Digging Out

A laborer making cement at a hospital being rebuilt by British forces in Basra, in southern Iraq. He earns just a few dollars a day but is lucky to have a job at all.

Orphans serenade British Army Captain Stephen Morte in Basra. Using American money, the facility has launched a business providing sewing classes to women.

Morte smiled and made a note. The Brits have had their failures, as in a doomed attempt to outfit some entrepreneurs with garbage trucks (acres of accumulated trash often spontaneously combust in the brutal heat), which ended when the collectors couldn't keep the complex trucks running. But Morte saw some initiatives that he was confident would have staying power. A group of his fellow soldiers, for example, has set in motion a plan to revive an entire sector of the Basra economy with an $8 million program--paid for mostly with U.S. money--to plant 140,000 date palms. With luck, the scheme would begin to reverse the damage done by Saddam Hussein, who, while facing rebellion from Shiite tribesmen, diverted the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, drying up 90% of southern Iraq's arable land and forcing many date farmers into poverty. The program could provide long-term employment for 2,000 Baswari farmers and 8,000 laborers, two-thirds of whom were recently unemployed.

And, despite the British Army's announcement in late November that it'll likely begin a drawdown of its forces in Iraq, there seems to be a larger momentum. USAID recently set aside $17 million in seed money for microfinance programs, plus an additional $250,000 to set up a nongovernmental, Iraqi-run organization to provide loans and business opportunities, as well as assistance in training employees. All told, roughly 20,000 Baswaris owe their livelihoods to microfinance efforts--and that number could double in the next couple of years. If the incoming investment were to grow substantially, the totals likely would as well.

Going forward, Morte realizes that most of the programs on the ground in Basra still rely on cash from outside. And he doesn't know exactly where the next pile of it will come from. Maybe Baghdad will pony up. Maybe regional investments from Kuwait and the Emirates will finally start flowing. But that is all above his pay grade. At the time, all he could do was keep his contractors working, with the hope of spawning a few self-sustaining businesses in the process.

After paying the sheik's son and posing a few gently probing questions about Qarmat Ali, Morte returned to his office. He spent a few minutes considering a map of the city dotted with more than 200 colored pins marking the projects he had put together since coming to Iraq. He was scheduled to rotate out of the country in just a month, and he had plenty to do to ensure a smooth transition for the contractors he was keeping in business. His hope, he said, was that they would outgrow the need for the British Army or American money.

With a sigh, Morte turned to his desk where a stack of applications from prospective contractors waited. Scouting, networking, checking references--his was almost the same routine that occupied any financier in the United States or Great Britain.

Then a mortar barrage rocked the base, killing one soldier and reminding Morte that here, the stakes are far higher.

David Axe is the military editor of Defense Technology International magazine, and a regular contributor to Popular Science, C-SPAN, and The Washington Times. His book, Army 101, was published in December (University of South Carolina Press). This was his seventh trip to Iraq since the start of the war.