"We’re also very focused on the need to build capacity in the local and provincial governments and to be able to deliver economic and reconstruction assistance." -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, January 11, 2007

There are two “Surges“ being implemented in Iraq today. While the military surge commanded by Gen David Petraeus is responsible for regaining control of the country from the various insurgent and religious militias, the economic surge led by 25 Provisional Reconstruction Teams are only a half-step behind the Marines and soldiers as they provide the after-surge political and economic support that is designed to keep the cities and provinces clear. The PRTs are an important tool in achieving our counterinsurgency strategy by bolstering moderates, promoting reconciliation, fostering economic development and building provincial capacity

A State Department brainchild, there are 15 PRT’s  in every province of Iraq, along with 10 ePRT’s (embedded ) in selected important cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah. The PRT mission is a simple one: they are helping rebuild the Iraqi city and provincial governmental infrastructure. The teams assist the provincial and city governments with developing a sustained capability to govern, they promote increased police and judicial presence,  and most important, they supply an economic development  mechanism as well as  building the necessary infrastructure to meet the basic needs of the population.

Since the teams are involved in everything from sheep markets to electrification to installing new sewar and water lines, the manpower needs are diverse; each team’s personnel is drawn from  the State Department,  USAID, Coalition military personnel,  Department of Justice and Agriculture as well as the Gulf Region Division of the  Army Corps of Engineers.

In the last week, ON POINT talked with four of the team leaders about the economic, security, and political situations in their areas, and today presents two of them:

Diyala Province : John Jones

We're a Provincial Reconstruction Team. The team was stood up in April of 2006.  We work closely with the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry, and they provide our security. We're a group of approximately 45 or 46, and we're both civilians and 10 military -- USAID, Department of Justice and Department of Defense personnel. Our job is to work directly with the provincial government -- the governor and the elected provincial government, which is the legislature here. We are trying to provide some guidance and some advice to them on how to stand up a democratic form of government.

Q -- What's the team doing to build up small business and also medium-sized light industry in your area?

A -- There are a number of employers in the province, and unfortunately not many of them are bringing people on board because of the security situation. We have several programs in place, and a lot of it will depend on how the security situation plays out.

We're trying to reestablish their largest employers, and we're working the small businesses to provide micro-financing, for example, and small loans for businessmen who want to reopen their businesses.

Q -- But the security situation has got to be getting better, because didn't we just hear that over the weekend you moved 49 billion dinars up into your area?

A -- Yes, that was a great success. This was the first time that we've had this kind of success without any coalition force involvement. These were Iraqi army officials who were able to come down to the central bank and bring back almost 50 million Iraqi dinars, so this was a success.

The other side of it is that because of the difficulty at the banks, we have had to store that money at the government center, and the banks will come and pick it up from the government center as is needed. Even though the banks are open, they're not safe, and they're in communities that are very fragile right now. And so rather than allowing the money to sit out there and be stolen, we are protecting it at the government center.

Q -- Diyala is newly opened based on the surge. What role have you been able to work out for the central government?

A -- Right now we're talking to the central government about playing a larger role in just making sure that the promises that come from the various ministries are, in fact, enforced at the province level. We're here in Baghdad today with the governor of Diyala and three other governors from the northern provinces to sit down with the deputy prime minister and eight of his ministers and to talk about the problems that exist in the northern provinces.

And I think the key thing for everyone here today was that there is sort of a disconnect. The central government understands that it's going to make promises and so forth. The guys at the provincial level are waiting for action. And so we see our role here as facilitating the contact, making sure that when the deputy prime minister says he's going to give a certain amount of money to the province to rebuild destroyed houses, that there is a method, that there is a way that the province governor and the provincial council can get access to that money. It's just that basic.

So we see us as being in a position to try to facilitate the actions or the statements of the central government and put them into action at the provincial level.

Q -- And could you address the availability of electricity?

A -- ( laughter ) I could, because it's about null and void. We have, in the province, two lines, one coming in from Baghdad and one coming in from Iran. We have generators that burn out often, because the kind of electricity, the amount of voltage that we get from Baghdad is too high for most of the generators, so they burn out. The voltage that comes in from Iran is very weak, very -- just strong enough to turn a light bulb on.

So it fluctuates. In the city, you might have anywhere from 2 -- 5 hours of electricity per day, but no one is sure as to how strong that current is. So it's a problem; it's a major problem.

Q -- What are the two or three top things which you would want the American public to see which is demonstrating progress on your end?

A -- Yeah, well, over the last about a month and a half, we have seen a real rebirth of commerce in the capital city of Baqubah. The streets are full of people; the shops are open; the markets are open. And we see that as a positive result of combat operations that have been going on up in the Diyala River Valley for the last month and a half. So we see that as a positive.

I think the key thing for Americans to understand is that these forces are forces that have been in play up there for 1,000 years. We see our toughest job as being trying to get reconciliation among the tribes, reconciliation among the sectarian groups, so that they have a better sense of what it means to be Iraqi.

And until they do that, they're going to fall back on their tribal alliances and their sectarian divides. So our problem here is to try to get them to understand that they can work together for the betterment of the entire province, and it's going to take time. It's not going to be something that we're going to overcome here in a generation. It's something that's been going on for a thousand years out here, and we need to change the mindset of those persons involved. And that's what we need to get going right now.

