Iraq War Pre-Surge: Knowing the Key Players

[June 12, 2025]  Of all my combat tours in the Iraq War, this one would provide my Facilities team and me with the greatest responsibilities and hardest challenges. I was lucky in many aspects of this job, including having some truly professional-level officers working for me, highly educated, experienced, and – importantly – dedicated to getting the job done right the first time. Getting the job done right meant planning and overseeing large, complex engineering projects, which would be completed when promised, under budget, with the least disruption of combat operations, and built to modern safety standards.  By mid-July of 2006, we had not yet been privy to high-level discussions going on at the Office of the President, the Chiefs of Staff, and the top commanders who were on the ground in Iraq. The pre-surge mission was months away.

What this time provided was time for me to get to know those who worked for me and key personnel, nearly all Americans or English-speaking coalition partners.  And it allowed me time to develop trusted relationships and confidence in our capabilities fully. I was also given time to interview all my officers to determine if they were actually qualified for the job, which they were, but with one exception. I’d just received a female Captain Engineer from the States. She told me that her college degree was in Criminal Justice. I was shocked. How could senior Engineers in FORSCOM, who vetted these personnel replacements, send someone without the educational background into the most intense engineering environment in the world? I was polite to her, but made arrangements with an Engineer unit in Baghdad to send her there. She would be subjected to some basic on-the-ground, company-level practical experiences. She would be better off; otherwise, she’d have been a drag on our efforts.

The Facilities organization was organized into four sections: Operations (x4), Master Planning (x4), Power (x4), and Environmental (x2).  Plus, I had an NCOIC. The sections were a mix of U.S. Army and Navy officers, one Civilian Engineer, and several senior enlisted Army and Marines. Altogether, this was 16 personnel, including me.  When I arrived, they had three main projects that occupied most of their time: the Baghdad Bypass, Al Asad Hospital, and a large complex of Barracks (in four locations).  I was tasked by the C-7 himself, COL Bill Haight, to get up to speed ASAP on MNC-I policies and programs. I would quickly discover that the bureaucracy was daunting and, frankly, far more complicated than necessary. In my opinion, which I often shared, the design was a peacetime model based on a lack of trust in those executing the job. I would spend too many wasted hours in meetings, conferences, and sitting on boards designed to dot every I and cross every T.

July in the Middle East is hot—and I mean HOT. On 21 July, the high would be 115 degrees F with humidity. Earlier that morning, in our PT shorts and shirts, we played Frisbee Football at 0630 hours, and I worked up a good sweat. I was embarrassingly bad at the game despite being in excellent physical shape. We were informed that LTG Carl Strock, Chief of Engineers (who worked directly for the Secretary of the Army). LTG Strock was the only three-star Engineer Officer and was a major player on the world stage.  We were to prepare major talking points, items of concern, especially big picture items. This would be easy for me because I have always had one major point. We are fighting a war using peacetime rules, and in doing so, we slow down our progress, implement impossible tasks, and force our Officers to compromise their integrity.  The argument over building standards was still happening, but low-key until I entered the picture. The Army wanted me to use U.S. building and electrical standards, an impossibility. My guidance to my team was to use British standards (since most of their construction is concrete masonry) and, when that wasn’t possible, do the most reasonably safe thing they could.

An old rule of Infantry was always to know your higher HQ, units on your left and right, and your subordinates. Our higher HQ was MNF-I. Resource and Sustainment was a small section that I would coordinate with continuously. MG Kathleen Gainey (Transportation) and BG Steve Anderson (Loggie) were easy to work with, plus they believed in not being reactive to MNC-I requests but in pushing help down to us. And that was greatly appreciated when the pre-Surge time eventually came. USAF COL Bill Macon was the only Engineer on the R&S staff, and his sole job was to work as closely as possible with C-7 in all aspects. They had been tasked to lead the efforts to oversee Master Planning and Base Closures.  What I liked most about R&S was that they would take much of the bureaucratic burden away from C-7, and although they were small, they made a huge difference in our ability to get construction projects approved (a two-star advocate was a plus).  Planning and funding were still an MNC-I responsibility, and that was okay with me. I would directly meet face-to-face with those I needed at MNC-I in the Al Faw Palace, just a couple of hundred yards away.

Other than the three big projects we had at MNC-I, our biggest effort was participation in formal Base Closures. Our military strategy, at the time, was to slowly begin to pull back from the outer bases, either turning them over to the Iraqi Army or Police forces, and concentrating our forces into large bases like the Victory Base Complex. This sounds simple, but due to the restrictions we put on ourselves, it initially took months to ready a base for turnover. R&S developed a 100-day model that included a simple step-by-step process.  We would meet several times per week with MNF-I to keep updated, especially on security and environmental issues. Initially, the civilian from my Environmental Section was tasked to inspect these closing bases before we turned them over. He was required to use U.S. environmental regulations, meaning the bases were truly clean, with no hazardous waste of any kind. We all knew this was a waste of resources; the time wasted was worse because the Iraqis were filthy. Anyone visiting one of their bases immediately could see this, and our efforts were just plain wasteful. I’d heard that this was how corrupt Iraqi officials in their government were being paid extra. Shameful. The American taxpayer was getting ripped off.

The primary meetings I attended with MNC-I were:

• JFUB
• JARB
• Battle Space Working Group
• Battle Space Management Board
• Force Protection Working Group
• HAZMAT Working Group

Meetings led by MNF-I were:

• Force Basing Board
• Force Readiness Council
• Disposal Working Group

This all makes sense, but it was some of the most boring times. I was busy, but still bored. Over time, I slowly handed off these meetings, spreading them out among those in my section.

I called my Dad on his birthday, 22 July, to wish him well. The fact that this was even possible shows the miracle of technology and the efforts of our Communications people. I was still visiting key leaders, and on this day, I saw the Commanders of the 17th FA and 16th Engineer Bde. The 17th was acting as the “mayor’s cell,” which was responsible for leading the effort to secure the base perimeter, which units went where, and who lived in which LSAs. My CHU was B-8, Redleg (a reference to Field Artillery). When being briefed by the 17th’s Commander, COL Ried, she went over Victory Base Complex using a large CAD drawing. After she explained the location of various important features, she looked at my name tag and then the name on the CAD drawing. She asked, “Are you the same Satterfield?”  “Yes, I am. This drawing is from 2004 when I was with the 1st Cavalry Division.”  Later that day, I met Jana Weston, a civilian, who was the LOGCAP Deputy Program Director. She informed me that KBR’s Task Order would be changing from TO89 to TO139 on 1 September, and that would bring a number of significant changes.

By now, I’d been in Iraq less than three weeks, and I was running up to full speed—and that included recovering from jet lag. Over the next few months, I’d get to know more of the major players. They would be the reason I succeeded at my job once the Surge was announced.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).