WI - As Troops Withdraw, Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams to Change

Washington Independent

As Troops Withdraw, Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams to Change


Director Expects Phase-Out by 2011


By Spencer Ackerman 3/11/09 2:35 PM


A key State Department program that seeks to bolster the capability of Iraqi provincial and local authorities to govern will remain in place over the next year with some modifications, its Washington-based director said. But concerns remain about whether the program will be sufficient to address the continuing political and economic challenges in Iraq as U.S. troops withdraw.

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Snippet(s):

"Since 2005, small groups made of U.S. diplomats, military officers, development experts and legal advisers called Provincial Reconstruction Teams have worked with Iraqi leaders at the province and district levels around the country to bolster their capacity to govern."

"(T)he PRT program will change between now and August 2010, when the U.S. combat mission ends. In addition to the 14 PRTs, there are also ten teams that work at the district level, known as Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or ePRTs, owing to their status as embedded units within the U.S. Army’s Brigade Combat Teams. Over the course of the next 15 months, the Brigade Combat Teams will leave Iraq or transition into Advisory and Assistance Brigades. Weems said the ePRTs’ personnel — a smaller team than the 15 to 25 members of an average PRT — will probably be absorbed into a regular PRT. Regular PRTs rely on partner relationships with the military to move around Iraq, which will continue to be the case."

"No decisions have yet been reached about the pace of consolidating the PRTs into consulates or embassies before 2010."

"The PRTs’ budget request for the next fiscal year will be the same as for the current one, according to State Department spokesman John Fleming, approximately $650 million. That decision may alarm some Iraq specialists in and outside the administration who fear that the department may not be prepared to shoulder a sufficient amount of the burden in Iraq as the U.S. withdraws its troops. The PRTs took years to develop capacity and competence among the Iraqi provincial leadership. But much of that leadership has been voted out of office in January’s provincial elections, and the incoming leadership will not be familiar with Iraq’s arcane budgetary and governing process. On top of Iraq’s continued sectarian strife, a shift to new leadership that’s unskilled in the unglamorous decision making that delivers services to Iraq’s population risks a discontinuity in governance that could invite new violence."

"There are about 460 U.S. officials from the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Agriculture and USAID working for the PRTs currently, as well approximately 250 Iraqis employed by them"

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"There have been some disagreements between the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and diplomats out in the field with the PRTs about how rapidly PRT consolidation should occur. Some administration and State Department officials have noted that the PRTs implicitly challenge the notion of traditional diplomacy, in which two governments deal with each other in national capitals, rather than take a more expeditionary approach and work with local or even opposition officials on bolstering aspects of governance. Such a challenge can lead to discomfort with the idea of the PRTs.

But some see the department as adapting to a more expeditionary mindset, however slowly."