The Need for Inspectors General

If there's something you should be angry about, it's this (from Newsweek): 

A military team sent to evaluate electrical problems at U.S. facilities in Iraq determined there was a high risk that flawed wiring could cause further "catastrophic results" — namely, the electrocutions of U.S. soldiers.

The team said the use of a required device, commonly found in American houses to prevent electrical shocks, was "patchy at best" near showers and latrines in U.S. military facilities. There also was widespread use of uncertified electrical devices and "incomplete application" of U.S. electrical codes in buildings throughout the war-torn country, the team found.

At least three U.S. service members have been electrocuted in Iraq while taking showers in the six years since the U.S.-led invasion of the country.

This story has been slowly trickling out for a while, and it should make you as furious as it makes me. There's simply no excuse.

But there's also no excuse for how little oversight DoD and Congress have exerted over procurement in Iraq and Afghanistan. SIGIR, the Special Inspectorate General for Iraq Reconstruction, is overwhelmed. SIGAR, the Afghanistan equivalent, wasn't established until 2007 and didn't release its first, very basic* reporting until late 2008. DoD's Inspectorate General office hasn't increased its number of staff inspectors even as its budget has doubled. 

Meanwhile, Secretary Gates has said that some of his proposed cuts were driven not just by lack of need for certain weapons, but because the acquisitions process itself is in severe trouble.  One proposal for Secretary Gates: push for a statutory maximum number of dollars per inspector general staff. Want to increase the defense budget? Increase the number of IG staff.**

*I like SIGAR overall, despite the roadblocks they've faced. Their first report was cannily designed to set up baseline budget and expenditures analyses for future investigation. That makes sense; it just should have been done years ago. 

** Uberwonkish aside: even if it can be gotten around, like the Nunn-McCurdy amendment, its mere presence will affect how bureaucrats and private firms deal with these issues. Which would be quite helpful.

Your Next Ethnic Food Craze

Via Abu Muqawama (Be less derivative! - Ed I'm trying!), a great piece by Anthony Shadid on a Baghdadi shawarma stand. 

To anyone who's ever had the pleasure of eating in Iraqi restaurants (of which there are many in countries neighboring Iraq), this story makes the stomach rumble with longing for the warm spices and bold flavors of good Iraqi cuisine. Not just the shawarma, but rich za'atar-drenched kabobs and tishreb - stacks of bread drenched in soup with meat so soft it falls off the bone. 

And there's not a single Iraqi restaurant anywhere in America, so far as I can tell.

If there was, it would outshine the on-the-go muchability of Lebanese and the rich spiciness of Indian food, and have a narrative that would (sad-to-say) make it more than trendy. 

Though I love Adams Morgan, its shawarma options are palest in comparison. Shawarma King's chicken shawarma lacks any of the fat or dark meat that makes Jordanian shawarma so addictive.  Old City Cafe's beef shawarma is quite good but the pita it comes in isn't so great. Shawarma Spot is supposed to be decent, but I haven't gotten there yet. And though Busboys and Poets is owned by an Iraqi-American, there are only a few Iraqi and Moroccan dishes on its menu. 

One can only hope that Iraqi food eventually makes it to the United States, though given our current visa policy, the prospects are not only slim, but demonstrate the failings of our policy. It could possibly arrive via the (as yet saddeningly far too small) resettlement programs for Iraqis who aided MNF-Iraq, but since we let relatively few refugees in, and almost no Iraqis via the normal immigration process, this seems less than likely. (And anyone who claimed this as a silver lining of the Iraq War should seriously take a long look in the mirror) 

Yet maybe one day the peace foreshadowed by one neighborhood shawarma cart will be in all of Iraq, and maybe one day we can all break bread together. Until then, I'll just have to dream.

Iraqi refugees and withdrawal

In what I think is a well-intentioned but misleading post, Brian Beutler (guestblogging for Yglesias, and referencing a Spencer Ackerman post) argues that fast withdrawal from Iraq is the only way to decrease the total number of Iraqis that die as a result of working with* American forces.  He writes:

This isn’t my issue, but I don’t see an easy answer here that doesn’t involve a swift draw down of U.S. forces from Iraq. As our commitment there decreases, the number of these sorts of entanglements will go with it, and fewer peoples’ lives will be at risk.

I'm not sure I understand what this means. It's not as if letting some of our current translators go is going to prevent them from being at risk for reprisal; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of former translators for MNF-Iraq who quit their jobs, and still had to flee Iraq out of fear for their lives.

The problem isn't the people we'll employ in the future, or even the people we employ now; it's the people we used to employ, who lack protection even if they return. I really wish the discussion about withdrawal was more about offering visas and asylum, and less about how many months and how many troops.

*If you don't get why this is so terrifying for translators, remember how the term "collaborator," is used as an epithet in movies about World War II...