved roads mean better access to markets and services, which PRTs are helping to stimulate with micro-grants to small businesses, enabling them to reopen by restocking inventory, restoring business equipment, repairing damaged shops, and hiring more employees.
About 100 kilometers east in Paktia, another PRT has brought five area tribes together to improve their community and build links to the central government in Kabul. Only two percent of the local population could read or write in 2004, but thanks to two new schools built by the PRT and area residents, literacy is improving and 60 percent of area children are able to get an education locally, instead of traveling to Pakistan or other provinces.
To the south, the British-led Lashkar Gah PRT in Helmand province includes members from Estonia, Denmark and the United States. It has helped 600 local youths resume studies by repairing and reopening a high school. It also convinced hundreds of farmers to give up raising opium in favor of legal crops.
In western Afghanistan, USAID and USDA members of PRT Farah work closely with the Italian-led ISAF contingent, local government and tribal leaders to dig new wells, deliver wheat seed to local farmers and build new roads and bridges.
Twelve of these PRTs are led by the United States and 14 are led by allies and partner states that also support the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
-- In Kandahar, Canada has provided literacy training for more than 5,000 Afghans and vaccinated more than 360,000 against polio.
-- In Helmand, the United Kingdom has brought clean drinking water to more than 175,000 people and provided microcredit to more than 336,000 small businesses.
-- Training programs run by Germany and other nations have helped put more than 58,000 soldiers and 80,000 police on the streets.
“There are difficulties, but we're also making progress,” Bush said. “And the job at hand is to help these folks recover, help the Afghans realize there's a better future for them.”
PRTs Bring “Chicken Run” to Yusufiyah (Posted 05/19/2008)
In the final of three dispatches from Baghdad province, PRT leader Lou Lantner talks about the challenges facing a new generation of Iraqi leaders as they take advantage of security improvements to start new businesses.
Hi, my name is Lou Lantner. I’m the Team Leader of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (EPRT) Baghdad Number 4. That means is that we operate in a 200-square mile (518-square kilometer) area of Baghdad province, as opposed to, say, Baghdad city. We’re home-based about 25 miles (40 km) south of the city of Baghdad along with the 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne.
The region around Yusufiyah is primarily agricultural, and it came as a surprise to me when I got there how important veterinary science is to an agricultural community, even if they’re just raising crops. Our EPRT has two Army reservists as well as a regular Army officer who are veterinarians Yusufiyah helping re-establish a once-thriving poultry industry.
EPRT HELPS REBUILD LOCAL POULTRY INDUSTRY
The poultry industry was thriving in our region up until about seven years ago. But today, poultry from South America is imported to our region, while locally produced chickens cost almost twice as much as the imports.
Working with American agricultural specialists from the Baghdad PRT − a separate 90-member group based in the Iraqi capital − we are convinced that with the right technologies, we can re-establish the poultry industry. We have a neat name for it − the “Chicken Run” project.
In the past three months, we have seen the number of poultry farms in our region go from three to seven. We want to see that number in the next twelve months go to more than 100 and we’re on track to have that realized.
In addition, the poultry will meet Halal standards, which the South American poultry does not, and will be competitive price-wise or even cheaper than the imports. It’ll take us about a year to see that happen.
Our team is also helping to improve a poultry processing plant, which was using polluted water from the Euphrates River before it was closed down in 2003. We’re doing is we’re going to drill a well for them and they will use clean water wash, which will also contribute toward eliminating some of the health problems that are rampant in the area.
To develop the poultry industry, you need also to establish or expand several related businesses, such as feed mills, processing plants and, of course, a trucking industry to ship the goods to market. We are working on all these different areas and we’re seeing it come together now.
What we have in the poultry industry that we’re restarting are people who are returning who really want to get back to what they know and what their families have done for a long time. Now that there is security, we see some positive things happening like that.
PRTs Help Iraq Revive Local Economies (Posted 04/14/2008)
Hi, my name is Lou Lantner. I’m the team leader of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (EPRT) Baghdad Number 4. What that means is that we operate in a 200-square-mile (518-square-kilometer) area of Baghdad province, as opposed to, say, Baghdad city. We’re home-based about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the city of Baghdad along with the 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne.
