Red Zone, Green Zone

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated, so I’ll have to give an overview here and perhaps come back with some details later. The first headline is "Euphrates Fish Farm, finally!" After a few false starts, I finally managed to get over to the Euphrates Fish Farm, the largest in Iraq. The place was built in 1983; a Russian plan drawing framed on the main office wall indicates Russian involvement in design and construction. I’ve been told that the farm was "owned" by Ouday Hussein, one of Saddam’s notoriously brutal sons. The farm was privatized in 1989 and has been managed since then by Mr. Khudair, who clearly relishes all the attention from the military and the aid community. Euphrates Fish Farm has been contracted to produce six million carp fingerlings for distribution to farmers, an operation that has been underway for at least a month. Fingerlings were being loaded out on transport trucks for distribution to fish farmers in Babil during my visit to the farm. Mr. Khudair is a master of the dog & pony show. He had a room in the hatchery with glass jars with different size carp (small to large in series) and bowls with various dry ingredients used to manufacture fish feed. The hatchery itself was not operational but consisted of upwelling incubators with flow-through water and larger incubators for newly hatched larvae. The hatchery appeared fully functional although it had the feel of 1970s era technology. We also traveled out to view the large (nearly 100-acre) ponds. These ponds are about 1 km long by about 0.5 km wide and, as managed, have a capacity of about 18 tons of fish. They are also beginning to evaluate paddlewheel aeration, an innovation introduced by Duane Stone, to manage dissolved oxygen, although the low stocking densities and feeding rates mean that water quality problems are not common. I had a nice visit but could have easily spent another few hours their. Moving around and staying in one place for any length of time anywhere in Iraq presents a security problem that makes those guarding your safety nervous.

That night I took a helicopter ride from hell, not because my safety was in any way compromised, only that there were many stops, most of which to my way of thinking were unnecessary and inefficient. It took me 4 hours of flying to reach my destination, a trip that should have only taken about 45-60 minutes. Oh well, such are the vagaries of moving around this country, especially with the military.

The next day I took the "Rhino," an armored bus from Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport, to the so-called IZ or International Zone, known to most as "the Green Zone." From there, I was met by a PSD (personal security detail) from Inma, an organization dedicated to agribusiness development in Iraq (Inma means "progress" in Arabic), and taken to their compound in "the Red Zone." There I spent about a day and two nights meeting with the staff of the organization. Inma has been responsible for the fingerling distribution project as a means of jump-starting the aquaculture sector. They are also looking at funding a feed mill in Babil. I’ve mentioned their aquaculture specialist, Duane Stone, in an earlier posting, and got to spend a good bit of time with him as well as other staff. The Inma compound is a street in a pleasant neighborhood with some very nice houses, now occupied by different organizations. It probably was the place where Saddam’s buddies lived. The street was lined with tall date palms above and blast walls below. Some tough-looking Angolan guards were keeping watch on the street and on rooftops. For the first time since coming to Iraq, I heard the call to prayer from a mosque outside the compound. Staying on army bases means that I just haven’t had that opportunity. It was nice to hear it. Nearby the Inma compound was a huge unfinished "Grand Mosque" construction project with at least 15 idle cranes surrounding it. Apparently the project fell idle about 10 years ago and it has yet to resume.

I left the Inma compound early yesterday morning and was carried by the South African PSD responsible for compound security and transportation to a rendezvous with our team leader in the IZ. We then transferred to another PSD, this one run by some tough-looking Ukrainians and Serbs, for a trip to the Ministry of Agriculture in the Red Zone. We were accompanied by two gun trucks ahead and behind. We got to travel through some of the commercial parts of Baghdad as well as the area of large government buildings still showing signs of "shock and awe" from 2003. The objective of our meeting at the Ministry was to select from a group of applicants for entry into a M.S. degree program in agriculture at Texas A&M University. After exchanging pleasantries with a Deputy Minister, we asked "How many applications did you receive?" He looked surprised and said "None." It is hard to know what to make of this. It may be that Ministry staff are simply overwhelmed by all the things they have to do, or maybe they are overwhelmed with offers of money and assistance and are looking around for the best offer. It’s clear that the Iraqi government will not spend their own money when the U.S., other governments, and NGOs are offering to pay. In any case, we tried to impress upon the Deputy Minister and his assembled advisors that time is short for selecting applicants that will enter university this fall. (Due to funding constraints, the scholarship offer is time-sensitive.) They’ve rescheduled, so hopefully some worthy students will be studying agriculture in Texas this fall.
After the meeting, we returned to the IZ. We were told by someone who should know that the round trip IZ-Ministry cost $6,000. Such is the cost of doing business in Iraq!