Q -- From everything we've heard today from yourself and from the other PRT leaders, every problem that we seem to hear goes back to the Iraqi central government. And then you mentioned today that it's going to be generational trying to reconcile some of the sectarian and tribal differences. How does Ambassador Crocker present this to the Congress and not be booed off the stage?

A -- (Laughs ) I don't know, it's all a mixed bag out here. We have to take some time. And it's a question that everyone knows that the ambassador is working hard on, and it takes some convincing. It's going to be a while, I think, before everybody is on the same page of music. So I'm not sure how the ambassador sees that, but I think he's doing the right thing right now by providing advice and by being very neutral in his opinions.

I really don't know an answer. It's a difficult thing to deal with. And you sort of have to look at the history here, and that is that the folks out in the provinces for 35 years have been accustomed to a centrally directed economy. They were directed in all the facets of governance. And so now they're being asked to step up and make decisions, and they're not accustomed to doing that, unfortunately. Those decisions are normally going to be centered around tribe and district and so forth.

And so we've got to try to break that barrier down, and I'm not sure whether the central government fully appreciates that. I think they're trying to give a picture of an organization that is going to be able to run the entire country, and I think they've skipped that step of having to deal with the sectarian groups and tribes.

Kirkuk: Howard Keegan

We've been making great advances in several different areas. The rule of law system here is just moving forward at a tremendous clip. We're opening up a new major crimes courthouse within next week. We've opened up two courthouses recently, with one more to handles more of the general-type crimes.

We've taken the lead on training the leadership here as well as jail -- our prison guards, jail guards, that sort of thing so that we can hopefully introduce human rights into the corrections system.

On the economic side, it's a bit more of a challenge in Kirkuk. The security situation here has actually gotten a bit worse within the past few months, and so the commercial trade activity within the province has probably dropped off by about 50 percent. The system -- there is no true banking system in place yet, so it's a cash-based economy, which is a bit challenging for most people; there's no such thing as normal loans. But there are a couple of banks that there are agreements with, so at least they're able to do business on an international basis -- funds transfers, that sort of transaction.

We are also heavily involved in microfinance operations.

Economically, we need to look larger-scale than just at the provincial Level. There's lots of opportunities that want to come. Unfortunately, the security situation prohibits a lot of it.

We do have incoming investments. There's going to be a new tire factory, a sunflower processing plant, and also some oil field services. So it's not all bleak. We certainly wish it could be better, but that's the direction we're going.

Services within the province themselves, like most of other parts of Iraq, water and electricity are still a premium. I think water and electricity probably average between 4 -- 8 hours/ day, so the standard of living, quality of life is still being challenged.

Kirkuk itself was a province that was -- it was decimated by Saddam Hussein and his attempts to basically eliminate the Kurdish population. He destroyed hundreds of villages, and most of the infrastructure within the city is crumbling or was never installed. We've got a city that's got over a million people, and there is no real sewage system. And the water system is vastly overloaded, along with the electrical grid. It's in pretty bad shape, so we've got quite a bit of work to do on that.

Q -- I would like to address the security environment. You said that it's gotten a little worse over the last few months. I was wondering what you would attribute that to and what steps are being taken that would better.

A -- The military surge was predominantly directed at the real bad spots, the hotspots, the Diyalas and that sort of thing. And we've been very successful in that surge effort, and they've made great strides. But the bad guys basically have to find a new place to go to when they're forced to leave where they're at. I think it's kind of a trickle-down effect. We've had more of them coming up north.

I know that the brigade here in Kirkuk, as well as the IA, the Iraqi army, they are picking up the pace. I've heard that some of the battalions with the brigade here are probably busier now than at any time they've been during their deployment to help quell this, and I believe that they're actually forcing the guys to not set up camp here, but just to continue to move on out of our province.

Q -- We were talking with the PRT leader from Diyala, and he said that he thought that his area was broken enough and messed up enough where to repair it and make the place viable is a generational issue. Do you see that same time-span in your area also?

A -- Not at all. We have infrastructure issues, but we don't have the same ethnic issues that John's been facing. His area has been very devastated, and the fighting's been so heavy there. I applaud the man for being there.

I don't view us as a generational issue. They've got a working government in place here. They've got their priorities. I think they've got them in the right area. We've helped them develop and we're developing right now master plans for the Kirkuk province that's going to rebuild every major infrastructure and system within the province. They're looking in the near term; they're looking at the five-to-10-year range to completely transform Kirkuk, the province, and the quality of life of their citizens.

Because of the influx of Kurdish returnees, if you will, our actual age here is very young. We probably have more people under age 25 than we do over age 25, so we actually have the generational issue at hand, and they're the very people that we're trying to work with to get them ready to go ahead and take a leadership role soon.

These are the issues facing Iraqi reconstruction today. A lack of electricity, no banks, a cash economy, a fluctuating security situation, sectarian strife, and a central government that is either inept or disinterested. On the ground level, the PRT’s are making progress as they solve one administrative and economic problem after another. But if the problems the United States has taken on in Iraq are indeed generational, then Washington needs to clarify and quantify a generational solution.