I always like to think of our work as a triangle. The base of the triangle is security, and that’s mostly a U.S. Army responsibility in our area. Security enables my team to get out and do our work, which is the other two legs of the triangle -− economic development and governance.
PRTS HELP REOPEN IRAQI FACTORIES
Last time, I talked about governance. On the economic side, the EPRT helps to reestablish businesses. In Mahmudiyah we have five factories, including a ready-made clothing factory, which is partially privately owned and partially state-owned, as well as a fully state-owned plant specializing in metal goods.
These factories are adjacent to one another and their buildings are in relatively good shape. In the case of the ready-made clothing, they could employ about 700 people, but only have about 50 people employed right now. The metal and bicycle factory has about 50 or 60 people working now, but could have 1,200 people working.
So we’re trying to assist them in deciding what would it take to get these factories operating again. Back in the United States, two of my EPRT members were city planners; another is an engineer who can look at the buildings and the machinery to see what shape it’s in. Together, they are helping Iraqi plant managers in developing their plans for getting their factories operating again.
Previously, the clothing factory’s sole customer was the Iraqi armed forces. But recently, when the United States wanted to donate a thousand soccer uniforms to various Iraqi schools, the factory manager negotiated permission from the minister of defense to produce orders for somebody other than the army, landing one of her factory’s largest recent orders. Now they’ll also be in position to take orders from other entities, be they other foreign governments or other companies that want uniforms for their staffs.
We’ve also worked with the managers of factories to enable them to take orders for production from outside the Iraqi government as well. New checkpoints staffed by Concerned Local Citizens -− groups of former Iraqi army personnel who have been screened to serve as neighborhood watch groups -− need stop signs in Arabic and English. We’ve put in an order with the metal goods factory to make the signs, as well as orders through the clothing factory for orange-colored vests for staff at the checkpoints.
SUSTAINABILITY IS IMPORTANT
One thing we are concerned about is sustainability. So the programs and factories or whatever we’re working on after we leave, and we are going to be leaving at some point, will these programs be able to be sustained by the Iraqis themselves. We are working on programs, projects, concepts that we believe will be sustained. So we think we’re making some real inroads here.
The cities of Mahmudiyah and Yusufiyah both have central market areas. We have seen the numbers of stalls increase by about 50 percent [more] than it was nine months ago when I arrived. When the EPRT paved a road in Yusufiyah leading up to the market and not only did we see an immediate increase in stalls, the number of stalls in the market area, but people opened up brand new stalls on the newly paved road where there hadn’t been stalls before.
We’re on our way now, and I’m very proud to say we’re making progress.
PRTs Helping Iraq’s Local Leaders Improve Governance (Posted 03/24/2008)
Hi, my name is Lou Lantner. I’m the team leader of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (EPRT) Baghdad Number 4. That means we operate in a 200-square mile (518 square kilometer) area of Baghdad province, as opposed to, say, Baghdad city. We’re home-based about 25 miles (40 km) south of the city of Baghdad along with the 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne.
I was a naval officer in the Vietnam War and I’ve worked for the federal government for over 30 years in the Department of Commerce; the Department of Defense; at Voice of America; and the State Department. I have a variety of experiences. I’ve been a public affairs officer at our embassy in Niger in West Africa, as well as in Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s all come in handy to the work I’m trying to do now, and it’s just a thrilling experience.
EPRT BUILDS STRONGER GOVERMENTS
Our EPRT works with the local governments, qadas, which have several regions called nahiyas. We work with the nahiya councils, we work with the qada council, and we work with the mayor who’s at the qada level. And we try to assist them. We give them training. We talk about developing a budget. We talk about project management, how to track ongoing projects. We talk about trying to get the local governments in touch with the federal ministries.
The money comes from the federal ministries. And all the services and most of the operations are run by the ministries. So the school system -- hiring teachers, number of schools -- it’s all done by the Ministry of Education. Health clinics, number of hospitals, locations of hospitals, staffing the hospitals and clinics -- all done by the Ministry of Health. So the qada council should be aware of some of the needs of the qada, the residents of the qada, and we try to develop lines of communication between the qada councils and the ministries.
