Reconstruction Teams to the Rescue!

Provincial Reconstruction Teams tasked with rebuild­ing ruined infra­struc­ture and insti­tu­tions are try­ing to take the lead in the U.S. strat­egy to sta­bi­lize Iraq and Afghanistan. But the PRTs’ seem­ingly peace­ful mis­sions belie the extreme dan­gers they face every day, with secu­rity con­cerns often hob­bling their efforts to make a sig­nif­i­cant impact.
Small, lightly equipped and often work­ing far from the pro­tec­tive umbrella of U.S. and coali­tion troops, more than one PRT has had a close call.
Just ask Air Force Capt. Rockie Wilson. From August to December last year, Wilson led a com­bined Army-​​Air Force PRT try­ing to rebuild roads and train local gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Qalat province, north­west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The 70-​​mile road net­work the PRT was work­ing on fea­tured deep dips that Wilson says were per­fect spots to hide Improvised Explosive Devices.
But the first Taliban attack on his team involved small arms rather than road­side bombs.
“My life flashed before my eyes,” Wilson says, smil­ing shyly as he recalls his stereo­typ­i­cal response to get­ting shot at for the first time.
But the six-​​months of pre-​​deployment Army train­ing kicked in, and he maneu­vered his Humvees to cover while his machine gun­ners and an attached Afghan Army unit opened fire. They were able to keep the Taliban’s heads down long enough for Wilson to call in a pair of A-​​10 Warthog attack jets, killing many of the attack­ers and scat­ter­ing the rest.
But the engage­ment did not come with­out cost. One Afghan army sol­dier in the patrol died and two were wounded.

First estab­lished in Afghanistan in 2002, PRTs were ini­tially Army-​​led and included mostly Soldiers. But with the num­ber and size of PRTs expand­ing through­out Central Command’s area of respon­si­bil­ity and con­stant deploy­ments to Iraq and Afghanistan for com­bat oper­a­tions, the Navy and Air Force have stepped in to relieve some Army’s man­power pres­sure, tak­ing over lead­er­ship of 12 of the 24 American PRTs in Afghanistan.
Half of the 20 American PRTs in Iraq are led by the Army as well, with the other half led by State Department staffers — though, the depart­ment is hav­ing a tough time find­ing the per­son­nel to assume the risky duty. There are as many as 100 peo­ple work­ing in each PRT.
Division com­man­ders are given a lot of lee­way on how to use a PRT based in his com­bat zone. In Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Edward Cardon embeds his teams — which are based south of Baghdad — along­side his com­bat brigades. Cardon told his PRTs to help local Iraqi gov­ern­ment offi­cials develop the skills to iden­tify recon­struc­tion projects and issue con­tracts on their own — a phi­los­o­phy shared by teams in Afghanistan.
“I’m a believer in PRTs,” he says, adding that he makes sure they have pri­or­ity for heli­copter sup­port and escorts for their ground con­voys. But even with escorts, the threat level often restricts their move­ment.
“The prob­lem is they don’t have the secu­rity to get around they way they should,” Cardon said.
Still, Cardon’s and Wilson’s teams man­aged. One of the Iraq teams’ biggest suc­cesses was coor­di­nat­ing pest mit­i­ga­tion for the large date palm indus­try in Karbala, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
“There are these insects that come out and have to be sprayed within a six-​​week period. The Iraqis were hav­ing prob­lems doing this for some time,” Cardon explained. So one of his PRTs stepped in, arrang­ing for heli­copters to do the spray­ing — a move that “should mean dra­matic improve­ment in the date har­vest.“
Next up: adding more State Department per­son­nel to his PRTs and task­ing them to train the Iraqi gov­ern­ment in basic bud­get­ing so min­istries and local insti­tu­tions can exe­cute projects like the date palm spray­ing them­selves.
“I’m try­ing to get the PRTs to focus more on build­ing gov­ern­ment capac­ity,” Cardon says.
Which is what Wilson spent much of his time doing half the world away in Afghanistan last year.
With road work under­way employ­ing local con­trac­tors and labor, Wilson and his PRT took it to the next level, spon­sor­ing a “con­trac­tors’ fair” to teach local man­agers how to orga­nize work­ers and sub­mit con­tract bids. The team also vis­ited local schools to teach basic con­struc­tion skills to young boys, hop­ing to lay the ground­work for even­tual fruit­ful employ­ment.
It’s all part of Central Command’s increased empha­sis on “non-​​kinetic” solu­tions to Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s long-​​term prob­lems.
“PRTs are very much the next news story,” Cardon said.
–David Axe