Or, How Many Daughters Does Michael Ledeen Have?
The following is apparently supposed to be yet another example of the wonderful Iraq news the doggone librull media get up early in the morning to suppress. According to our source, the young lady who authored this e-mail from the Green Zone "is in charge of getting water to the entire country of Iraq."
Emphasis mine.
- ……Work has been going really well, though extremely busy and increasingly stressful. I have learned a lot about program management, and how to be an advocate. It is a fascinating position, where I feel like I “own” the water sector, like it is my own child that I have to protect, rear, and help grow to her full potential. Learning about how to manage a program, from the project execution side, to the budgetary and funding side, has been an experience that I never would’ve imagined. Interacting with engineers who are just so passionate about this water project or that has been eye-opening – they had such a different perspective on the world than pure “policy” people. Each day I try my best to noodle all the issues, from technical, to coordination, to optics, to security, to logistics, to funding – and protect the money the sector has left – so that we can get people drinkable water, sewer systems, irrigation canals, and dams. I am learning a lot about management too – and trying to be a good manager by giving folks the tools they need to succeed. I’m not any good, I’ve found. It’s funny what issues arise that you have to deal with as a manager… I do sometimes feel like a parent over here.
What a great time to learn about management – while in charge of getting water to the entire country of Iraq. And as for the parenting bit, I’ve heard a lot about children having children, but this takes the cake.
- A little more about management… over the past week, I’ve had to have meetings with folks in my sector about roles and responsibilities. It was a very odd position to be in, because it really isn’t my style to tell someone what they are supposed to do, what I do, and that what I do is tell them what to do. It’s different from, as Fumie would call it, “smack down” sessions we might have with agencies, only because it is an institution v. institution issue. Here, it is a position v. position issue (i.e. my position is different from yours…). I had to have a talk with my deputy actually this week, where I had to softly lay down the law… I had talking points I had drafted earlier, because I was so nervous. He took it well – he is a military guy after all – and since then, things have gone smoothly ….Another management skill I’m learning. There are a ton of things I need to learn, I’ve quickly discovered.
No matter what you think about this war, I think we can all sympathize with the "military guy" who had to endure that talking-to.
- On a totally unrelated matter – The other day, I was offered the position of Dep. Director of Programs (aka “Knothole”), where I would help oversee all of the sectors that we are doing reconstruction in – water, electricity, oil, buildings/health/education, security and justice, and roads/communications. I am definitely flattered that I have been offered the job, but I am also really liking running the water sector, and am trying to figure out maybe how I can do both. I did a whole decision matrix the other night, and weighted it (one of the items in the “con” side of the “doing both” option – provided by a good friend of mine – was “sh#$tty home life”. Heh). I think I am going to try to do both, but where I have defined a narrower scope of what I call “deputy director”. I ran it by the big cheese last night, and he seemed to like the idea. It’s so funny how everyone has a title for everything over here.
[…]
Things here in the Green Zone are a little more monotonous than when I first started here, simply because we are restricted to where we are allowed to go in here. Essentially, we are only allowed to be in the Palace compound, or at my work building, or the PX (the little concessionary store with stuff)… no real restaurants or anything. We are supposed to wear our flak jackets and helmet everywhere we go, which is a big fat pain because the jacket is super bulky and heavy, and a sad fashion statement when paired up with khakis and blue sneakers. Oh well. The place has been hit by mortars or rockets almost every day, but the injuries and such have been limited. Folks outside aren’t spot on with the targeting, which is real good for all of us! It’s odd though, I don’t really even flinch when I hear something pass over me. The other day, I was on the balcony in the Palace, and all of a sudden I heard a whizzing sound, which means that it is a rocket, pass over – apparently it hit the fountain on the north side of the Palace, which is about maybe 2 city blocks away. I was more interested in the rocket than scared… I suppose it is a function of just having to survive over here – if you got anxious every time something was shot in, you’d never be about to concentrate. […]
Remember: this is the good news.
- Ooh – another food incident! Last Sunday I went out with some friends to the Al Rasheed hotel, this hotel in the Green Zone. It is guarded by these Marines (I’ve found that many Marines are very very serious about their job…). Anyway, we were driving and came upon this checkpoint. The driver, Allen, didn’t notice the stop sign, and was going about 10 mph over the speed limit. Bad idea. The Marine guarding the checkpoint ran up, and started yelling at us to stop, and drew his gun. Allen slammed on the brakes, and I rolled my window down. The Marine was visibly very very angry at us, and said in no uncertain terms that we had not followed instructions. In fact, he said that in about 5 seconds he was able to fire – not good news for me, as the one sitting in the passenger seat, and the target of his potential firing… yikes. It gives new meaning to traffic violation… no tickets, just deadly force. Yikes.
(Thanks to Matthew Yglesias.)