WESTERN SKIES - September 29, 2005

*** REBUILDING TALL AFAR: FORT CARSON SOLDIERS IN IRAQ ***

ERIC WHITNEY: On Wednesday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the city of Tall Afar in northern Iraq. The explosion killed her and four others, and wounded thirty. That's according to Major Gary Dangerfield, the public affairs officer for Fort Carson's Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, the majority of which is currently positioned in Tall Afar.

Dangerfield got in touch with KRCC the day before the attack saying he wanted to talk about the success the Third ACR has been having in Tall Afar. Talking by phone just hours after the attack, Major Dangerfield characterized it as minor, and noted that it didn't result in any casualties to U.S. or Iraqi security forces.

MAJ. GARY DANGERFIELD: Really it's just a weak attempt by terrorists to continue their intimidation, coercion program campaign, as we already put a major dent in their operations with Operation Restoring Rights, in which we netted over seven hundred plus detainees. It's not really important to say, but we also took out about three hundred plus personnel as far as kills go, so the good thing is we got the city moving in the right direction. Our partnership with the Iraqi army and security force as a whole is still on track and kicking much butt.

WHITNEY: According to Dangerfield, now that security has largely been restored in Tall Afar, troops from Fort Carson are shifting their focus to helping Iraqis rebuild their city, home to some two hundred thousand people. A lot of that responsibility falls to the unit in which Captain Adam Grow serves. Captain Grow says infrastructure in Tall Afar is in a shambles.

CPT. ADAM GROW: A lot of it really has been defunct for over a year now. The level of intimidation that we've seen here had really caused a lot of civil functions that you and I take for granted in towns and cities in America had just ceased to happen. You couldn't call up the water company if your toilet stopped working, you couldn't call up the electrical company if your power went out while you were cooking dinner.

What we're trying to do right now is try to coordinate with the provincial and national government as well as other governmental organizations, State Department officials, non-governmental organizations, humanitarian organizations, to try to bring as many assets as we can, and put them at the Iraqis' disposal and help guide them in pretty much putting their town back together, you know, giving them a new start.

WHITNEY: Thousands of residents of Tall Afar fled their city and lived in tents for several weeks to escape the fighting as Fort Carson troops sought out insurgents. They're now moving back, and Grow says U.S. forces are trying to make sure that their basic needs are met.

GROW: Short term what we're looking at is really just kind of getting essential services, what we like to call life support back into the city, and that's getting food, water, electricity, things of that nature up and running, back into the city in some fashion.

The food we've been having some pretty good success with, there's the public distribution system, which is the free distribution of staples, like flour, rice, sugar, legumes, things like that that come down from the government. We've been getting near-daily pushes from the provincial warehouses, and also the government out there has been supportive of getting that reestablished, so we've been able to get - between that and humanitarian organizations pitching in, we've really been able to get the people fed again, to the levels that they're used to.

The water fixture is kind of a complex, two-stage problem, right now we've got water tankers coming in from all over the country, really, that are providing water drops to house to house water drops, they'll fill up these big two thousand liter tanks that they've got on top of building blocks, those generally outfit a house for a couple of days.

WHITNEY: Grow says restoring a reliable and safe water supply is a huge priority, as is electrical service.

GROW: The electrical system here is, the story here is pretty much the same story as we see in Iraq, its a question of supply, and we're gonna do what we can, we've got projects in place to help refurbish some of the damaged areas of the electrical grid from the areas that have just started failing due to neglect, to get that up and running. But it really kind of comes back to getting more supply from the national grid, which is something we push for constantly, but there's only so much to go around at this point.

WHITNEY: Grow characterizes the task of American soldiers in Tall Afar as providing security, offering technical expertise, and guiding Iraqis themselves in rebuilding their own city.

GROW: The key phrase here that I hear day in day out is, "We need to put an Iraqi face on it." And really, the government at all levels has really come leaps and bounds in that respect, they've really been able to take the lead on a lot of these projects, and we've really kind of ended up being a guiding force rather than an implementing force, really.

WHITNEY: Rebuilding the basic utilities of a city of two hundred thousand, and winning the trust of the Iraqi people there, is a daunting task. When asked for evidence of success, Grow says it's the little things that have made the biggest impression on him.

GROW: The most successful thing that's helped us out is the daily interaction, just the troops getting out on the ground. Having a beanie baby in their cargo pocket, having a couple soccer balls in their Bradley, you know, they give to the kids, or even just a couple blankets to give to a family, that's really just kind of just the biggest gesture that we can really help these people out with.

WHITNEY: Troops from Fort Carson's Third Armored Cavalry Regiment are tentatively planning on coming home in March, that would mark roughly a year's tour in Iraq. But Captain Grow says the rebuilding effort in Tall Afar won't end then, and that American troops will continue to help out until U.S. forces pull out of Iraq entirely. Meanwhile, he says its going to take some time until people in Tall Afar will notice substantial improvements in their daily lives.

GROW: It'll be a few months, honestly. I'd like to say that we could just kick up some contracts and have the work done overnight, but it'll probably about three months before we start seeing some substantive change, and probably about six months before something that we call normal is in place. And a lot of that is just due to the enormity of some of the tasks that we've got to do, the water infrastructure, for example, there's tons of water mains out there that we've got to fix, we've got a supply pipeline coming down from the Tigris that needs to be completed. The electrical fix is going to be a little bit easier, to get that in, get the transformers and such laid on. But really I think within the three to six month timeframe is where a lot of the big, noticeable changes are going to happen to the infrastructure in the city.

And as far as on the civil side, we're already starting to see changes there, we're already starting to see people step forward and starting to take ownership and the local government is starting to take more of an interest in the daily operation of their city.

WHITNEY: Next time on Western Skies, we'll here from a Fort Carson officer who's job is help build Iraqi army and police forces in Tall Afar, with the eventual goal of them replacing U.S. troops.