They’re not as frustrated as I’d like to see them be. Their lines of communication traditionally are different from what ours have been. And many of them have an outlook that things will happen for the right reason -- or the way things happen are the way they should be.
Now, many people on the councils have traditional methods of communication through a brother, an uncle, a cousin who works in the ministry, and they get on the phone and they call, and that’s the line of communication. And that works sometimes. That’s not good in the long haul. If people are going to be elected to the qada councils, and people change, I believe you would need solid lines of communication which will be in place no matter who is in power.
These are the kinds of conversations we have with the council members. Some of our ideas they like very much, some of our ideas they don’t. But it’s one of these things we tell them how we do things, and then it’s up to them to decide what’s right for them, what’s right for their culture, what they think will work. And we try to work with them on those items that they think will work and things that make sense to them.
We have over 50 tribes in our area including about six or seven major tribes. We stay in touch with the sheikhs who are the heads of the tribes. And we feel, for the most part, that our sheikhs in our area trust us.
The Iraqi army has come a long way in the right direction in the past nine months in our area. We have a great relationship where we can call on one another for assistance. The numbers have grown in the Iraqi police and they have a number of walking patrols in the markets. If you have that happening and you have good relationships, you feel better. And more than likely, security is better as well.
Farming Communities Recovering in Iraq’s Capital Region (Posted 03/10/2008)
This week, The State Department’s John Smith reports on the challenges and accomplishments of his PRT in southern Baghdad, Iraq.
The Baghdad 7 embedded PRT works with the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, which is part of the coalition’s “surge” mission. I've been in the theater of operations about three months on this tour, which is my second in Iraq.
My area of operation is southern Baghdad, flanked by the Tigris River on the east and then Anbar province on the west. We cover the areas of Al Buayatha, Arab Jabour, Hawr Rajab, Adwaniya and Madarya.
With improved security from concerned local citizen groups, Iraqis are starting to see some progress. Small businesses are coming up, and they’re starting to see the farms come back into operation. They're starting to see some of the health care move into the area.
During this past three months as security has improved, some pretty tremendous things have taken place. You’ve got 20,000-40,000 people in our area of operation and farming provides their income. The Tigris is the main artery for this farming community, and we’ve been able to do many projects related to improving potable water and clearing their canal system, allowing them to irrigate the crops all the way across our area.
The team has a representative from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who has done an outstanding job in formulating a brand new farmers’ union in that area. It helps local farmers get affordable feed, seed and the things that they need to get back into business.
We built a new a governance center along the Tigris, which has become a community meeting place. From that, we’ve started a neighborhood council, which is the first step of governance in our area and for connecting council members with higher authorities.
One of the unique things that has happened in our area is that the district chairman in Rashid is a Shia Muslim, while the fledgling council, like most of our area, is Sunni. Five months ago that never would have happened. But now what you also are seeing with improved security are Shia ministries’ representatives coming into the area and witnessing what local Iraqis have accomplished and building on it with additional projects related to the potable water situation, irrigation systems and electricity.
Iraqis understand this is not going to happen fast and overnight. But these people are survivors and they're smart. I think a positive aspect that's coming out of the PRTs is that it’s a relationship, a partnership. It’s just like a friendship, and I don't think anyone who has not been engaged in a friendship understands the commitment that you make with a friendship. You stand side by side, back to back.
It’s a slow progression, but the PRTs are based on that relationship. And it can work.
TEAM LEADER JOHN JONES REPORTS PROGRESS AMID CHALLENGES IN DIYALA, IRAQ (Posted 03/03/08)
Our PRT started in October 2006 and is one of the larger ones operating in Iraq. We are located at Forward Operating Base Warhorse outside the province’s capital, Baquba, and have approximately 38 civilian members along with a civil affairs company from the 4th brigade of the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division. Our job is to work directly with the local provincial leadership, to teach and coach and mentor them in how they should be running their province.
Diyala is located approximately 50 miles northeast of Baghdad. It borders with Iran in the east; Salah ad Din and Sulimaniyah provinces in the north and west; and Anbar and south central Baghdad in the south. There are approximately 1.6 million people in the province. It is about 65 percent Sunni, about 20 percent Shi’a, 10-2 percent Kurds and then there is a mixture of Turkmen and a few other smaller groups of people in the province. It’s sort of a microcosm of the country itself.
