Nerve center of Iraqi reconstruction
For a while we’ve been hearing that somewhere in the center of the International Zone, sometimes referred to as the Green Zone, there is a high-tech nerve center using the latest satellite and computer technology to track people and convoys throughout Iraq. Worth looking into we thought…. "The reconstruction effort in Iraq is bigger than the Katrina recovery, but we’re in a distant country, with different customs, a different language and people are shooting at us," said Lt. Col Matt Dillon of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division (GRD), and Deputy Director of the Regional Operations Center (ROC). Here the Army Corps is known as the GRD. And its mission is to get the reconstruction of Iraq off the ground using the $18.4 billion allocated by Congress. That’s just kick-off money because there are estimates it will take $90 billion to completely rebuild this country. Much of that $18 billion is flowing into the Iraqi economy through 785 reconstruction projects now under way. Small ones like a single water pump in a remote village, and large projects like a power plant that can light 200,000 Iraqi homes. Iraqi companies have the contracts to do the actual construction work. But it’s GRD inspectors, U.S. military and civilians, who travel throughout the country to make sure the work gets done, and done correctly. The mission of the Regional Operations Center is to keep track of each inspector, monitoring where they go to make sure they get there safely.
100 steps from the ROC is the Logistical Management Control Center the (LMCC).
"The LMCC is the 9-1-1 call center for Iraqi Reconstruction," says a staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The LMCC looks like a computer science classroom. Three large Flat-panel computer screens are on the front wall, and two or three smaller screens on each of the 20 desks.
The LMCC monitors the movement of supply convoys with global positioning technology that updates a convoy’s location every minute. And, if it gets attacked, or stalled the LMCC sends out help.
At least one vehicle in every convoy carries a GPS antenna and a "panic button." Should someone in a convoy hit that panic button, things get busy in the LMCC - a half-dozen people scramble, confirming an attack, getting coordinates, making contact.
If the convoy is under attack they can call in the cavalry. U.S. troops and helicopters will swoop in, and if people are hurt, U.S. troops will MEDEVAC the wounded. "Our best response has been seven minutes," says "Joe" another LMCC staffer.
Both the GRD inspectors and the convoys roll with heavily armed security escorts, but not U.S. or Coalition troops. Around here they hate the word mercenary, so the term private security company (PSC), is used. Convoys are regularly attacked and security people are wounded and killed - 66 private security people have died so far. Most are Iraqis; not one of them was an American soldier.
"If we didn’t have PSCs guarding our inspectors and convoys, we’d need another Brigade (3,000 - 5,000 soldiers) to do the job," said Dillon.
Jack Holly, a retired Marine Colonel and now Director of Logistics for the U.S. Embassy’s Iraq Project thinks it would take a Division (10,000 -15,000 soldiers) to do the job best left to Iraqis, who he says "are willing to put themselves in harms way to help rebuild their country."
Baghdad's go-to man 
EMAIL THIS
advertisement
Slide Show
- Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.
Read the Nightly News blog