MAJOR STRIDES UNDER FIRE
I’ve been on the ground since February 2006. Looking at the province today and remembering what it was when I first got there, we’ve made some major strides.
One of the major problems that we have had is security. We have a major establishment of al-Qaida in the Diyala river valley. The Diyala River runs from the Hamran Dam in the north until it intersects with the Tigris River just to the west of Baquba. That area is honeycombed with palm groves, swamps, small villages, and it's a hotbed of insurgent activity. Most recently, you've seen the development of Concerned Local Citizens. These have been groups of local citizens, Sunnis mainly, who have decided that they don't like the way al-Qaida has been governing their community and they've come to the coalition forces and asked for assistance to fight al-Qaida.
I think for us in and around Baquba, the CLCs have had a calming effect, but there are still ongoing major combat operations in the province. We have seen a drop in violence in the last two months, mainly because of these people coming over to the coalition side. In order for us to move about the province at all, we must always go in armored vehicles. We haven’t lost anybody on our PRT, but our convoys get hit almost weekly.
In terms of progress, we have been able to get up and running a Diyala operations center, where we have the police and the military on standby to handle emergency problems. We also have set up a reconstruction operations center that helps process and administer Iraqi-funded recovery projects. We also have a media center and an agricultural organization.
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS A CHALLENGE
In addition to security, getting cooperation from the central government in Baghdad has been another challenge. Diyala Province is literally out of money right now because the central government, the central bank, has not allocated funds for us for the last three months. The Governor himself often goes, hat in hand, to the various ministries in Baghdad to seek their cooperation, and we assist him and the Embassy assists him in doing that.
A number of our personnel from the PRT are stationed in Diyala’s capital, Baquba. They are our governance team, which works directly with the governor and the chairman of the provincial council. The provincial governor is a unique individual. He is a Shi’a governing a province that is about 70 percent Sunni. He has survived eight attempts on his life in the last two years. He has been a major element for us in terms of allowing the PRT to have access to all of the key actors in the province. We helped the government of the province push through their 2006, 2007 and 2008 budgets. We are working now on allocating monies through the 2006 budget and the 2007 budget for reconstruction projects that are ongoing in the province itself.
We’re hoping that the central government will pass the provincial powers law that that will give a little bit more autonomy to local authorities this year.
I believe that with the current government there is willingness. The problem, I think, is putting that into action. It’s a question of the capacity of the central government to meet the demands of the people in the provinces and it's just not there right now. I think our local people are ready. I think they know what they need to do. They know what the problems are locally. They just can’t always get cooperation from the central government.
We’re nowhere near where we wanted to be and nowhere near where it should be, but I think we’re making small steps. I think once we get the security situation fully under control, I think we'll be in a better position to ask the central government to, in fact, concentrate on doing things for the people of Diyala.
KRISTIN HAGERSTROM REPORTS PROGRESS IN RAMADI, IRAQ (Posted 01/25/08)
Hi, I’m Kristin Hagerstrom. I'm a Foreign Service officer in an embedded PRT in Ramadi. I have a team of 10 civilians and 10 military who work for me, embedded with the 1st Brigade of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, combined with two battalions of Marines, some Navy and Air Force personnel, and staff from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It's quite a mix.
RAMADI REOPENED FOR BUSINESS
When I arrived, Ramadi was pretty much destroyed by the fighting. Remember that Ramadi was the declared capital of al-Qaida, their “caliphate in Iraq.” They controlled that city and it was a hard fight getting them out. There wasn't a business open in town that I saw. We would drive through and there was nothing. It was bleak. Think Stalingrad [Russia] post-World War II.
But once you have the security, anything’s possible. USAID’s community stabilization program came into the worst parts of town and worked with the PRT and local business owners to identify which storefronts could be opened. They didn't give Iraqis cash. What they give them is a store.
Within 30 days, you had people fixing up their storefronts. If you want a barber shop, if you want a butcher shop, a bakery, the stores are open. There are plant nurseries where you can buy rosebushes. All of a sudden, there's a motorcycle shop, there are Internet cafes. People are responding and this is coming back. It’s the Iraqi people doing this.
CITY GOVERNMENT BACK ON TRACK
When I first started, the Ramadi City Council was very coalition-force dominated. I would sit at the table with them and the colonel, the brigade commander, would sit at the table. Today, we don't sit at the table anymore. We’re at the back of the room and sometimes we’re not even in the room.
Today, we have a functioning municipal government. We have a mayor, who is appointed by the provincial governor. We have a city council made up of the heads of 11 neighborhood councils around the city.
It's very gratifying to see that things are no longer directed toward us saying, “What are you going to do?” It’s much more the mayor saying to the council, “Okay, here's the issue. What are we going to do about it?”
EMPOWERING AREA WOMEN
There is a four-year women’s college in Ramadi that had been closed by al-Qaida. It hadn't been operational for a couple of years. The PRT worked with the municipal government to reopen the school and get some of the poorer girls' stipends.
We also have programs with widows. Working through neighborhood councils, we help them with funding for sewing machines, computers, and kitchens. You get women who can support their families after doing this.
Ramadi is known for its poetry. And we had the women get together for a poetry event, just women reciting original poetry to each other and also they did art exhibits at the same time. They did some of their arts and handicraft and I'm working, in fact, on a fine art exhibit right now trying to tie it in with the University of Anbar.
I'm very excited about being there, about doing this. My tour is over in April, but I'm going to extend for a few more months in Baghdad just to help out some more.
PAUL FOLMSBEE ON A YEAR'S PROGRESS IN CENTRAL BAGHDAD (Posted 12/21/07)
Good morning, everyone. I'm Paul Folmsbee. I'm the leader of the Provincial Reconstruction Team for Sadr City and Adhamiya, two districts in downtown Baghdad.
We established our team last April as one of the first to be embedded with a military brigade. We are embedded with the U.S. Army's 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, a fantastic group of soldiers and our partners in all that we do. Embedding a PRT with a brigade has proven to be a highly effective approach to conducting development operations in Iraq. We have become one cross-functional team on one mission.
I'm a senior Foreign Service officer and my team consists of an adviser from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with subject matter experts in governance, economic development, essential services and rule of law. Six of our team members are U.S. Army Reservists, great civilian-soldiers who bring a tremendous amount of energy and experience with them. There are significant differences in the two districts that I work in. The Adhamiya district includes a Sunni enclave, sometimes referred to as old Adhamiya as well as a large Shia community.
Adhamiya is also home to the famous Abu Hanifa Mosque, an important and sacred mosque for the Sunni community. Sadr City is largely a homogenous Shia population. Many in Sadr City are followers of Moqtada al-Sadr. The situation in Baghdad has improved and I'm very encouraged by these developments.
Central Baghdad is divided into nine PRT districts and Adhamiya and Sadr City are two of those districts.
It's clear the surge has worked and violence is way down. I spend most of my time on reconciliation in Adhamiya ... the district council has been divided along sectarian lines. For a long time, the council would not meet all together. I'm pleased to report that the council has reformed and is now meeting regularly in Adhamiya and getting back to governance and is working to improve the lives of the citizens.
Another promising development -- recently the district councils of Kadhimiya in Adhamiya announced plans to reestablishment the march between the Shrine of Kadhimiya and the famous Abu Hanifa Mosque. The Shrine of Kadhimiya is associated with the Shias and the Abu Hanifa Mosque located in old Adhamiya is a predominantly Sunni area. The march has not happened, but I'm delighted that plans are under way. I don't think six months ago you could have imagined that that would have been possible, that they both would have been speaking about this so it is a great development.
We are also working with the leadership of Sadr City, tribal sheikhs, representatives of Moqtada al-Sadr, religious leaders and civic leaders. Progress has been slower in Sadr City, but recently these groups have agreed to set aside differences and are increasingly working on governance and civic improvements.
There's a lot more I could say. There's progress in economic development and rule of law in other areas. Reconciliation in our sector will take a long time. I would also like to thank the families and friends who continue to endure the separation and hardship through the long months we are deployed. It's been a great privilege to serve with our troops.
